Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/531

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

that are so largely responsible for the unauthoritativeness of the

press, it would be responsive to the demands of the community where it was published and be as susceptible as is the unendowed press to conditions that militate against its prosperity, such as industrial methods and disease . Inspiring as is the idea of an endowed press that does not cater to the public , that is not

compelled to print " what will sell,” that can speak to the public as it ought to be spoken to , rather than as it wishes to be spoken to, its realization seems inherently improbable. Since it has not as yet been realized , it is impossible to speak of it except in terms of the subjunctive. Whether the endowed press would in and of itself be more authoritative than the present proprietary press must therefore

remain a purely academic question. It seems clear that less pressure for it is exerted to-day than formerly , - an indication

that the adverse conditions it was relied on to redress have been alleviated through other means. It is also evident that while schools of journalism have everywhere succeeded in spite of the

early opposition to the idea , the endowed newspaper has made

little or no headway. Had there been at any timea well-grounded belief in the efficacy of the endowed press as a panacea for the admitted evils of the press, such a press would have been established .

State supported newspapers have in turn been urged as a means of avoiding the evils of a proprietary press. But the periodicals

already published under government auspices 76 can not always be given a clean bill of health . Some of these do not technically give news,but others, like theCongressional Record, that ostensibly give official records and are , therefore, presumably authoritative,

are in reality open to grave doubt on that score. “ Leave to print” has long been an open scandal in connection with the official report of the deliberations of Congress, and the unofficial Searchlight, published by the National Voters' League, has given

a needed corrective in listing month by month under the caption “ Speechless Speeches” the undelivered speeches printed in the Congressional Record . 76 E . E . Slosson gives the number published in 1912 as thirty -nine. It has been impossible to ascertain the exact number for which the government stood sponsor during t