Page:The Social Value of a Code of Ethics for Journalists.pdf/5

174 {{c|{{sc|The Day of the "Promotion" Agent}}

The despised "press agent" of an earlier day has developed first into the "publicity man" and then into the "promotion" expert. Now he often bears a still more dignified title. He is, perhaps, in a large corporation a fourth vice-president; in politics he is paid with tax money as "secretary" to this or that official or "assistant secretary" in some department; he thrives independently as an "agency"; in large organizations he often multiplies into a department; in some scores of universities he is camouflaged as "president's secretary" or as "professor of journalism," with duties to practice the lower functions of the profession rather than to teach the higher. His name is Legion. He was formerly a newspaper man, and a good one. He left the profession for a higher salary than he was earning as reporter or copy editor. The increasing power and prestige of the "promotion" industry helps to anesthetise the wound to his professional conscience and pride. As a trained newspaper man he needed no written code to tell him that it was wrong to sell his pen and to write news for the public under the censorship of a private interest.

He is a real problem; scolding will not eliminate him. He is respectable. After a course in sophistry, necessitated by his self-esteem, he comes to regard himself as ethical, and his own careful statement of his functions exhibits him as a useful member of society. He worked for the government and helped win the War. Newspapers reject the great bulk of his copy, but apparently they accept enough of it to justify his existence economically.

No section of the Oregon Code has aroused so much discussion as the following sentence:

{{quote|We will not permit, unless in exceptional cases, the publishing of news and editorial matter not prepared by ourselves or our staffs, believing that original matter is the best answer to the peril of propaganda.}}

Without the saving clause "exceptional cases," this rule would be as futile as King Canute sweeping back the tide. A great many cases are "exceptional" to this rule in average newspaper practice the country over. Not only is much of the most able and most highly paid journalistic talent of the country working today on these "exceptional cases" for private interests but the new system, that has grown so great since the War demonstrated the efficacy of organized propaganda, has obtained nearly exclusive control of much of the most important news matter, and has nearly shut out the professional journalist from many of its sources.

No more than any other tradesman does the promotion agent live by his vices. He is strong because of his virtues. The news he writes he writes well. He is well trained; he has every reason for exercising great care in his work. He has sympathetic access to the prime movers in the events he records; he fortifies himself by reference to documents; he has greater leisure than the reporter and often devotes it to a sound study of his specialty. His employers value his work because it is more accurate, fairer (especially to them) than the articles that used to appear as the result of their verbal interviews with reporters, and because his articles, after they are written, can be examined and perfected before publication.

{{c|{{sc|Social Implications of the Promotion System}}}}

Therefore the powerful men of the community prefer to speak through their promotion agents and, as a corollary, no longer submit with the