1922] on Journalism 467 



determine, although he was wont to act as a matter of fact on the 

 fiat of the Home Secretary. It so happened in the case of one 

 great and historic journal that a military writer had offended against 

 the regulations, and it was decided by the authorities to take action, 

 but the particular procedure had not been determined when I was 

 asked to go to No. 10 Downing Street for counsel and advice. I 

 strongly recommended the executive officers not to create the scandal 

 of stopping the issue of the paper, but merely to prosecute those 

 who were said to have endangered the military position under the 

 ordinary forms of law which had several times been tested and 

 applied. My advice was taken, and a fine was inflicted by the Court 

 according to precedent. Thus I was enabled in a small way to 

 strengthen the great tradition of freedom of the Press in this 

 country, even under circumstances of the gravest crisis. To-night I 

 merely mention it to show that every day brought to the conductors 

 and managers of the Press heavy risks in credit and circulation. 



This toning down or tuning down of war news has nothing to do 

 with the turning and twisting the events of the day to suit a par- 

 ticular line of policy, or still worse a special kind of interest, in anj 

 line of life. If it be done, and so far as it is done it merits tin 

 condemnation of all honest people, and assuredly in the long run it 

 brings its own Nemesis in the loss of public respect and following, 

 if not in the loss of revenue and circulation. 



The selection of news is another aspect of the same problem. 

 The enormous circulations of this century are only possible provided 

 the papers are comparatively easy to handle and relatively cheap to 

 buy, and this of itself is the necessity and justification for what has 

 been called "tabloid" journalism. In Victorian days the great 

 feature of The] Times was the fullness and accuracy of the Parlia- 

 mentary reports. It was, of course, the golden age of Parliamentary 

 Government. Lord Chaplin told me that the first speech he made 

 in the House of Commons on Ireland, which he had been studying 

 on the spot during the recess, was reported in The Times to the 

 length of five columns. I have no hesitation in saying that such a 

 phenomenon would be impossible now, were the Archangel Gabriel 

 elected as an Independent Member, or even as an An ti- "Waster, 

 although his photograph would appear as a main block or as an inset, 

 and not only in pictorial press, for all the press is now illustrated in 

 parts. Immediately the verbatim system becomes either impossible 

 or impracticable, the method of cutting down of or selecting 

 begins, and human nature being what it is, it is exceedingly likely 

 that the reporter, like Dr. Johnson, will not " let the Whig dogs 

 have the best of it." All you can ask for or expect is a reasonable 

 scale of fair dealing, and here again to be violently and vitriolically 

 partisan does not pay in the long run, for it defeats and denies the 

 claim of any newspaper to be really national in character. 



In America reporting of speeches or addresses of any kind is very 



