Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-11-01
From the Boston Advertiser.
"iNDEPENDENT JOURNALISM"

One OF the interesting and profitable Incl
dental lessons Of this canvass may be learned
from the illustrations it has presented Of the
thing called independent journalism. Within
few years past some papers In this country
have affected to be very much shocked at
the one sidedness and extravaganza of what
they callsd the partisan press. They
sought an ideal Of "free politics" not unlike
in It's relations to party politics the abstrae-
ton of "free religion" sometimes proposed as
a substitute for the ordinary church systems.
The editors of these papers appear to have
been possessed by fancy that they were in
some important sense guides, philosophers
and friends OF the public, and that the public
had implicit confidence in their wisdom and
fairness, and should accept their interpreta-
ton of current events as the true one. In
their own imaginations they had attained to
a eomprehensiveness OF view and candor OF
investigation which justified them in assum-
ing to be arbiters for their readers in all mat
tiers of conflicting opinion.
In their Judgment ii was not only great
hardship but a gross injustice that reputli-
cans among their readers should be deprived
of The Alternative medicine of democratic argu-
ments, and that democrats should no, also
have dose with their nourishment There
fore, said they. the editor should show no par
viands. only by virtue Of his superior intelli-
gence clearly pointing out what was meat
and what poison in each dish By process
known only to independent journalists, error
was to be illuminated and the remainder Of
truth ascertained and set forth in the editor
| ial columns, Of which the reader could par
take with certainty of IMMIGRATION and illu-
mination. In this way select body Of
independent voters was to be fostered who
would hold the balance sof power and deter
mine the reign Of politicians of all parties. 1t
was significant, although perhaps not alto.
gether unaccountable, that as fast as these
journals dropped into independence they sig
nailed the change by discovering, or at least
charging, that the administration they had
been praising was essentially corrupt, weak
and deserving of reprobation. Ii may be
something of this kind was necessary to for
tfy their own consciousness that they were
free from the calling restraint Of partisansbp.
Either their eyes we're very suddenly opened
| to the truth, or they had previously furnished
for self-coutemplation extraordinary exam
piles of insineere partisanship.
The independent journals with remarkable
| unanimity during last winter and spring COM
bined TO advocate the so-called ''liberal re-
form movement. They were the heralds of
the Cincinnati convention. They became its
organs before the people, and for aught that
poor mortals whose unsublimated consciences
did not discern any superior beauty in an in
dependence which consisted chiefly in capti-
business and distrust could see, they were
conducted in the interest of the new move.
ment very much as the papers they were
| pleased to stigmatize as 'organs" were con-
Quoted in the interest of the established par
ties. 1t bothers the ordinary intelligence to
know why editors who choose to support and
advocate an inchoate party organization
should have any better right to call them
selves independent than those who choose not
to do so.
But the quality of the independence of the
miscalled independent journals was exposed
when they were called upon to pass Judgment
on the Cincinnati nominations. The New
York Tribune of course was expected to sup
port Mr.. Greeley. But there were other
Journals whose reAl opinions concerning his
fitness for the presidency were well known.
Nevertheless they smothered them with as
devoted subserviency to party behests as
was ever shown in our history, and from that
date to the present time have waged parti-
san contest with no distinguishing degree
of independence. The two Tribunes have
been and are still notorious above all the
| journals in the country for intense and un-
| scrupulous partisanship. They have We'd
with the Sun, one of the pioneers in indend-
ence, in the audacity and malignity of I'M
| truth-telling. Since Brick Pomeroy's Dem
ocrat went into decline no party journal Of
prominence has approached in scurrility the
journals which set out to give high tone to
the profession. They have missed the mark.
and we mistake the judgment of newspaper
readers if they get more credit for ndend-
ence than either republican or democratic
| lie hal av al "a
lie political honesty.