Page:The Social Value of a Code of Ethics for Journalists.pdf/6

 old freedom to the interviewing of the journalist. "There is my prepared statement; I have nothing more to add. If you have further questions to ask, leave them in writing and we will supply you with a supplementary article."

The social implications of this new system are serious in the extreme. The professional journalist is cut off from much of the most important and difficult work of his profession. He loses the stimulus that comes from the necessity of careful research in dealing with the more complicated sort of news. He has lost this important function partly because he did not learn to do it well, because he often preferred "features" to facts, because he sometimes wanted only a "good story," careless of the consequences to those most concerned, because he so frequently left the person who submitted to his questioning in a state of anxious and fully justified doubt as to the use that was to be made of his words.

But only partly. Powerful individuals never like to be cross examined, and now they have largely exempted themselves from the questioning minds of the reporters who, with all their faults, represented the point of view and, as best they could, the interests of the public. Much that happens in these days is presented to the public in the words of the actors or their satellites, without evaluation through the mind of the professional journalist.

Whole sections devoted to the automobile industry, columns of theatrical "notes" and even "criticism," book "reviews," much industrial, financial and real estate "news," college and university items, stories of organized uplift movements, and a considerable body of political and administrative news from governmental centers are furnished to the press in the form of publicity "handouts." Papers use varying amounts, some very little; some freely. All is more or less biased by private interest.

The publication of a written code brings such questions as this to the forefront of discussion. They become more likely to receive thoughtful consideration. Perhaps the answer to this one—the problem of propaganda—will not be the elimination of the promotion agent; perhaps the best immediate step will be a practice of plainly labelling all such matter with its origin and the character of its authorship; it would seem that fairness to the public could scarcely do less.

Economic laws are behind most of the tendencies of present day journalism. The public is not willing to pay the newspaper for studious and unbiased and laborious researches into public and business questions while the private interests concerned are willing to relieve the newspapers of this expense for the apparently trifling privilege of editing the copy from their own point of view.

Police news and scandal, again, are cheap and easy to get. The officers of the law and the courts, paid by the state, assume most of the expense of gathering the facts. A single reporter, stationed at a strategic point, can collect columns of readable news of this kind in a single day, while the economic reporter engaged on an industrial item might require greater ability and training and yet have to work weeks upon a single article. The tendency, therefore, can scarcely be ignored to let industry and government assume the burden of the more expensive investigations, while the reporter employed by the newspaper concentrates upon the most productive matter—the cheap stuff.

If the public can be educated—and