THE DEMAND FOR SENSATIONAL JOURNALS.

THE

BY JOHN HENDERSON GARNSEY, LL. B.

HE times, like astronomical phenomena, have their signs, but the most common trouble with the observers is that of mistaking the manifestations of events themselves for the signs indicating coming ones. For instance, it is often said that the world is growing worse, that the tendency of the times is toward materialism, and that the condition of mankind will be, some time, that of a machine, unrelenting, inhuman, and lacking in all the godlike attributes. This is not true. If the observer will take the trouble to analyze the times, it will be seen that it is only the present condition which is bad, the indications for the future being decidedly good.

One of these signs of the times is a loud and rapidly swelling cry of protest from the more conservative and levelheaded portion of the community (which is really the balancewheel that makes prosperity) against the sensational journal. This protest has reached such a volume that it must be met, and it is met by a majority of the editors and managers with the statement that "sensationalism is what the people want." They maintain that they cannot sell their publications unless their pages contain catalogues of crime, column-long descriptions, with pictures, of the collars of noted and notorious men, facial characteristics of great malefactors, chapters from the private life of some one dead and defenceless, slurs upon them that sit in the high places, or more or less wild rumors of possible political conspiracies. The President is photographed and described in all possible and impossible places and positions, dignified and otherwise, and his family are pictured in detail, mostly from imagination. Not content with telling what high officials have done or will do, columns are devoted to telling what they have not done or will not do. The correspondents in foreign capitals cable us a rumor one day, and deny it in half a column the next; and the position of war correspondent has become one with that of

advertising agent, possibly more entertaining, but not more reliable. Courts of law are censured for their decisions according to the whim or sympathy of the writer, who is frequently incompetent to judge of the matter at all; and the guilt or innocence of a person charged with a crime is laid before the people, in accordance not with the facts, but with the political situation or the influence of the accused's friends.

And all this in the news columns of the journals. The editorial page, once the forum where public opinion was expressed, — where the voice of the people was ably crystallized into forcible phrases, has become a little-read and insignificant part of the average paper. True, there are some notable exceptions to this rule, but they are among the papers of smaller circulation, the papers to which the term "conservative" is applied in its new meaning, synonymous with contempt. The editor or publisher of a great journal too often uses his news columns, as well as his editorial pages, as vehicles by which to carry on a campaign against his personal enemies or political opponents. The personality of the editor, publisher, owner (almost synonymous terms to-day) is set forth in every account of any occurrence, public or private, which takes place anywhere in the world. If the editor believes that Turkey ought to be dismembered, his despatches will be edited to that effect. If he believes that Cuba ought to be free, his news from the Antilles will be tinctured with that sentiment. The journals of the day, so far from moulding public opinion, have now the questionable honor of manufacturing public prejudice. In their struggle for supremacy public opinion has been throttled by them, and such a thing as a fair and impartial judgment on the merits of a case, as conveyed by the papers, is impossible. They have acquired the power of giants, and have become tyrants in the use of that power. They indulge in the open boast that they can make or unmake any man or woman, any set of men or any institution, any line of thought or any reform; and they are pretty nearly right. It was the newspapers that made the Coxey movement possible; it is the newspapers that fight our political battles, as in the campaign just past; and it is the newspapers that make good business

men so averse to taking offices of public trust. They have the power to accomplish great good, but they too often accomplish great ills.

And against this influence the people have substantially no protection. By persistent and energetic lobbying the newspapers are effecting the passage of libel laws which practically free them from any liability whatever. In Pennsylvania the truth is no defence to a libel, and a vigorous effort is being made to change the statute. In Illinois the statute reads that the truth shall be a defence "when published with good motives and for justifiable ends." In Massachusetts an act is prepared, and is being pushed before the general assembly, which practically makes the publication of a retraction a good defence. In Maryland they have a statute making the most irresponsible tramp reporter a privileged person in the matter of communications, the same as doctors and lawyers. If the Massachusetts law passes in other States where it is being urged, libel suits under it will be twice as expensive to try, because twice as complicated, and the decisions of the courts will never be satisfactory, as so much is left to the particular circumstances in each case. The result will be that there will be less inclination to institute these suits, and the press will be rendered still more free from responsibility. Practically the libel laws now extant, instead of being severe, are almost powerless. The writer is able to recall but one case in his immediate knowledge where the plaintiff has succeeded in having the libeller incarcerated, and this incarceration was for thirty days only, while the newspaper which published the libel ran along at about the same gait as before. Every concession to the newspapers in this particular is giving greater license to the sensational press, while it is a mere superfluity to the honorably managed journals. The libel laws of the various States, as they now stand, amply protect the reliable, honest, and truthful newspapers; every relaxation is an encouragement to the unreliable, dishonest, and untruthful ones. If the latter can take their stand behind complicated acts and long statutes they are virtually free to do and say anything which strikes their errant fancy. We cannot have a press censorship; it would be a violation of the

constitutional principles of our country; but it is a perfectly patent fact that we need some protection from the flood of journalistic filth issuing from the great cities.

Yet, they say, the people want this sort of thing. They say the American people want opportunities to sneer at everything and each other. They say that slurs and jingoism and boasting and abuse are essentials to their existence. They say that their editors must show themselves in the "policy of the paper." They make it a rule that events which do not happen at a popular time and in a popular way, must be lightly passed over unless it suits the policy of the paper to notice them at length. They will tell you that news must not be given to the people as it is, but as the public wants it, and then they instruct their readers how to want it.

The people the masses of the population of the country

are not given, as a rule, to doing their own thinking. There come occasions when they do think for themselves, and on these occasions some great national change usually takes place. But in matters of daily routine they believe what the newspapers tell them, not because they have implicit faith in the papers, for if you call their attention to the matter they will say that the newspapers always lie, but because they do not care to take the time to reason about what they read. We are a busy nation; we are bent on our pursuit of business as intently as the bicyclist who rides the "slot" of a cable road is bent on keeping his narrow path. Our business men hire lawyers to do their thinking in the most ordinary matters of commercial procedure. Our "thinkers" are all specialists; the well-informed man is a rara avis. The consequence is that when an invisible and intangible oracle, such as the editor of a great newspaper, thunders forth a dogma, the people half-unconsciously take it for well-authenticated fact. The style royal, "we," is responsible for much of the weight attached to the utterances of the journals, for there is a popular delusion to the effect that behind the "we" lie the greatest erudition and the soundest judgment.

Therefore, when a newspaper cries out that the public is

depraved, the public believes it. When it announces that certain political doctrines are right, most of its subscribers accept the announcement. When it states that eminent men are really beasts by nature, the public reads and believes. And when it says to the public: "You want filth or sensationalism in your daily reading; you want to hear things as 'we' think you ought to hear them," the public meekly acquiesces in the edict. As a collection of integers, each member of the public family rejects personal application of any of these statements, but he reads to see to what depths his neighbors have descended. Give this collection of integers a chance, give each an opportunity to choose for himself what he really wants, and the mass of the results will be found to indicate radically different conditions from those now existing.

It is not argued that the newspapers do no good; it is not maintained that their total suppression would be of benefit. Quite the contrary. In a country of such vast territorial extent as this, newspapers are a necessity. Without them it is doubtful if there would be any harmony whatever between the North and the South, the West and the East. Whatever our national voice is to be, whether prejudice or opinion, just or unjust, it must be as one voice, or, at least, must speak on a common pitch in order to be heard above the clamor of nations; and without the newspapers to indicate this tone to the different sections of the country, the voice of the people would be so discordant as to totally disappear in the world's clamor. But it is claimed here that a newspaper hich shall print the news as it is, and shall confine all of its expressions of opinion to its editorial columns, is the newspaper that the people really want.

There is in the city of Chicago a newspaper which approaches very near to the desired ideal. It is well-printed and well-illustrated with pictures having an immediate bearing on its well-written accounts of happenings. Its telegraphic service covers the world sufficiently. It is not devoid of special features; indeed, it has some of the best in the world. Matters of news are given as matters of news, without any coloring by the editor. It has a special corre