In so far as the newspaper performs a public function, its usefulness will be measured by the character of the service that it renders. Its standing will be determined by the extent to which it serves faithfully the community, the state, and the nation. Whatever principles are formulated and whatever code is adopted for the profession of journalism will be based on the fundamental idea of service to the people—to the masses as well as to the classes.
Newspaper workers, from the “cub” reporter to the editor-in-chief, will be recognized as public servants, not as mere employees of a private business. The high standards maintained by them in newspaper offices will reinforce the ideal of public service held up before college men and women preparing themselves for journalism. The public will understand more fully than it ever has done the necessity of supporting heartily the standards established by newspapers themselves. Requests to “keep it out of the paper” and threats of “stop my paper” will be less frequent when advertisers, business men, and readers see that such attempts at coercion are an indefensible interference with an institution whose first duty is to the public.
With an ever-increasing appreciation of the value of its service in business relations and with an ever-broadening conception of its duties and responsibilities, the newspaper of to-morrow may be depended on to do its part in the greatest of all national and international tasks, that of “making the world safe for democracy.”
THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM
SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM
BY ROLLO OGDEN
I
It is, in a way, a form of flattery, in the eyes of modern journalism, that it should be put on its defense—added to the fascinating list of “problems.” This is a tribute to its importance. The compliment may often seem oblique. An editor will, at times, feel himself placed in much the same category as a famous criminal—a warning, a horrible example, a target for reproof, but still an interesting object. That last is the redeeming feature. If the newspaper of to-day can only be sure that it excites interest in the multitude, it is content. For to force itself upon the general notice is the main purpose of its spirit of shrill insistence, which so many have noted and so many have disliked.
But the clamorous and assertive tone of the daily press may charitably be thought of as a natural reaction from its low estate of a few generations back. Upstart families or races usually have bad manners, and the newspaper, as we know it, is very much of an upstart. For long, its lot was contempt and contumely. In the first half of the eighteenth century, writing in general was reduced to extremities. Dr. Johnson says of Richard Savage that, “having no profession, he became by necessity an author.” But there was a lower deep, and that was journalism. Warburton wrote of one who is chiefly known by being pilloried in the Dunciad that he “ended in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper.” Even later it was recorded of the Rev. Dr. Dodd, author of the Beauties of Shakespeare, that he “descended so low as to become editor of a newspaper.” After that, but one step remained—to the gallows; and this was duly taken by Dr. Dodd in 1777, when he was hanged for forgery. A calling digged from such a pit may, without our special wonder, display something of the push and insolence natural in a class whose privileges were long so slender or so questioned that they must be loudly proclaimed for fear that they may be forgotten.
This flaunting and over-emphasis also go well with the charge that the press of to-day is commercialized. That accusation no one undertaking to comment on newspapers can pass unnoticed. Yet why should journalism be exempt? It is as freely asserted that colleges are commercialized; the theatre is accused of knowing no standard but that of the box-office; politics has the money-taint upon it; and even the church is arraigned for ignoring the teachings of St. James, and being too much a respecter of the persons of the rich. If it is true that the commercial spirit rules the press, it is at least in good company. In actual fact, occasional instances of gross and unscrupulous financial control of newspapers for selfish or base ends must be admitted to exist. There are undoubtedly some editors who bend their conscience to their dealing. Newspaper proprietors exist who sell themselves for gain. But this is not what is ordinarily meant by the charge of commercialization. Reference is, rather, to the newspaper as a money-making institution. “When shall we have a journal,” asked a clergyman not long ago, “that will be published without advertisements?”