The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-15 00:00:00

JOURNALIS

URNALISM

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The Revue des Deux Mondes has furnished a sub-
ject for discussion to the American Press in con-
junction with the establishment of a Professorship
of Journalism as proposed by General LEE for his
College at Lexington, Virginia. The French peri-
odical considers levity to be a conspicuous fault of
journalists, the habit. too, of discussing things they
do not understand, covering ignorance under a
cloud of rhetoric. The New York Nation endorses
M. BOISSIER'S opinion, but goes much further. The
ideal now growing up embodies " the more igno-
rant, unscrupulous, slapdash, lively leaders, in which
pop and fizz pass under the name of sparkle."
" Indifference to the literal facts of a matter in dis-
cussing or in describing it, is looked on as one of the
signs of peculiar fitness." In this ideal, too, profes-
sional " training" consists simply in acquiring
readiness with the pen, first by paragraphing items,
afterwards by reporting, and then by dashing off
" reflections" on all sorts of subjects. Nothing is so
much praised as the capacity for tickling the public,
nothing so much belittled and laughed at as a de-
sire to instruct it. The criterion is sales; the really
great journalist is he who can best adapt his wares,
not to the intellectual and moral needs, but to the
tastes of the greatest number, that is, to the least
instructed portion of every community, and their
strongest tastes are apt to be their lowest. The Spirit
of the Times has an elaborate artice on " Journal-
ism as a Science." It considers journalism in Eng-
land in some respects to be a science, and not merely
a calling, but that no such tribute can be paid to
I the Press in Amecica. It is curious to observe in
this able article the stress laid on the necessity for
editorial impersonality, while the article itself is a
mass of editorial personalities. BENNETT and the
Herald are discussed; GREELEY and the Tribune;
the late Mr. RAYMOND and the Times ; as well as
Mr. BIGELOW, Mr. MARBLE, Mr. BONNER, Mr.
BRYANT, Mr. BROOKS, Mr. SWAIN, who founded
the Philadelphia Ledger, and Mr. G. W. CHILDS, its
present proprietor ; Messrs. TILTON and PRENTICE,
HALSTEAD, STOCKTON, WHITE, W ATTERSON, and
many others, all mentioned individually, and their
merits discussed as if they had written books, on the
title-pages of which they had inscribed their names.
He says no editor has a right to make his newspaper
the absolute expression of his own opinions. He is
an administrator, whose duty is to speak the truth
so that it may be heard, but to do it on a close ob-
servance of the tides and currents of public opi-
nion, for there is a time for speech and a time for
silence. The writer illustrates this by the street
preacher, who mounts a barrel on a pier and howls
to the stevedores and longshoresmen to prepare for
death. They stop, look, laugh, and stroll away ;
the preacher means well, and does well ; but the
right thing at the wrong time. The Spirit is very
severe on the servitude of the American Press to
politicians. Nineteen-twentieths of the newspapers
are used by men whose scheme of life is advance-
ment and profit by means of chicanery and false
pretence. The newspaper is the theatre wherein the
politician plays his part, walking over its columns
like a comedian or a tragedian in an attitude. He is
the "experienced statesman," or the "advanced Ra-
dical," or the "deep-thinking Conservative," or the
"pronounced Unionist." Behind the scenes he remains
ready to act any part, and steps to the front while
the editor chants a Greek chorus of his virtues, his
genius, his thrift, his watchfulness, his concern for
the country. 4, Wherever partisan political influ-
ence extends, its effect is to prostrate and lower the
tone of every newspaper that comes within its
influence." Singularly enough both the Spirit
in New York and the Newspaper Press in Lon-
don take precisely the same view, that great
changes are hanging over the newspaper world,
that the monopoly of telegraphic news to a few
wealthy journals will soon cease, and that cheap-
ness will be one of the marked characteristics of
the newspaper of the future. The American paper
asserts that the cheap press will be the salvation of
journalism. The American Press has returned to
what it was thirty years ago, when a number of
sprawling blanket sheets claimed to make public
opinion. They were broken clown by the penny
press. First, Mr. BEACH sold the Sun for a penny,
Mr. BENNETT followed with the Herald for a penny,
Mr. GREELEY with the Tribute, and Col. CummiNGs
with the World. Mr. SWAIN went to Philadelphia
and made his penny Ledger, and the consequence
was that the blanket-sheets were sent to rest and
wearied America no more, while the penny men of
thirty years ago mounted the thrones whereon they
now sit. But the war wrought a change, forcing
the price again upwards, and the journals having
tasted the sweets of the profits cannot bear to let
them go. Seven New York dailies combine to bold
a monopoly with a vast telegraph company, for
gathering and selling news, which has a deadening
influence in the security and apathy it engenders.
" The great newspapers have become so many shops
for making money, and all advancement, all growth, all
development in the American Press has ceased, and what
we read, and know, and think depends upon the magna-
nimity and the interests of Mr. J. W. SIMONTON !"
But the same change which buried in oblivion the
old blanket sheets is again in progress, and the
great journals will be compelled to give way ; the
struggle is between the Penny Press and the Asso-
ciated Press. The Newspaper Press of London un-
derstands that the conductors of the Times contem-
plate a reduction to secure their pre-eminence in
the future. That organ of newspaper proprietors
considers that the tendency of weeklies, especially
in the provinces, is to abridge the general news,
and to become more and more literary. The over-
grown reports of local meetings are now more con-
densed, and interesting or useful matter substituted.
That class of paper in the future will be better
written, varied in subject, and more carefully
edited, smaller, but preserved as the past and pre-
sent county history. This cannot be done at once,
for the proprietors neither will nor can pay for the
literary labour ; but it must come, as no one will
look to a weekly journal for such general news as is
easily and cheaply procurable in the present dailies,
and will be still more so in those of the future.
The newspaper of .the future will be perfectly free.
Its character will be higher; its tone better. Paper will be
cheaper, and composition cheaper; for it will probably be
done by machinery. Type and ink are now at fair prices.
A larger sum will be paid to the literary employes whose
brains are used in its production."
But the interesting question relating to journalists
regards their education. The Nation holds the idea
that a man needs to be specially prepared at college
to be nearly as erroneous as the idea that he can be
prepared for his work in a newspaper office. Special
education, it argues, is required by men whose calling
forces them to deal with a certain class of facts. A
journalist's business is to reason on all the facts of
life, and of every class, or to know others who can.
There is no recipe that will enable a man to do
this. Good natural powers, strengthened by gene-
ral cultivation, will, but nothing else. The more a
man knows of everything, and the better he can
make deductions from what he knows, the better
journalist he will be, if he possesses also the art
of expressing himself in a taking way, as well as
the orator's power of perceiving when he has said
as much on any one theme as his audience will
stand. The journalist's art lies in the expression,
which is or ought to be taught to everybody, be-
ing neither more nor less than saying clearly
and attractively what you have to say in as few
words as possible. The rules which help to
make a man perspicuous and concise are taught
in all colleges, and enable anybody to speak and
write better, but cannot enable any to speak and
write well in default of natural ability. The science
of journalism includes all sciences, inasmuch as it
undertakes no less than to help the public at large
to think correctly on every subject of human inte-
rest. Hence the Nation's conclusion, that a Special
Chair of Journalism is an absurdity ; for what it can
do is already in operation, and it is impotent to do
more. We think the Spirit as well as the Nation too
severe on the Press to which they belong ;—as
York.ncu7spaperros,littiliceiabnesstwihnothheavweorclodr,raurpetetdh oesNe,eroyf
everything
they touch, have done all they can to degrade the
Press, and editorial personality has done all it can
to weaken Press power. Still American papers
continue their steady advance, and gradually the
Press will shake itself free from those pernicious
influences.