Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-08-15
The Next Great Revolution.

But, as we have seen, the history OF
journalism, for fifty years, has been
rapid succession of revolutions, and no
man knows as we'll as the Woodworking
editor that perfection has not yet been
evolved. Other changes, as marked,
are certainly impending. What is the
next?
1t was pleasant concelt of Henry
Watterson's that, if Shakespeare were
living now, he would be an editor. The
fancy might have fallen better upon
contemporary of Sheakespeare's-that
greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind,
who anticipated the modern newspaper,
in taking all knowledge to be his prov
ince. But newspapers are many and
perpetual. Shakespeares and Bacons
come only once IN the centuries. Yet
of this we may be sure: The field for
advantages through enterprise in the
mere getting of news is about exhaus-
ted. The great newspapers can now all
command substantially the same facili-
ties. Generally speaking, the news that
one gets another can get If it wishes.
Recurring then, to Watterson's conceit,
it seems sure to say that in the next
great stage of journalism the enterprise
that now exhausts itself on costly cable
dispatches will go to men who can
make a great news feature valuable
rather from the story it tells than from
the money spent in carrying it to you;
who will buy for you costly thing
rather than challenge your admiration
merely for the money spent in the cost.
ly transportation Of thing of less mo-
ment. If it must send Stanley to
Africa-and we may we'll hope that feats
so brilliant can be repeated-it will
send also Macaulay to tell his story
for him.
Why should the busy man read the
history of yesterday DIT greater disad-
vantage than the history of hundred
years ago? Yet that of hundred years
ago has been most carefully collated,
sifted, winnowed, relieved of surplus
age. arranged in proper perspective.
You are not forced to read the official
documents, to burrow among the dry
reports, to study with minute and pains
taking care the diyecta membra. You
are not loaded with facts that are USE
less, particulars that give no form or
color to the picture. All this waste is
removed. Thousands of pages are
searched to give you one, but on that
one is all you need to know. A moder-
ately industrious man might spend his
lifetime reading the authorities on
which Motley constructed the History
of the dutch Republic, yet who-speak-
ing of intelligent people in the mass,
not of individual investigators-who
cares for the authorities? Who wants
anything but Motley? The greatest of
Green's "Short History of the English
People, Why shall not the most enter
prising journal of the next decade be
that which shall still employ colossal
capital to gather all the news, and then
crown and fructify its expenditure by
having staff of Greens and Froudes
to tell it?
There are those who insist that the
thing really needed is what the old
Scotch divines used to call "root and
branch work"-that the whole man is
sick, the whole heart faint. The elder
times, they say, were bettert han these;
the whole character of the press is stead
lily deteriorating.
Well, we have faults enough. And
yet the elder times were not better than
these. There was never time when
the press resisted greater temptations,
or more resolutely maintaineda level
above its surroundings. The thing
always forgotten by the closet cricket Of
the newspapers is that they must be
measurably what their audiences make
them-what their constituencies call for
and sustain. The newspaper cannot
uniformly resist the popular sentiment
any more than the stream can flow above
its fountain. To say that the newspa.
pers are getting worse, is to say that the
people are getting worse. That doctrine
our superfine moralists have croaked
ever since we had an existence as
people; but whenever the crisis came
we have always found that, beneath the
surface froth, the currents Of ational
life flowed pure and strong as ever.
The evil tendencies of the press in our
day are to be seen plainly enough;
they have been seen in all days, since
the first newspaper was made. It even
works more evil now than it ever
wrought before, because its influence
is more widespread; but it also works
more good, and its habitual attitude is
one of effort toward the best its audi
ence will tolerate. There is not news
paper to-day in New York. faulty as
they all are, that is not better than its
audience. There is not an editor in
New York who does not know the for
tune that awaits the man there who is
willing to make daily paper as disrep-
utable and vile as hundred and fifty
thousand readers would be willing to
buy. 1t is the newspaper opportunity
of the time; the only great opportunity
that has come since the concentration Of
capital and mechanical facilities gave
the monopoly of the present field to the
existing journals. Several of these
might take it; the editor Of every one of
them knows he is making a better paper
than his constituency would like, and
that he might add half to his circula-
ton by making it worse; every one OF
them knows that less scrupulous rival
may come to do what he refuses. It is
with an ill grace that theoretical reform
ers reproach these men for lowering the