Part 12

The next question involves the integrity of the Associated Press service. The cases of alleged bias he cites are unfortunate. Any claim that the doings of the Progressives in 1912 were “blanketed” by the Associated Press is certainly unwarranted. Our records show that the organization reported more than three times as many words concerning the activities of the Progressives as it did concerning those of all their opponents combined. There were reasons for this. It was a new party in the field, and naturally awakened unusual interest. But also, it should be said that Colonel Roosevelt has expert knowledge of newspaper methods. He understands the value of preparing his speeches in advance and furnishing them in time to enable the Associated Press to send them to its members by mail. They are put in type in the newspaper offices leisurely and the proofs are carefully read. When one of his speeches is delivered, a word or two by telegraph “releases” it, and a full and accurate publication of his views results. While he was President he often gave us his messages a month in advance; they were mailed to Europe and to the Far East, and appeared in the papers abroad the morning after their delivery to Congress. Before he went to Africa, the speeches he delivered a year later at Oxford and in Paris were prepared, put in type, proof-read, and laid away for use when required. This is not an unusual or an unwise practice. It assures a speaker wide publicity and saves him the annoyance of faulty reporting. Neither Mr. Wilson nor Mr. Taft was able to do this, although frequently urged to do so. They spoke extemporaneously, often late in the evening, and under conditions which made it physically impossible to make a satisfactory report, or to transmit it by wire broadcast over the country.

As to the West Virginia coal strike: a magazine charged that the Associated Press had suppressed the facts and that as a consequence no one knew there had been trouble. The authors were indicted for libel. One witness only has yet been heard. He was called by the defense, and in the taking of his deposition it was disclosed that at the date of the publication over 93,000 words had been delivered by the Associated Press to the New York papers. Something like 60 columns respecting the matter had been printed.

However, “The point to be noticed,” says your writer, “is that it [the Associated Press] might color news if it wanted to, and that it does exercise certain monopolistic functions. That in itself is a dangerous state of affairs; but it seems to be one that might be rectified.” And, as a remedy, he proposes that “its service should be open to all customers.” This is most interesting. If the news-service is untrustworthy, it would naturally seem plain that the activities of the agency should be restricted, not extended. Instead of enlarging its field of operations, there should be, if possible, a law forbidding it to take in any new members, or, indeed, summarily putting it out of business. If the Associated Press is corrupt, it is too large now, and no other newspaper should be subjected to its baleful influence.

Your critic adds that then, “if its news were none the less unfair, some arrangement could presumably be made for government restraint.” Since the battle against government control of the press was fought nearly two centuries ago, it seems scarcely worth while to waste much effort over this suggestion. Censorship by the king’s agents was the finest flower of mediæval tyranny. It is hard to believe that anyone, in this hour, should suggest a return to it.

Under the closely censored method of this coöperative organization, notwithstanding the wide range of its operations, and although its service has included millions of words every month, it is proper to say that there has never been a trial for libel, nor have the expenses in connection with libel suits exceeded a thousand dollars in the aggregate. This should be accepted as some evidence of the standard of accuracy maintained.

As to the refusal of the Associated Press to admit to membership every applicant, the suggestion is made that this puts such a limit on the number of newspapers as to “stifle trade in the selling of news.” Thus, says your critic, the Association is “the mother, potential and sometimes actual, of countless small monopolies.” In reply, it may be said that we are in no danger of a dearth of newspapers. There are more news journals in the United States than in all the world beside. If the whole foreign world were divided into nations of the size of this country, each nation would have but 80 daily newspapers, while we have over 2,400. And as to circulation, we issue a copy of a daily paper for every three of our citizens who can read and are over ten years of age. With our methods of rapid transportation, hundreds of daily papers might be discontinued, and still leave every citizen able to have his morning paper delivered at his breakfast table. Every morning paper between New York and Chicago might be suppressed, and yet, by the fast mail trains, papers from the two terminal cities could be delivered so promptly that no one in the intervening area would be left without the current world’s news. Every angle of every fad, or _ism_, outside the walls of Bedlam, finds an advocate with the largest freedom of expression. Our need is not for more papers, but for better papers—papers issuing truthful news and with clearer sense of perspective as to news.

Entirely independent of the Associated Press, or any influence it might have upon the situation, there has been a noticeable shrinkage in the number of important newspapers in the recent past. One reason has been the lack of demand by the public for the old-time partisan journal. Instead, the very proper requirement has been for papers furnishing the news impartially, and communities therefore no longer divide, as formerly, on political lines in their choice of newspapers. The increased cost of white paper and of labor has also had an effect.

Since there are some 500 or more daily newspapers getting on very well without the advantage of the Associated Press “franchises,” it can hardly be said that we have reached a stage where this service is indispensable. This is strikingly true in the light of the fact that in a number of cities the papers making the largest profits are those that have not, nor have ever had, membership in the Associated Press.

It will be agreed at once that private right must ever give way to public good. If it can be shown that, as contended, the national welfare requires that those who, without any advantage over their fellow editors, have built up an efficient coöperative news-gathering agency, must share the accumulated value of the good-will they have achieved, with those who have been less energetic, we may have to give heed to the claim. Such a contention, so persistently urged as it has been, is certainly flattering to the membership and management of the Associated Press.

But, however agreeable it always is to divide up other people’s property, before settling the matter there are some things to think of. First, it must be the public good that forces this invasion of private right, not the desire of someone who, with an itch to start a newspaper, feels that he would prefer the Associated Press service. Second, the practical effect of a rule such as was laid down by the Illinois Supreme Court, requiring the organization to render service to all applicants, must be carefully considered. News is not a commodity of the nature of coal, or wood. It is incorporeal. It does not pass from seller to buyer in the way ordinary commodities do. Although the buyer receives it, the seller does not cease to possess it. In order to make a news-gathering agency possible, it has been found necessary to limit, by stringent rules, the use of the service by the member. Thus each member of the Associated Press is prohibited from making any use of the dispatches furnished him, other than to publish them in his newspaper. If such a restriction were not imposed, any member, on receipt of his news service, might at once set up an agency of his own and put an end to the general organization. This rule, as well as all disciplinary measures, would disappear under the plan proposed by the critic in the _Atlantic_. A buyer might be expelled, but to-morrow he could demand readmission. There would in practice no longer be members with a right of censorship over the management; instead, there would be one seller and an unlimited number of buyers. Then, indeed, there would be a monopoly of the worst sort. And government censorship, with all of its attendant and long since admitted evils, would follow. Under a Republican administration, we should have a Republican censor; under a Democratic administration, a Democratic censor. And a free press would no longer exist.

Absolute journalistic inerrancy is not possible. But we are much nearer it to-day than ever before. And it is toward approximate inerrancy in its despatches that the Associated Press is striving. If in its method of organization, or in its manner of administration, it is violating any law, or is making for evil, then it should be punished, or suppressed. If any better method for securing an honest, impartial news service can be devised, by all means let us have it. But that the plan proposed would better the situation, is clearly open to doubt.

CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR

BY PARACELSUS

There is something at once deliciously humorous and pathetic, to the editor of a small daily in the provinces, about that old-fashioned phrase, “the liberty of the press.” It is another one of those matters lying so near the marge-land of what is mirthful and what is sad that a tilt of the mood may slip it into either. To the general, doubtless, it is a truth so obvious that it is never questioned, a bequest from our forefathers that has paid no inheritance tax to time. In all the host of things insidiously un-American which have crept into our life, thank Heaven! say these unconscious Pharisees, the “press,” if somewhat freakish, has remained free. So it is served up as a toast at banquets, garnished with florid rhetoric; it is still heard from old-fashioned pulpits; it cannot die, even though the conditions which made the phrase possible have passed away.

The pooh-poohing of the elders, the scoffing of the experienced, has little effect upon a boy’s mind when it tries to do away with so palpable a truth as that concerning the inability of a chopped-up snake to die until sunset, or that matter-of-fact verity that devil’s darning needles have little aim in life save to sew up the ears of youths and maidens. So with that glib old fantasy, “America’s free and untrammeled press”: it needs a vast deal of argument to convince an older public that, as a matter to be accepted without a question, it has no right to exist. The conditioning clause was tacked on some years ago, doubtless when the old-time weekly began to expand into the modern small daily. The weekly was a periodic pamphlet; the daily disdained its inheritance, and subordinated the expression of opinion to the printing of those matters from which opinion is made. The cost of equipment of a daily newspaper, compared to the old-fashioned weekly, as a general thing makes necessary for the launching of such a venture a well-organized stock company, and in this lies much of the trouble.

Confessions imply previous wrong-doing. Mine, while they are personal enough, are really more interesting because of the vast number of others they incriminate. If two editors from lesser cities do not laugh in each other’s faces, after the example of Cicero’s augurs, it is because they are more modern, and choose to laugh behind each other’s backs. So, in turning state’s evidence, I feel less a coward than a reformer.

What circumstance has led me to believe concerning the newspaper situation in a hundred and one small cities of this country is so startling in its unexplained brevity, that I scarce dare parade it as a prelude to my confessions. So much of my experience is predicated upon it that I do not dare save it for a peroration. Here it is, then, somewhat more than half-truth, somewhat less than the truth itself: “A newspaper in a small city is not a legitimate business enterprise.” That seems bold and bare enough to stamp me as sensational, does it not? Hear, then, the story of my _Herald_, knowing that it is the story of other Heralds. The _Herald’s_ story is mine, and my story, I dare say, is that of many others. To the facts, then. I speak with authority, being one of the scribes.

I

I chose newspaper work in my native city, Pittsburg, mainly because I liked to write. I went into it after my high-school days, spent a six months’ apprenticeship on a well-known paper, left it for another, and in five years’ hard work had risen from the reportorial ranks to that of a subordinate editorial writer—a dubious rise. Hard work had not threshed out ambition: the few grains left sprouted. The death of an uncle and an unexpected legacy fructified my desire. I became zealous to preach crusades; to stamp my own individuality, my own ideals, upon the “people”; in short, to own and run a newspaper. It was a buxom fancy, a day-dream of many another like myself. A rapid rise had obtained for me the summit of reasonable expectation in the matter of salary; but I then thought, as indeed I do still, that the sum in one’s envelope o’ Mondays is no criterion of success. Personal ambition to “mould opinion,” as the quaint untruth has it, as well as the commercial side of owning a newspaper, made me look about over a wide field, seeking a city which really needed a new newspaper. The work was to be in a chosen field, and to be one’s own taskmaster is worth more than salary. As I prospected, I saw no possible end to the venture save that of every expectation fulfilled.

I found a goodly town (of course I cannot name it) that was neither all future nor all past; a growing place, believed in by capitalists and real-estate men. It was well railroaded, in the coal fields, near to waterways and to glory. It was developing itself and being developed by outside capital. It had a newspaper, a well-established affair, whose old equipment I laughed at. It needed a new one. My opening was found. The city would grow; I would grow up with it. The promise of six years ago has been in part fulfilled. I have no reason to regret my choosing the city I did.

I went back to Pittsburg, consulted various of the great, obtained letters to prominent men high in the political faith I intended to follow, went back to my town armed with the letters, and talked it over. They had been considering the matter of a daily paper there to represent their faith and themselves, and after much dickering a company was formed. I found I could buy the weekly _Herald_, a nice property whose “good will” was worth having. Its owner was not over-anxious to sell, so drove a good bargain. As a weekly the paper for forty-three years had been gospel to many; I would make it daily gospel to more. In giving $5,500 for it I knew I was paying well, but it had a great name and a wide circulation.

I saw no necessity of beginning on a small scale. People are not dazzled in this way. I wanted a press that folk would come in and see run, and as my rival had no linotypes, that was all the more reason why I should have two. Expensive equipments are necessary for newspapers when they intend to do great works and the public is eager to see what is going to happen. All this took money, more money than I had thought it would. But, talking the matter over with my new friends and future associates, I convinced them that any economy was false economy at the start. But when I started I found that I owned but forty per cent of the Herald Publishing Company’s stock. I was too big with the future to care. The sixty per cent was represented by various politicians. That was six years ago.

It does not do in America, much less in the _Atlantic_, to be morosely pessimistic. At most one can be regretful. And yet why should I be regretful? You have seen me settle in my thriving city; see me now. I have my own home, a place of honor in the community, the company of the great. You see me married, with enough to live on, enough to entertain with, enough to afford a bit of travel now and then. I still “run” the _Herald_: it pays me my own salary (my stockholders have never interfered with the business management of the paper), and were I insistent, I might have a consular position of importance, should the particular set of politicians I uphold (my “gang,” as my rival the _Bulletin_ says) revert to power. There is food in my larder, there are flowers in my garden. I carry enough insurance to enable my small family to do without me and laugh at starvation. I am but thirty-four years old. In short, I have a competence in a goodly little city. Why should I not rejoice with Stevenson that I have “some rags of honor left,” and go about in middle age with my head high? Who of my schoolmates has done better?

Is it nothing, then, to see hope dwindle and die away? My regret is not pecuniary: it is old-fashionedly moral. Where are those high ideals with which I set about this business? I dare not look them in their waxen faces. I have acquired immunity from starvation by selling underhandedly what I had no right to sell. Some may think me the better American. But P. T. Barnum’s dictum about the innate love Americans have for a hoax is really a serious matter, when the truth is told. Mr. Barnum did not leave a name and a fortune because he befooled the public. If now and then he gave them Cardiff giants and white elephants, he also gave them a brave display in three crowded rings. I have dealt almost exclusively with the Cardiff giants.

My regret is, then, a moral one. I bought something the nature of which did not dawn upon me until late; I felt environment adapt me to it little by little. The process was gradual, but I have not the excuse that it was unconscious. There is the sting in the matter. I can scarcely plead ignorance.

Somewhere in a scrapbook, even now beginning to yellow, I have pasted, that it may not escape me (as if it could!), my first editorial announcing to the good world my intent with the _Herald_. Let me quote from the mocking, double-leaded thing. I know the words. I know even now the high hope which gave them birth. I know how enchanting the vista was unfolding into the future. I can see how stern my boyish face was, how warm my blood. With a blare of trumpets I announced my mission. With a mustering day of the good old stock phrases used on such occasions I marshaled my metaphors. In making my bow, gravely and earnestly, I said, among other things:—

“Without fear or favor, serving only the public, the _Herald_ will be at all times an intelligent medium of news and opinions for an intelligent community. Bowing the knee to no clique or faction, keeping in mind the great imperishable standards of American manhood, the noble traditions upon which the framework of our country is grounded, the _Herald_ will champion, not the weak, not the strong, but the right. It will spare no expense in gathering news, and it will give all the news all of the time. It will so guide its course that only the higher interests of the city are served, and will be absolutely fearless. Independent in politics, it will freely criticise when occasion demands. By its adherence to these principles may it stand or fall.”

But why quote more? You have all read them, though I doubt if you have read one more sincere. I felt myself a force, the _Herald_ the expression of a force; an entity, the servant of other forces. My paper was to be all that other papers were not. My imagination carried me to sublime heights. This was six years ago.

II

Events put a check on my runaway ambition in forty-eight hours. The head of the biggest clothing house, and the largest advertiser in the city, called on me. I received him magnificently in my new office, motioning him to take a chair. I can see him yet—stout, prosperous, and to the point. As he talked, he toyed with a great seal that hung from a huge hawser-like watch-chain.

“Say,” said he, refusing my chair, “just keep out a little item you may get hold of to-day.” His manner was the same with me as with a salesman in his “gents’” underclothing department.

“Concerning?” I asked pleasantly.

“Oh, there’s a friend of mine got arrested to-day. Some farmer had him took in for fraud or something. He’ll make good, I guess; I know, in fact. He ain’t a bad fellow, and it would hurt him if this got printed.”

I asked him for particulars; saw a reporter who had the story; learned that the man was a sharp-dealer with a bad reputation, who had been detected in an attempt to cheat a poor farmer out of $260—a bare-faced fraud indeed. I learned that the man had long been suspected by public opinion of semi-legal attempts to rob the “widow and the orphan,” and that at last there was a chance of “showing him up.” I went back with a bold face.

“I find, though the case has not been tried, that the man is undoubtedly guilty.”

“Guilty?” said my advertiser. “What of that? He’ll settle.”

“That hardly lessens the guilt.” I smiled.

The clothing man looked astounded. “But if you print that he’ll be ruined,” he sputtered.

“From all I can learn, so much the better,” I answered.

Then my man swore. “See here,” he said, when he got back to written language. “He’s just making his living; you ain’t got no right to stop a man’s earning his living. It ain’t none of any newspaper’s business. Just a private affair between him and the farmer, and he’ll settle.”

“I don’t see how,” I put in somewhat warmly, “it isn’t the business of a newspaper to tell its public of a dangerous man, arrested for fraud, caught in his own net so badly that he is willing to settle, as you claim. It is my obvious duty to my constituents to print such a case. From the news point of view—” I was going on smoothly, but he stepped up and shook his fist in my face.

“Constituents? Ain’t I a constituent? Don’t I pay your newspaper for more advertising than any one else? Ain’t I your biggest constituent? Say, young man, you’re too big for this town. Don’t try to bully me!” he suddenly screamed. “Don’t you dare bully me! Don’t you dare try it. I see what you want. You’re trying to blackmail me, you are; you’re trying to work me for more advertising; you want money out of me. That game don’t go; not with me it don’t. I’ll have you arrested.”

And he talked as though he believed it!

Then he said he’d never pay me another cent, might all manner of things happen to his soul if he did. He’d go to the _Bulletin_, and double his space. The man was his friend, and he had asked but a reasonable request, and I had tried to blackmail him. He worked that blackmail in every other sentence. Then he strode out, slamming the door.