The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1875-11-07
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM.

From an elaborate and able article in
Brownson's Rcvis's on Protestant Journal
ism we take the following extract
We distinguish between the journal and
the newspaper. The newspaper originated
some three hundred years ago, if we are not
mistaken, in the commercial city of Venice,
and was designed chiefly to communicate
such Intelligence as was of special interest
to merchants and bankers, OF, as we say
now, to the business classes. Gradually it
enlarged its scope, especially when trans
ferred to England, and gave political in
telligence, as we'll as banking and mercan-
tile information; but it confined itself to
giving current news, and avoided all
political or other discussions. 1t grew
naturally out of the invention and general
adoption of the art of printing, aud simply
| superseded the intelligence which had been,
from time immemorial, communicated by
| written instead of printed letters. The
newspaper was not only q harmless, but
useful institution.
J The journal may indeed publish news,
but is not by any means a newspaper. 1t
| ia of recent origin and Ows it's birth to the
! French Revolution of 1889, that fountain of
| so many evils, and, to human eyes. of no
good. The de-ign of the journal is to
influence and control public opinion, and,
through public opinion. to influence and
control public action. The public to which
it is addressed may be the general public,
or it may be party, faction, coterie,
OF a seer, but its design ia always to infu-
ence and control the thought and action of
its public. whether it's public be larger or
smaller; and it seeks to do this by discus
sion, by arguments addressed to reason or
prejudice, and by defamation, or inhamA
matory appeals to passion. The so-called
independent journalism. represented by
such Journals as the N. Y. Herald, the N.
7. Tribune, and the N. Y. Sun of this city,
proesses to be Independent of all parties,
| sects, and cliques, and to set forth the views
and convictions of it's management alone,
or what its management believes, or pre-
tends to believe, is for the public interest
But it must have popular support, a wide
popular circulation, and, to gain this, it
must court popular opinion, and study not
to outrage popular prejudice. 1t can afford
to have no unpopular principles, or to
support an unpopular cause. Indeed il
cannot afford to haue-any principles, es-
pecially any religious principles, for any
decided principles are sure to be unpopular
with one or another section of the public
1t, in fact, has no positive religion of any
sort and whatever religion it favors, is so
vague and indeterminate that it is as good
as none at all. Its influenc in regaI to
religion is either to encourage ipfidelity
pure and simple, or perfect indifferen tem.
Its religion ia secularism, and it la less
really Independent and more fatal to all the
great Interests of society than even the
partisan or SecGarlan press.
Satan never made better hit than when
he invented independent journalism and
| the n. 7. Herald, which so admirably re-
| presents the spirit of the age, should be,
| as we have no doubt it ia, great favorite
with him. None but a renegade OF bad
Catholic could ever have founded and
sustained such marvellous Journal; nor
could even a bad Catholic have done it
| without extraordinary satanic assistance.
| The very design of the journal is satanic
1t throws the forming and directing of
public opinion and action into the hands of
men who are responsible only to the laws,
and hardly to them who have and can give
no guaranty of their wisdom, who scout all
authority but their own, and proceed
always on the assumption of their owD in.
fallioility, and that of the public to which
they appeal. Independent journalism is
Professionalism raised to it's highest power,
the dedication of private judgment, and a
fitting foreruuner of Antichrist. Its power
is immense, and it's despotism is in proper
ton to its power. In France, in 1880, it
overthrow the government ard extempo
rized the monarchy of July in 1945, it
expelled the citizen king, and proclaimed
the democratic republic; in 1851 it over
turned the democratic republic, and rees7.
tablished the Napoleonic empire. Making
itself the organ of the secret societies, it
has, for the last hundred years, kept all
EuroI in ch, onic state of insurrection,
anu II nueTeu all government, out that OF
sheer force, impossible. 1t is every where
a disturbing element, and five millions Of
armed men in Europe are found necessary
to maintain some semblance of order against
the passions it stirs up and inf1ames. Aud
yet ls it vociferated in our ears, ga free
press is the palladium of our liberties !"
The governments for time established
and maintained a rigid censorship of the
press, but without much salutary effect.
Secular governments are no safer directors
of thought and opinion than the journals
themselves. The government censors, for
the most part, sought only to protect the
secular authority, and LETT religion and
: morality, the spiritual authority of the
Church, and all the higher and more i'm
portant interests of society, to protect
themselves. This was especially the case in
Austria, Prussia, and the smaller German
States. If they looked after the interests
of religion at all, it was the national
religion, as a function of the civil govern
ment, it is in England; and in France,
where the parliamenta. iudicial not leRia.