VII. “And there will be another consequence,” I said. “Will not the makers of the paper think they must make it attractive to the demos at all costs, and will not the gatherers and arrangers of the news learn to do this by adding to or taking from the truth, or even by inventing news; so that we shall not be able to distinguish between the true and the false?”
“It will be,” he said, “as you say; at least in the case of the paper that tries above all to please the demos.”
“There will thus be deception in two ways,” I said: “they will omit, and they will invent and add. But this is not the only evil from which we shall suffer. For consider the editor’s page. The newspaper has always been, it says, the moulder of the demos’s thoughts; and so, indeed, it was, so long as its editors were leaders of great causes, and thought strongly, and were masters of their own words. But how, when it must make its gains from those who buy and sell, and not from the followers of truth, shall it be able to attack or to favor whatsoever and whomsoever it please? How shall it be free to attack evil rich men whose advertisements it must have, or oppose a party or a movement cherished by them? And how in turn shall it be free to attack the inconstant demos itself, by whom it must be purchased? For it will not be conducted on principle, and look for its gains to those who read, but commercially, and look to those who advertise.”
“I do not see,” Megaphon said, “how it can avoid these evils.”
VIII. “Does it not seem clear, then,” I said, “that the editor’s page will be secretly open to purchase, and no longer truthful? For ‘We must live,’ the owners will say.”
“Yes,” Chærephon replied; “and I have another thought. I am thinking that much harm may come because we shall have news confused with advertisement, or with secret attempts of various kinds.”
“You think rightly,” I said. “We shall have persons or groups of persons making deceitful use of the news in advertising their products, or in courting the favor of the demos for some project. Indeed, I think that something might occur like this: those who sell goods for our triremes and hoplites might pay out great sums for the secret aid of the newspapers in rousing the passions of the demos by appeal to its natural hatred and fear of the barbarians. For then the State would increase the number of ships and soldiers of every kind, and thus they would sell more goods, and make greater gains. Or a maker of some food or medicine, or a false follower of Asklepias, might do the like; and the demos, which is ever seeking after cures for real and fancied ills, would soon enrich him. Can you not think that this could happen?”
“I can indeed,” Megaphon said.
“Then,” I said, “have we not proved that the newspaper will be used to educate the demos wrongly—I mean by giving too much news of one kind, and not enough of another, and exaggerating, coloring, and otherwise falsifying the truth, and pretending to be a friend when it is an enemy, and selling itself, whenever it safely can, to him who will give most?”