Page:The Dial vol. 15 (July 1 - December 16, 1893).djvu/91

 

THE DIAL

THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of each month. 82.00 a year in advance, postage prepaid in the United States, Canada, and Mexico; in other countries comprised in the Postal Union, 50 cents a year for extra postage must be added. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current number. should be by check, or by express or postal order, payable to THE DIAL. s and for subscriptions with other publications will be sent on application; and on receipt of 10 cents. furnished on application. All communications should be addressed to THE DIAL, No. 24 Adams Street, Chicago.

No. 172.

  A NEWSPAPER SYMPOSIUM.

A group of articles upon the subject of American Journalism, published in the August "Forum," offers no little food for reflection. The continuous degradation of the American newspaper has long been admitted by all who are competent to express an opinion upon the subject; it would be difficult to-day to find an intelligent and disinterested observer who would make, otherwise than as a hypocritical pretence, the claim that our average newspaper is in any sense a leader of public opinion. Even those who, engaged in the " new journalism,' 7 attempt its defence, are growing bold enough to cast off the mask, and cynically to disavow all aims not comprised within such terms as "popularity," " commercial success," and " unprecedented circulation." Most of them are frank enough to admit that these considerations are the only ones to be seriously taken into account, and that the work of newspaper production is, like the work of the dealer in real-estate or of the stock-broker, essentially a form of money-getting. The fact is, of course, as all persons will admit whose moral perceptions are not hopelessly blunted, that the profession of the journalist carries with it certain inseparable responsibilities, and that to ignore these responsibilities, or to take refuge behind the fact that the law (that excellent but necessarily imperfect rule of conduct) does not enforce them, is simply to set morality at defiance. In all occupations, indeed, there are ethical as well as legal limitations upon freedom of action; but in the professions (and journalism surely ought to be numbered among them) the limitations imposed by ethics are peculiarly obvious and imperative. The aims of the newspaper, from the ethical standpoint, may for convenience be classified under three heads: 1. As a collector of news, pure and simple, its work should be done in the scientific spirit, placing accuracy of statement above all other considerations. . In its selection and arrangement of the news thus collected, it should have regard to real rather than sensational values; it should present its facts in their proper perspective (which is still, of course, a very different perspective from that required by permanent history); and it should carefully exclude, or at least minimize to the utmost, those facts which it cannot possibly benefit the public to know, or of which the knowledge is likely to vulgarize popular taste and lower popular standards of morality. . In its comment upon the happenings of the day or the week, it is bound to be honest, to stand for well-defined principles, to express the sincere convictions of its intellectual head and of those associated with him in the work. 