Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 129.djvu/52

 is done, and understand how easily the twist of a phrase in headline or leading paragraph, by giving a biased impression, may cause thousands of readers to form opinions based, not on the facts, but on somebody else's view of the facts. This cardinal rule of newspaper ethics — that what is presented as sheer fact should be accurate and without bias — is easy to state. It is harder to live up to than anybody can imagine who has not faced the newspaper man’s problem for himself. In the first place, it is hard for a reporter, just as for any other person, to give an absolutely accurate account of any event, even when he has seen it with his own eyes. The fallibility of even first-hand evidence from eye-witnesses is well known; no one can read a book like the late Professor Mtinsterberg’s On the Witness Stand without appreciating what the reporter is up against. Furthermore, it is also exceedingly hard to write an account of any event without coloring it with one’s own opinions. Though the reporter has every intention of stating only the clear facts, he may give them bias simply through his choice of language. Suppose one senator denounces another in a speech. Shall the reporter write, ‘Senator A— sternly rebuked Senator B—,’ or shall he use the words ‘vigorously attacked,’ or ‘sharply attacked,’ or ‘fiercely attacked’? If he decides upon ‘sternly rebuked,’ he seems to favor Senator A—, who uttered the rebuke; if he says ‘fiercely attacked,’ he gives no such favorable impression, and the reader tends instinctively to side with the senator who was attacked. Shall he, in describing an automobile accident, say, ‘The truck was going at a terrific rate,’ or content himself with, ‘The truck was said to have been going thirty miles an hour,’ and leave the reader to decide whether this was a ‘ terrific ’ rate for a t ruck to be going at in that place at that time? Or suppose he must give an account of something really difficult to record objectively — the applause, let us say, which greeted the closing sentence of President Harding’s inaugural address. Was it enthusiastic or perfunctory; was it general, or half-hearted and scattered? The truth here is a matter of judgment. One man thinks the applause large, because he knows beforehand how hard it is to hear a public speech out of doors without distractions, and therefore expects something less impressive than actually occurs. Another man, who comes to the inaugural expecting an ovation, is disappointed. Then again the reporter’s political sympathies, his personal opinion of Mr. Harding, and his own enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm for the address are almost sure to influence his judgment of the facts.

If he were the crack reporter of an opposition paper, he might, with every intention of giving the exact truth, write something like this, which appeared in the New York Times on the morning of March 5, 1921: —

Mr. Harding has a good voice, and the amplifier in the roof of the kiosk carried his voice as far as the House and Senate office-buildings. Considering that the average inaugural address is audible only to those who stand within fifteen feet of the President, this was an enormous improvement, and enabled the crowd to manifest its feelings, when it had any, with something like spontaneity.

The address was only thirty-seven minutes long, and Mr. Harding delivered its final pledge with a devout solemnity which did not fail to have its effect on the crowd. There was a roar of applause as he concluded and turned to receive the congratulations of those near by, Vice President Coolidge being the first to shake hands with him. Another reporter of Democratic sympathies might regard the applause as