Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/501

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

it is fatal to it. The public demands the news, the press is organ ized to meet the demand, and such papers as fail to do this , fall by the wayside. Some papers undoubtedly suppress the news, but in so doing they run great risks and in the end pay a heavy price

for it. To attribute the suppression of the newsto malicious de sign on the part of the press as a whole is to charge the press with suicidal intent.

Buthas the public an inherent right to demand the publication of all or any news? The newspaper, like the hotel, is a private enterprise dependent on the public for support, but notwith standing this, like the hotel it has the right to exercise selection ; like the church, each newspaper ministers to its own constituency and makes little attempt to please all, - the Presbyterian clergy

man does not expect Episcopalians to attend his services and his sermons presumably do notmeet the wishes and beliefs of Roman Catholics, - one newspaper constituency clamors for one kind of news, and another one is grossly offended by its publication ; like

the college, it is free to admit what conforms to its standards and, like the college, its standards are multifarious ; like the private school, it may exclude certain sects , races, or occupations from

its corps of teachers as well as from its body of pupils. The news paper has the universal prerogative of selection ; the public has the moral right to know whatever concerns the public welfare, but it has no moral or legal right to compel the press to be the medium through which it acquires this knowledge. If the news

paper selects its news wisely , the public supports it ; if it makes an injudicious selection , if it suppresses what ought to be printed in the interests of the public welfare , the public withdraws its sup

port and the newspaper goes to the wall. Wherever the evil exists, it quickly cures itself without the exercise of compulsion . News may sometimes be " colored ,” it is said , even when not

suppressed. This is specially true when news dispatches give a complexion to a subject not warranted by the real facts of the case . In 1917, the lower house of the Swedish Parliament passed by an overwhelming majority, without a division , a bill giving suffrage to women ; in the non -representative upper house, the question remained as before, but the majority was so small that

the change in only a few votes would have turned an adverse