Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/62

 48 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

At first journals were letters addressed to some person and dupli- cated a number of times. There was such an incipient journalism before the invention of printing. The epistles of St. Paul are of this character; had there been a religious weekly he would have published them as articles. Modern journalism dates, how- ever, only from the eighteenth century, commencing as a side issue of a few enterprising book-sellers.^"^ It gradually assumed the dignity of a separate profession, and at length became differ- entiated into three callings: publishing, news-collecting, and edit- ing. These three interests correspond exactly to the three func- tions which, Mr. Bryce says, every newspaper fulfils, viz., that of weathercock, narrator, and advocate. All these three ele- ments contribute to make a newspaper an organ of public opinion. Every paper is a compromise between these three interests. The publisher represents the element of capital, which, in the great modern daily, is all-essential; only very rich men or wealthy corporations are able to start a great newspaper today. Several of the New York papers represent a capital of over a million dollars. The publisher's interest is a pecuniary one, and he usually bends every effort to this end. The editor is compelled to write such, and only such, articles, to admit such, and only such, news as will increase the sale of the paper or impress advertisers favorably. These are not always the same. Adver- tisers do not look solely to the size of a paper's circulation; the quality of that circulation is quite as important a factor. Mr. Hearst's Boston American obtained a phenomenal circulation in a remarkably short time after its establishment, but it was a long time, it is said, before it even paid expenses. It was found im- possible to secure the advertising, which, in the newspaper busi- ness, constitutes the sinews of war. Proprietors are, moreover, very careful not to offend good advertisers. It is said that dur- ing Mr. Wanamaker's term as postmaster-general, no Philadel- phia paper would attack the postal abuses which were subjects of adverse comment in all other parts of the country. Mr. Wana-

" E. P. Oberholtzer, Die Beeiehungen swischen dem Staat und der Zeitungs- presse, 1895, pp. 1-22.