Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/311



newspaper historically has had three distinct functions; the first was to publish the news, the second was to interpret the news and thereby to influence public opinion, the third has been to gain success as a business enterprise. The editor and the editorial belong to that period in the history of the press when the chief interest of the public in reading the newspaper lay in knowing what opinions it was right and wise to hold in regard to the great questions of the day. It was practically a hundred years after the appearance of the first English news paper before the editorial appeared even in shadowy form, and long after that before it assumed the responsibility of leading public opinion. Defoe introduced into Mist's Journal a "Letter Introductory,"—an essay written in the form of a letter on some subject of public interest. It is on the basis of this "Letter Introductory" that Lee claims "for Defoe that he first originated, and exemplified in his own person, those mighty agencies, in the formation and direction of public opinion, now comprehended in the words 'Editor' and 'Leading Article.