The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-07-03
Cheap News.

"As easy as lying" says Hamlet
! This is one of those happy touches OF
| Shakespeare that seem sliS ht and acci-
dental, while furnishing fruitful text
/ to all after-time. Self-observant per-
sons are aware of the ease with which
exaggeration and other varieties of false
| hood slip from the tongue, and the ex-
treme difficulty of giving an exact ac-
count of the simplest matter. And this
| difficulty is greatest TO ardent aud i'm
aginative persons, who naturally take 10
writing. The very qualities of mind
which give them their power to interest
other minds are, in many instances, the
qualities that incline them to pictures
que and effective exaggeratioD. Telling
the simple truth is the hardest thing
done either by tongue or pen. How
easy it was to represent Napoleon Bona
parte galloping over the Alps on a ro-
bust charger, gorgeously caparisoned,
his cloak flying in the breeze, and COM
pact legions pressing up the steep accli-
vity This lie was imagined in a mo-
ment but it cost M. Theirs much pain
ful toll and long travel to ascertain that
his conqueror crossed the Alps on a
mule, muffied to the eyes in his cloak,
and attended by one guide on foot.
In the press, as in literature, false
hood has the additional advantage over
truth of being much the less expensive.
Your raw hand will briug you in an &C
count of a finance meeting which shall
be of necessity a mere tissue of miscon-
ceptions and misstatements. To get an
approximately true narrative of what |
occurred, without verbatim reports, you |
must send three persons OF trained in |
telligence but full and exact report, |
with the requisite descriptive matter, |
demands the intense labor OF twelve |
train d men. Now the account stands |
thus tissue of green falsehood, two |
dollars vivid narrative strongly resem- |
bling the truth, thirty dollars verbatim
report, eighty dollars. In every de-
partment of newspaper, from the most |
commonplace reporting to the most i'm
portant criticism, we find that lies are
very cheap and truth is very dear.
We must also bear in mind that If ly-
ing is easy, it may also be for the mo-
ment highly effective. That tawdry
falsehood of Bonaparte bounding over
the mountains adorns at this hour hun
dreds of barber-shops in all countries,
as the tale, equally groundless, of Lin
coin and the Scotch cap figures in many
hist Orles OF the late war. Some men OF
very ordinary abilities do succeed, after
long practice, in purging their conver-
5ation of the usual exaggerations and
and credulities but even this negative
part of a difficult virtue is apt to be
purchased by the loss of vivacity. Their
is as dull as it is correct.
But the journalist lies under an mex
1rable necessity of not being dull. In
correct he may be, to certain extent,
md live but if he is dull. he dies.
And, unhappily, there are three ways i
,pen to the journalist of avoiding dull I
less two wrong and one right. The =
light way is vigilance, tact, and hard !
abor in the gathering and utterance OF
ruth proper to be told. The two wrong 9
vays demand vastly inferior powers.
)ne is the invention or repetition of
alsehood, and the other the revelation
# matters not proper to be told. A :
ertile and sympathetic mind, capable
# public spirit, finds the material for !
tirring and delightful journalism in
illage; but there are dull dogs that,
ven when posted in Washington, the
most interesting capital in the world, s
re compelled to exc out their daily |
Iole of routine by calumnious inven-
ion.-James Parton, in Harpcr's Mag '
|