Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/514



Public opinion of the press has vacillated between the weight attached to it in the proverb “ four hostile newspapers are more

to be feared than a thousand bayonets ” and the contemptuous have written on the waning power of the press 44 and the student of history can but ask, assuming that it is true to speak thus of the press, how far this declining influence vitiates its serviceableness

as historical material. But the student of history realizes that in the last analysis the answer to the question as to how far the newspaper can be au thoritatively used in writing history can not come from noting what historians have or have not done in the past; it can not be answered by considering how prominent and intelligent men have regarded the press; it can not be decided by the popular opinion

of the press ; it can not be determined even by what newspaper men themselves think of their own profession ; the question can be answered only by a study of the press itself. Does this study

of the press show how far it can be used to reconstruct the past, does it show what are its own limitations in such reconstruction , can the sources of errancy be isolated, and can principles be conditions that justify his use of the press as historical material?

If the analysis of the press thus far given is reasonably correct, itmust be evident that a large part of the newspaper is concerned with giving information of very definite concrete nature for the authoritativeness of which governments, known organizations, associations, and individuals are fully responsible, and in effect guarantee. These guarantees are as absolute as it is possible to

find, and they affect the permanent parts of the newspaper and much of the news proper except local news. Another large portion of the newspaper is in the twilight 44 Francis E. Leupp, Atlantic Monthly, February, 1910 , 105: 145 - 156. He attributes it to the transfer of policies and properties from personal to

impersonal control ; the rise of the cheap magazine; the tendency to speciali zation ; competition in the newspaper business; the demand for larger

capital, " unsettling the former equipoise between the counting -room and the editorial room ;" the mania for hurry; the development of the news

getting at the expense of the news-interpreting function ; the remoulding the narration of facts to confirm office-made policies; the disregard of decency

in the choice of news to be specially exploited ; the scant time given by men of the world for reading journals of general intelligence.