Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/390

 376 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

so generally and so often either ignorant or dishonest, we shud- der at the amount of harm and wrong, cruelty and wickedness, we owe to this teaching.

It has been suggested — by Lord Rosebery, the ex-premier of Great Britain, among others — that daily papers would be greatl)' improved by the abolition of the editorial page. Why should not interpretation, criticism, and comment be left to the weeklies and monthlies, whose editors and contributors have the leisure and opportunity to inform themselves upon the topics they are called upon to discuss ? Superficial and hasty comment, even when well-intended, is worthless, and this would seem to point to a division of labor between the daily and the weekly press. Why not reserve comment for the latter, while giving to the former a monopoly of the news ?

The suggestion is hardly a practical one. In the first place, the editors of the daily papers will never surrender so substantial a part of their power and sovereignty. Their interest is not identical with that of society at large. Their liability to error does not occasion them much anxiety. In the second place, they do not admit that weekly papers, as a rule, exhibit greater firmness and wisdom in their handling of grave, difficult, or com- plex questions. In the third place, the public is impatient and wants the comment served with the news — fresh, hot, and piquant. The average man is not a stickler for precision and impartiality, and in these days of rapid and intense activity he will not wait several days, and often a week, for comment upon news in which he is interested.

The notion of divorcing news from comment is unsound for another reason, already implied. It is an error to suppose that the elimination of the editorial page would remove temptation and conduce to greater responsibility and fairness. The editor who tries to make the worse appear the better reason in his interpretations, who deliberately misleads his readers, will not be disarmed by the disappearance of comment. He will achieve his object in another and easy way — by "editing" the news, by suppression, exaggeration, emphasis, depreciation, and the thousand and one tricks known to the trade. We know how