Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-01-15
EXCESS OF JOURNALISM.

In no other country in the world, are there
so many newspapers published, as in the Unit
ed States. Indeed, no other land can enumer-
ate half the number This doubtless speaks
well for the intelligence of the American peo-
pie; and yet it affords no argument for the
theory, that our public journals eclipse those
of other countries. We do beat ''the rest of
mankind" in the quantity of our journals, but
in quality we do not The ablest journals in
the world, as class, are those of England
proper, We have journals that will favorably
compare with the best issued across the water ;
but in comparison of English with American
newspapers, as whol, we must yield the
palm, however Notifying to our national pride
This difference in value and character is
mainly owing to two things;
l. In England there are far less public Jour
mails published, in the ratio of population, than
in the United States The result is, the En-
glish newspapers receive much larger share
of patronage than do the same number in our
own country: our transatlantic neighbors can
therefore afford to make better and more ex,
pensive newspapers than we can.
2 The standard talent of newspaper writers
is higher in England than here. The abilities
we mean both natural and acquired-requi-
site to entitle man to journalistic honors in
the United States, would often be found insult
ficient in the Old World. The very first liter
airy and political talent i'll Britain has shone
through the columns of her daily and weekly
press. This has been true for many years,
and is eminently so to-day.
In the United States every third man feels
himself fully competent to edit newspaper;
and there is a very general itching to get into
the editorial chair. The consequence is, the
chair often holds more brass than brains, and
the newspaper exhibits more imbeciLty than
common sense. Another result is, the aston
ishing multiplicity of newspapers number
far greater than the public want requires, or
the public patronage can sustain. Every con-
siderable collection of houses honored with the
name of town or village, must have its newspa-
per; while each city has its newspaper for every
three or four thousand inhabitants What is
the inevitable result? Why, that we have very
few journals that are selfsustaining, or, that
are really honorable to the name. They are
not healthy. They are puny and sickly; and,
editorially, are but reflex of some poor devils
misery. The paucity of his knowledge-box
may not be quite equal to that of his pockets
and yet he has not enough of that rare quality,
good common sense, to lead him to abandon
profession for which he is not fitted, and which
entails far more duns than dollars.
The character of American newspapers, for
ability and completeness, will not be reached
with such fractional division of patronage
1t is an utter impossibility. You may just as
well attempt to make a respectable river by
dividing its volume into thousand puny
brooks. And the town or city, of twenty or
fifty thousand inhabitants that attempts to sus-
tain from three to half dozen journals, will
always have anything but good newspapers.
Its, therefore, a fact, too patent to be hidden,
and too palpable to be gainsayed, that this un
heard of multiplicity Of journals and this I'M
reasonable division of legitimate patronage,
tends to nothing but the deterioration of jour
nalism. If one-half the newspapers now pub
lished in the United States should die to-day, it
would. be no public loss and if they were de-
Gently buried in collins that were paid for,
there ought to be no lachrymary mourners.