Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/532

 he recent war.

The municipal papers that have recorded the business trans

actions of various cities apparently have been free from many of the temptations that beset the reports of the national legislative

body, but they can be considered " endowed ” only in the sense that they are considered a part of currentmunicipal expenditures.

Newspapers published under or by any form of governmental 77

authority can not be deemed to obviate the errors found in the proprietary press to any greater extent than can a regularly en dowed press.

The attempt has been made to show that the material of the newspaper, as regards its authoritativeness,may be classed under three heads, — the first class carries with it an absolute guarantee of its reliability, the second class carries with it only a partialbut

a fairly presumptive guarantee of its trustworthiness, the third where the largest number of errors are found, but it is also the class where the errors are presumably of least importance. It seems reasonable, therefore, to connect the source of errors in the

press with the causes giving rise to them and to apply a remedy to suit the case. If many errors found in the press spring from

inaccuracy, ignorance, lack of observation, and similar causes, they must be explained by the inadequacy of the reporter, and the remedy would seem to lie in securing reporters who have had better training, giving them greater responsibility, and holding them to higher standards. In so far as errors come from sensation

alism, the causemay be found in the poor taste of thenewspaper reading public, and the remedy may lie in educating the taste of

the public through offering them newspapers of improved character. Where errors have their source in premature release they may be explained by a defective organization of the news paper staff and the remedy may be found in a re-organization of both the editorial and the business side of the newspaper. If errors come through a censorship imposed on the press by authority in any form, it is authority thatmust be so re-consti

tuted as to make possible complete freedom of the press. 77 C. R. Woodruff, “ Municipal Newspapers,” The Survey, August 19 , 1911, 26 : 720 - 723.