Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/49

 al may bemade,

it has no formulated laws governing its policy, and no court decisions to which resort may be made. Such external laws as

directly affect it, as libel laws, are purely negative and pro hibitory and in no sense afford a standard of belief or of conduct. . Collectively it is a mass of shapeless material that can not be made amenable to the forces of order and reason.

The historian perhaps also shares the current opinion in regard

to the credibility of the newspaper. This seems to be equally divided between those who dismiss the whole question by saying, “ You can't believe anything you read in the papers," and those who aver with equal emphasis, “ I know it's so, I read it in the paper.” But the historian can not follow the golden mean so

often advised in other quandaries and say that he will trust one-half of the newspapers and reject the other half of them ,

or that he will believe one-half of every newspaper and dis believe the other half, - he must know very definitely just what part is to be accepted and what part is to be rejected. Since this in its turn has seemed a difficult matter to determine, he has at times been tempted to include the newspaper in his wholesale condemnation of all material that is unreliable, inaccurate, and sensational. If at other times he has tolerated its use by others,

it has been with the blanket warning, “ newspapers must be used with great care and discretion ,” — an injunction that in its turn becomes difficult of application. The old proverb “ familiarity breeds contempt” must also be applied to the newspaper since its very accessibility becomes in the eyes of the public the best of reasons for ignoring it. Un consciously this same idea has been the basis of the procedure of the historian since he has often apparently believed that the more difficult it is to find material the more worthy of credence

it is when found. This is in a measure counterbalanced by the lavish use made by the press of the telegraph, the cable, and the wireless and the importance unconsciously attached to all mes sages received by these means, but this only in part brings from the historian a hesitating recognition of the value of the news

paper for his work. But while these doubts still prevail there has been a noticeable change of attitude on the part of historians towards the news