Inaccuracy, due to the necessity for speed in getting news into print, most newspapers agree must be reduced to a minimum. The establishment of bureaus of accuracy, and constant emphasis on such mottoes as “Accuracy First,” “Accuracy Always,” and “If you see it in the Sun, it’s so,” are steps in that direction.
Deliberate falsification of news for any purpose, good or bad, must be regarded as an indefensible violation of the fundamental purpose of the press. Any cause, no matter how worthy it may be, which cannot depend on facts and truth for its support does not deserve to have facts and truth distorted in its behalf.
The “faking” of news can never be harmless. Even though the fictitious touches in an apparently innocent “human-interest” or “feature” story may be recognized by most readers, yet the effect is harmful. “It’s only a newspaper story,” expresses the all-too-common attitude of a public whose confidence in the reliability of newspapers has been undermined by news stories wholly or partially “faked.”
The “coloring,” adulteration, and suppression of news as “food of opinion” is as dangerous to the body politic as similar manipulation of food-stuffs was to the physical bodies of our people before such practices were forbidden by law. How completely the opinions and moral judgments of a whole nation may be perverted by deliberate “coloring” and suppression of news, in this case by its own government, was demonstrated in Germany immediately before and during the world war.
The jury of newspaper readers must have “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” if it is to give an intelligent verdict.
V
The so-called “yellow journals” are glaring examples of newspapers built up on news and editorial policies shaped to attract undiscriminating readers by sensational methods. By constantly emphasizing sensational news and by “sensationalizing” and “melodramatizing” news that is not sufficiently startling, as well as by editorials stirring up class feeling among the masses against the monied and ruling classes, “yellow journals” have been able to outstrip all other papers in circulation.
Unquestionably the most serious aspect of the influence of sensational and yellow journalism is the distorted view of life thus given. Because these papers are widely read by the partially assimilated groups of foreign immigrants in large centres of population, like New York and Chicago, they exert a particularly dangerous influence by giving these future citizens a wrong conception of American society and government. That the false ideas of our life and institutions given to foreign elements of our population while they are in the process of becoming Americanized are a serious menace to this country, requires no proof. No matter who the readers may be, however, news that is “colored” to appear “yellow,” and misleading editorials, will always be dangerous to the public welfare.
VI
The treatment of sensational events, particularly those involving crime and scandal, undoubtedly constitutes one of the difficult problems of all newspapers. The demoralizing effect of accounts of criminal and vicious acts, when read by immature and morally unstable individuals, is generally admitted. On the other hand, fear of publicity and consequent disgrace to the wrong-doer and his family, is a powerful deterrent. Moreover, if newspapers suppressed news of crime and vice, citizens might remain ignorant of the extent to which they existed in the community, and consequently, with the aid of a corrupt local government, wrong-doing might flourish until it was a menace to every member of the community.