Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-08-07
NEWSPAPERS OF TO-DAY.
Philadelphia Telegraph.

No publisher or editor pretends that
he risks his capital, gives time, labor,
thought and care to the making of Il
newspaper for charity's sake. He pub
fishes his journal as the book publisher
publishes his bOok-for. profit rs a
means of living or making fortune.
Publishing a newspaper is strictly bust
ness, though there is no other business
on the face of the earth of which phil
anthropy and patriotism are so large Il
part.
The newspaper is the helper of the
church and the school, of religion,
science, literature, art, industry, agri-
culture-of everything which concerns
the good of society and the State. 1t
is the very prop and stay of charity
and public spirit; the most potent en-
envy of public wrong or injustice; and
it must he 50 necessarily, rs it is but
public sentiment reflected in type. The
newspaper depends for its success upon
popular favor, and the aim of every
one connected with it is thatof winning
popular favor by running upon paral-
lei lines with public morality. To say
that the newspaper is published for
money is to say no harm of it. Ii has
passed into q universal maxim that
"The church lives by the altar"-by
the contributions which the faithful
lay upon the altar. And tits true, and
it is not discreditable. The newspaper
press is generally rs high in morals and
intelligence as the public conscience
and mind; higher than that it can new
er be permanently, as it must be what
society demands it shall be. AS n mat
ter of fact it frequently runs ahead,
temporarily, of public morality; it Of
ten creates the public sentiment that
destroys public wrongs; it often secures
justice by procaiming an injustice.
The press is not without its faults,
but venality or untruth for moneys
sake is not one of them. Its worst
fault is its partisan prejudice, its inabl-
ity to perceive that the newspaper that
serves its country best serves its party
best 1t does not lie for pelf, but it
does, for political eXpediency's sake,
too often fail to recognize the truth.
1t is not unclean for moneys sake, nor
sensational for profits sake, though it
may too often blunder into the mire or
to sensationalism for want of good
Judgment. The press of the United
States-and we speak, of course, of
that great body of reputable newspa-
pers which really constitute the press
is just what readers of high or average
intelligence and morals make it, and it
rises day by day to higher planes of in
telligence and morality.
To make the best, the most truthful,
the cleanest newspaper ALI other things
being equal, is to make the most prof
table one. That is the experience of
every publisher and responsible editor
of "A great and pecuniarily successful
journal. The pres. will always have
its adverse critics, who, if run to earth,
will be found 90 be some unworthy dis
carded members OF it, or those with
whom the press has had to deal more
in Justice than in mercy. As to its de-
Tense against mcndacious criticism, it is
making it daily for it is compelling the
testimony of score. of millions of read
ers to its usefulness, its public spirit, its
intelligence, and lis morality.