Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 129.djvu/58

52 was probably common thirty years ago; to-day it is comparatively infrequent. And the whole process of corrupting the news, where corruption to-day exists, is less often the deliberate work of men bent on falsehood than a process of drifting before the winds of circumstance, timidity, and self-interest.

The newspaper profession is steadily advancing, not only in the effectiveness of its news-gathering machinery, but also in its standing in the community and in its ethical standards. Early in the last century there was so little recognition of the rights of the press that Henry Clay, making a political speech in Kentucky, ordered off the field a reporter who had the impertinence to report him without first getting special permission. It was not until some time after the beginning of the Civil War that the Government at Washington made satisfactory arrangements for issuing its news to all newspaper men simultaneously, instead of giving it haphazard to the first comer. Now the President and the members of his Cabinet confer with the press representatives once or twice a day; and, as a matter of course, reporters are given front seats at almost every kind of public occasion.

Two generations ago the leading New York editors called each other blackguards and scoundrels in their editorial columns — a practice which to-day would be considered disreputable. Some twenty years ago Mr. Henry Watterson declared that journalism was ‘without any code of ethics or system of self-restraint and self-respect; The standard of newspaper conduct and of impartiality has risen conspicuously since then. The papers of one political party cannot dismiss the deeds of their opponents with such brief notice as they could once. In the recent presidential campaign, a Republican paper in Boston gave more space than any of the Democratic papers to an appeal for Mr. Cox issued by a group of men in New York, while a Democratic paper in t he same city ran a straw ballot and printed the results day by day on its front page, although they favored Mr. Harding. Despite all that I have said about the frequent tendency among newspaper owners to side with targe financial interests, it must in fairness be acknowledged that most papers give front-page space to Mr. Gompers quite as readily as to Judge Gary. Editors now observe with the utmost care release dates on material furnished them in advance, and most newspaper men can be trusted with confidential information or with facts not yet ripe for publication.

Assiduous as Mr. Sinclair may be in picking out for display the black spots in the record of the Associated Press, I believe this great news-disseminating service to be about as thoroughly imbued with the spirit of impartiality as any organization of its size and extent could well be. Its reports from Washington are models of fairness as between Republicans and Democrats. When I wrote of the difficulty of preparing an unbiased report, perhaps I should have added, ‘ But it can be done — witness the A.P. service from Washington.’ The conduct of the Associated Press in political campaigns is equally scrupulous. If sometimes, in some places, its correspondents reflect the economic prejudices of the owners of its member papers, no one should judge it for such transgressions without taking into account. the tremendous influence that it wields elsewhere on behalf of accuracy.

Yet, if the press is to carry successfully the increasing responsibility which results from the public’s increasing reliance upon it, it must not be content with its present record of improvement. How can improvement be hastened?