Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1907-05-23
Tainted News.
"AngeIs ever bright and lair,

The second installment of COL
lier's exposure of "tainted news"
appearing in the issue of the 4th,
deals with "the subsidized cam
paign against municipal owner
ship" It is to be followed by one
on "the 'dollar-a-line' system
practiced by the insurance COM
panies, the Standard Oil Company
and other interests" This line of
investigation and exposure is one
of the most useful that an in
fluential periodical like CoIIier's
can undertake, and it is to be
hoped that it will not end with ex-
posures of the surreptitious work
of news writers who are bribed by
outsiders to fool editors. Much
the most dangerous kind of taint-
ed news is that which daily news
paper proprietors demand, and
editors and reporters more or less
reluctantly supply. In the latest
ColIier's article we have a startling
account of the operations of graft
ers who manage news bureaus and
take bribes from corporations for
tainting the articles they send to
newspapers. Sometimes these
grafters are paid for their matter
by newspaper dupes; sometimes
they furnish the matter to the pa
pers free. Their work is syste-
matically done, and Co1Iier's shows
it to be viciously deceptive. But
it is small matter in comparison
with the tainted news which the
daily press regularly and pur-
posely puts forth through its local
staff.
Most daily papers are controlled
by local financial interests, and
the local news is falsified, both for
home consumption and for gen.
eral distribution, by reporters and
copy readers, to suit the require
ments of the owners or hackers of
the papers. This news is then
telegraphed, if of general interest,
by general news gatherers who get
their information from newspa-
pers at their respective news points.
In consequence, the routine news
of the day goes forth to the world
from it's places of origin so dis
torted as to establish in the public
mind false notions of current his
tory. 1t does what partisan edi-
torials used to do. Few readers
pay attention any more to editorial
utterances of the daily press.
They are discounted in advance.
Editorial writers have come to be
regarded as men with no opinions
of their own and no principles that
they feel bound to respect. Not
SO with reporters. They are still
believed to be honest collectors OF
local news, and their reports go
forth bearing the stamp of varity.
But the reporter is in truth no
longer an honest collector of news.
He must color and prevaricate,
distort, suppress and falsify, al
the peril of his job, in order to
make the news of the day conform
to the demand of the financial in
terests that control his paper,
Most daily papers have ceased to
be newspapers, and most of their
employees have ceased to be news
papermen. The journalistic in
stinct has given way to the in
stinct of the jackal, and journal
istic courage has flown. News
papers have been degraded to the
level Of daily bulletins for cum
ming financiers, and newspaper
men are their obsequious servants.
If CoIlier's goes on with it's ex-
posures of tainted news to the ex-
tent Of courageously holding this
new journalism up to public in
spection, it will earn the gratitude
OF blinded nation restored to
sight.-The Chicago Public.