News adulterated and “colored” is as harmful to the opinions of newspaper readers as impure and poisonous food is to their physical constitutions. Before pure food legislation prohibited adulterating, coloring, and misbranding of foods, the buyer was at the mercy of the unscrupulous manufacturer, just as the newspaper reader is at the mercy of the unscrupulous newspaper maker. Although public sentiment has demanded laws to prevent impure food, it has not yet insisted that its food for thought be furnished unadulterated. A generation ago government regulation of railroad rates, foodstuffs, and the size of business combinations would have been regarded as unjustifiable interference with personal liberty. To-day any government interference with newspapers is considered as an attack on the freedom of the press. Is it not possible that the next generation may see every newspaper of this country compelled by public opinion, if not by legislation, to give complete, unbiased reports of all events of general interest?
Questionable Advertisements. As an advertising medium, the newspaper also has an obligation to the community. By giving widespread publicity in their advertising columns to fraudulent investment schemes, dangerous patent nostrums, disreputable medical practitioners, and other objectionable matter, some newspapers, doubtless unintentionally, have aided in grossly deceiving and seriously injuring the reading public that they claimed to serve. For such practices the excuse has been offered that the business of the newspaper is to sell advertising space to any one who will buy it, and that it is not the business of advertising managers and publishers to investigate the truthfulness or moral character of the advertisements that they publish. Realization by newspapers of the fact that by printing objectionable advertising they may cause great harm to their readers has led many of them to reject entirely all forms of questionable advertisement even though to do so has, in some instances, cut off annually from $50,000 to $200,000 of possible revenue.
Honesty in Journalism. The discussion of these various undesirable tendencies in newspaper making, and the presentation of these criticisms of some newspapers, do not imply that all newspaper editors and publishers have subordinated public welfare to private gain, or that all have permitted sinister external influences to affect their news and editorial policies. Neither is it to be assumed that these questionable methods are necessary for business success in newspaper publishing. There are many notable examples of honest, independent newspapers that have enjoyed marked financial success. In fact, a careful survey of the whole country would doubtless show that few newspapers that have continued to juggle with the truth in news and editorials have been permanently successful in making money or in keeping the confidence of their readers. Lincoln’s words are as true of newspapers as of politicians, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
The stronger a newspaper grows because of the size and the character of its circulation, and because of the money value of the good will thus acquired, the more independent it becomes of the external influences that may seek to modify its news and editorial policy. Unless such papers are maintained to represent special business or political interests, well-established papers with adequate capital behind them are not likely to be affected by the demands of advertisers or other outside forces. Strong, independent newspapers can publish the facts in the news and can print editorial comments without fear or favor.
Unfortunately the rapidly increasing cost of newspaper production has reduced the margin of profit of a large number of newspapers to a point where the loss of any considerable amount of advertising or other support means financial failure. Under such circumstances, publishers have yielded to pressure from various interests and have made concessions which doubtless they would not have done if they had been in positions of greater financial independence. A few editors and publishers have simply regarded newspaper making as an enterprise in no wise different from business and politics, and have accepted the less commendable standards that have resulted from competition in business and rivalry in politics. Whatever the explanation that is offered for deliberate failure to give newspaper readers the truth, it must not be regarded as condoning the offense, however great or slight.
The Reporter and His Problems. The student of journalism should know the conditions as they exist, so that he may face the problems squarely and choose deliberately the course that he desires to pursue. Too often reporters, editors, or publishers have not weighed fully the ultimate effects produced by suppressing or coloring the news. It is only by full consideration of the public function of the newspaper as a factor in the social and political life of the community that the true significance of dealing lightly with the truth as a crime against society is revealed in unmistakable colors.
Although the news policy of the newspaper is determined by those above him in authority, the reporter must decide his own attitude toward that policy. If he finds that he cannot conscientiously accept the ideas and ideals of his superiors because these do not conform to his own standards of truth and honesty, he must look for a position on a paper that does conform to those standards. A man cannot retain his self-respect if he undertakes to do work that he believes to be false or dishonest.
On any newspaper, however, the reporter finds himself confronted with various problems that involve the public function of the newspaper. He may be requested by an acquaintance, or by some person with whom his work brings him into contact, to suppress, as a whole or in part, a piece of news that it falls to his lot to report. Men and women threatened with exposure or disgrace because of one wrong step, will plead with him to spare them and their families by suppressing the news of their downfall. In all such cases the reporter will do well to refer the request to his superiors and to avoid promising to suppress any news. Older and more experienced newspaper men in positions of authority on the paper are usually better able to judge of the desirability of yielding to requests and pleas of this kind than is the young reporter.
How “Faking” Does Harm. In collecting and presenting facts the reporter should make every reasonable effort to have them as complete and accurate as possible. He is not justified in defending his failure to get and present the truth and the whole truth on the ground that as long as a story is interesting it makes little difference whether or not it is entirely true. The first temptation to depart from the truth not infrequently comes in an apparently innocent form. In the absence of real news, or in an effort to show his cleverness, the reporter takes some trivial incident and, by amplifying it with humorous but imaginary details, makes of it an amusing little feature story. Such stories often seem quite harmless in their effects on the readers or on the persons mentioned in the stories. Instances are on record, however, of persons who have committed suicide because their acquaintances bantered them about the ridiculous situations in which they had been portrayed in such newspaper stories. The reporter must remember that the persons who play a part in his stories are human beings with feelings, and that to hold them up before thousands of readers in a ridiculous situation may cause them much suffering. But besides any effect it may have on particular individuals, this embroidering of the truth with fictitious fancies, even when it does not deceive the reader in the least, tends to form in the reporter the habit of embellishing all his stories with imaginary details. Thus it becomes the first step in so-called “faking.”
Newspaper “faking” often appeals to the young reporter as clever and commendable, particularly when he hears older newspaper men tell stories of successful “fakes.” The “cub” may even hear his humorous little feature story praised for its cleverness by his superiors who know that it is largely imaginary. If he does not stop to consider, he may consciously or unconsciously decide that fiction makes better news than truth, and may proceed to write his stories accordingly. Encouraged by some other newspaper man’s account of a similar exploit, he “fakes” an interview when he fails to get one that has been assigned to him. His “fake” interview may deceive the city editor, and when printed may not be repudiated by the man falsely quoted. Although apparently a success from the reporter’s point of view, the “fake” story injures him more than he realizes, for it dulls his moral sense, makes less keen his appreciation of the difference between truth and falsehood. If his superiors discover the deception, they lose confidence in his reliability and may discharge him at once. If his identity is known to the victim of the “fake,” the reporter loses that man’s respect and often makes him an enemy, from whom he cannot hope to secure news in the future. In fact, “faking” is another term for “lying” and the reporter guilty of it deserves to be called by the “short and ugly word.”