The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-04-15
METROPOLITAN JOURNALISM.

METROPOLITAN JOURNALISM.
With very considerable class of news
paper readers in the United States there
seems to be an opinion preyailing-we need
not say how absurdly so-that society
stands in need of distinct class of men to
do its thinking and, what to us is absurder
still, that this class is actually furnished us
through some three or four leading news
papers in New York city. The unparalleled
success of some of these New York jour-
nals-their daily circulation reaching a
hundred thousand copies or more--has |
given rise to the conviction that they are |
editorially managed by the vanguard of
American thinkers and writers, and that
what is not the result of their thinking and
writing is of but little account in the way
of vigorous and effective journalism. We
have no hesitation in saying that in this
estimate of the American press there IS
scarcely the first element of correct pub
lie judgment.
In the first place, the metropolitan press
does no such thinking and writing as to
entitle it to the vanguard position in Amer
lean journalism, since its entire superiority
over the provincial press is owing to the
accidental advantages of position and the
germinal power of large associated capitals
which enables it to monopolize whatever is
at the command of effective journalism in
the central metropolis, if not throughout
the country. These journals have become
the masters of the situation in New York,
precisely the same as railroad that has an
exclusive right of way through one of the
great city thoroughfares or across the con-
tinent, may dominate over and defy COM
petition with all other capitals seeking in
vestment in the same line Of business.
They successfully occupy the field, and
composition, which is the regulator Of
charges in most other branches Of in
dustry, is easily defeated of its power to
establish anything like successful
rivalry. The Infamous iniquity called
the ASSOCIATED Press" which vir-
tually monopolizes all the newspaper
telegraphy of the country, and indirectly
compels the provincial press to pay for
every dispatch published in the leading
metropolitan newspapers, Chose controlling
this association whether it comes to them
by the Atlantic cables or from the thou
sand and one lines of the continent, consti-
tutes such gigantic monopoly as to kill
off every newspaper enterprise in the city,
in advance of its entering the field of
newspaper rivalry. The only New York
daily which has proved a success in the last
ten years, is one that had to pay in advance
Of issuing its first number seventy-fve
thousand dollars to get into that gigantic
swindle-the Associated Press. These
few leading journals can and do regulate
their prices by the balance of their own in
terests. They are in the position of gas
company which has its chartered privileges
and the possession of the entire streets of
city, and which can consequently defy all
attempts at displacement or successful
rivalry by competing companies.
In the second place, il this metropolitan
press ever had this vanguard position Of
independent and original thought and ac-
ton in American journalism, it does now
occupy it or seek to occupy 1t. 1t does
not attempt so much as even to pulse the
American heart and mind in order to get
at the real condition of tho public senti-
ment of the country. 1t is permanently
sensational and fashy, and bankers after
the husks of political opinion rather than
the genuine germ of the matter in politics
or anything else. 1t does not seek so much
to shape public opinion as to follow it, and
lends itself more to experimental humbugs
than to the workingup of practical re-
suits from any genuine experimental
knowledge at its command. The grand
army Of indelatigable tolers and thinkers
in journalism is that which is constantly
coming up from the provincial press, and
which furnishes the best recruits to the
metropolitan monopoly--Bohemians, many
of them, it is true, but still the most eff
fective writers and thinkers in metropolitan
journalism.
1t is this provincial press, or local jour-
nalism of the country, which does not so
much attempt to think for the people
as to think aoah them which does not so
much seek to create as to di6ase cor
rect public sentiment which takes society
and its institutions as they are, aud faith
fully chronicles their manifold phases Of
thought and action which struggles on in
partially confused rank and file, but with