So common an object as a newspaper is seldom the subject of serious reflection. If any one of us should stop to consider what it is and why it is made, it is odds that he would think chiefly of one aspect of it to the general exclusion of the others. The curious man might reflect in surprise on the vast amount of mere reading matter turned out regularly every morning with perhaps only half a dozen literal mistakes, on the variety of typesetting and the amount of printing, often more than sufficient to make a large sized book. The manufacturer would direct his imagination to the efficient machinery necessary to produce perhaps 3,000 copies a minute or to the practised organization, able to distribute them, as fast as they are printed. The business man would think chiefly of a newspaper, as a vehicle for prices and a medium for advertising. Cooks, butlers, clerks and governesses look upon it as a daily registry office. The solicitor sells houses and lands through it. Housewives through it sometimes buy their soaps and more often their hats. Actors, singers, authors, artists and musicians each read their special column and wonder when the editor intends to engage some one really acquainted with the only subject worth reading. The politician will read its leading articles with smirking assent or explosive repudiation. Last of all comes the general reader and he asks nothing more of his newspaper than all the news of everywhere, collected at great cost, transcribed with finished skill and presented to him in just the way which pleases and flatters him most. All of them have on their lips the daily threat of giving up the paper, if they are not scrupulously satisfied.

In writing about “the newspaper” it seems to me most useful to the greatest number of readers to dwell much less on those sides of a newspaper, which are most familiar to all of us, however interesting in itself everything connected with the editorial conduct of a paper may be, than on the central entity behind them, which makes the public functions possible and actual. In other words I shall write chiefly of what most people seldom or never see and but little of all those aspects of any newspaper, which every reader is accustomed to judge for himself. To do otherwise would require an encyclopÆdia to hold the mere bulk of material and would also bring oneself flat against the serried ranks of fixed opinions. Every one is quite sure that he knows “what he wants” and “what he wants” is always “the best” for him. To lay down the law therefore on matters which are the subject of common opinion is a danger to be evaded whenever possible and I propose only to deal very slightly with what is generally known as “the press” and for the larger part of my space shall try to explain the mechanism, which industriously collects, enshrines in print and tirelessly circulates all the material, whether news or literary, to every attainable corner of the country and also the organism, which by serving the business needs of its community, acquires the immense revenues, which alone make the continued existence of the other possible.

A newspaper is of all modern private institutions the most comprehensive in function and complicated in principle. Perhaps the only thing at all comparable to it in these respects is a ship. A ship, engaged on a voyage, almost equals the triple life of a newspaper, because it is for the time being a place of residence, a means of travel and a conveyor of traffic. But voyages are short and discontinuous with one another, while the existence of a newspaper is organically continuous from the issue of the first number to bankruptcy and very often even afterwards. In every case, the newspaper is a vehicle for the satisfaction of human wants and that in three diverse ways; but the odd thing is that none of these ways, although they actually in practice overlap, are essentially related to one another. The newspaper is primarily a collector and distributor of news and in this function has long ago beaten every possible rival out of the field. Secondarily it is a vehicle of opinion and in virtue of this capacity it often becomes the prey of the mighty or the victim of the long purse; but still it continues to draw from its other functions and powers a capacity for resistance to outside pressure, which guarantees to it more independence than sometimes appears on the surface. Lastly it serves as the great introducer of business from one trader to another. It has been estimated, that the annual amount spent on advertising in general is not less than £600,000,000 in civilized countries and it would be safe to say, that probably something like one half of this amount passes into the treasuries of journals and other periodicals, all or nearly all of which fulfil in one way or another the functions of a newspaper for their special circles of readers. It is the existence of this colossal revenue, more than double the annual budget of the United Kingdom, which makes possible the costly task of collecting and transmitting the news of the world from all places to all other places at once. It is a commonplace that the small amount paid by each reader for the purchase of his paper, whatever it may be, would be very far from defraying the expenses of providing him with all that he will find in it.

Let us examine these functions of a newspaper separately. By far the most important and exacting task, which falls to its lot, is the provision of a daily—or weekly as the case may be—supply of news and that not of any news nor of enough news but of all the news. The distinction is of immense practical importance because it trebles the difficulty imposed on the conductors of a newspaper. The outsider, who as a general rule consults only a small part of the reading matter provided for him, sometimes finds in any issue very little that immediately interests him and a vast deal that does not. He therefore commonly receives the impression of a large amount of space regularly wasted. Very few readers are aware of the simple truth that, of what may be called pure news matter, almost every issue has had at least as much “copy” provided for it and rejected as appears in the paper. The practical task of the editors and sub-editors in making up their daily issues consists not in scraping together material for the printer but in rejecting it. Of an evening paper with its successive editions this is even more true, many a report or “story” appearing in the early morning and being cut down or “killed” before nightfall. The great responsibility assumed by all editors, to which they are very seldom unfaithful, is the provision of all news, everything printable that has happened close to rail or wire or not kept secret by governments or private parties. There is only one excuse for leaving out any item of news and that is that more important news has claimed precedence of it and crowded it out.

It is evident therefore that the collection of news is strictly speaking extra-editorial or, to be more precise, it is under the general but not the immediate direction of the editor. It is an elaborate and almost automatic system, consisting partly of a world-wide organization for general news, which works for the common benefit of a large number of papers, and partly of a particular corps attached to each individual newspaper. It is the special function of this private organization to secure, if possible, exclusive news for its own paper and at any rate to emphasize and pay particular attention to that class of news, which each paper considers its own strong point. Yet while it is true that this duplicate and to some extent self-overlapping system fulfils the fundamental duty of every paper, which can be called in any sense a newspaper, it is not that side of newspaper life, which arouses the greatest amount of attention from outside, at any rate in this country, nor does it absorb the greatest amount of energy and talent within. The sensational part of journalism is the control of opinion.

It is usual in speaking of the editorial side of a paper for nearly everyone, who is not within the narrow ring of professionals, to mean the latter function of the paper and not the mere collection and reproduction of news. This is true not only of periodicals and weeklies but also of the great morning dailies, which are by far the most influential part of that institution, which we casually refer to as “the press.” Here is where power is presumed to reside. Whether it be politics or art or finance, everyone, who wants anything important done to influence the general public, feels that it is here that the first and most valiant effort must be made. The press must be got at and persuaded or bullied into taking what is the only possible point of view, as each individual sees it for himself. And as there are always dozens and perhaps hundreds struggling more or less successfully to get to the one central point, where opinion is supposed to be controlled, the illusion is set up that here is where events are being guided, whereas they are only being agitated. The efforts and influences generally balance themselves so evenly that the net result is generally independent of any single personality. What governs all these efforts in the end is the interest, which the general reader will take in the particular matter in question and by the general reader, I mean in this connection, those particular readers, who habitually look out for any special news or discussion on any named subject. The power, which a newspaper has of taking a subject from one plane of interest to another and thus widening the number of those to whom a special matter will appeal, is nearly always determined by an editorial estimate of the amount of interest it will arouse, which is not strictly speaking an analysis of its real importance but a prevision of the psychology of the majority of readers, who will judge it next day.

Although to many of us the power of the press presents itself, perhaps mistakenly, as largely an illusion, it cannot be denied that here lies the romantic interest of the newspaper world to nine men out of ten. Those, who, like musical or dramatic artists, habitually come before the public, are apt to be obsessed by the importance of what is said or done by the press; authors, politicians and prominent citizens are not above actively canvassing it; even royalty and the state government are careful to give it whatever guidance will be tolerated. Dear to the imagination also of the occasional visitor to a newspaper office are the inconceivable complications of one subject tumbling over another at the last moment in competition, to find out which of the two should be crowded out. Let me quote in illustration of this tossed and wayward charm of self-important confusion a brilliant description of an editorial room at the last moment from a recent work of fiction.[1]

“Brumby’s editorial room was fit to visit the dreams of a dramatist. Used as a scene, whole ranges of characters could have popped in and out of it all night, and nobody run into any one else till the good of the play required. For its walls were mainly door; for dooring’s sake Wellington, Canning, Dizzy himself (after Millais) were skied; doors to right of him, doors to left of him, at one hand a row of bell-buttons, close as on a page’s bosom, at the other a serried squad of mouths of speaking-tubes, Brumby sat like a brain centre in a nervous system—the simile is his; at least he borrowed it first—feeling at all the threads and living along each line.

“All the evening all the forces of the press, now centripetal and now centrifugal, drew in upon this core to take direction or were sped outwards from it, aimed and animated. To and from the central, octagonal, skylighted room were sucked in or radiated forth each by his proper door, along the spoke-like corridors, the office messengers with ‘copy,’ proofs, letters and telegrams; the foreman shirt-sleeved from the composing-room, asking the size of to-morrow’s paper; the publisher, not yet perspiring, to know how much per cent. Lord Allbury’s speech, the thing of to-night, should add on to the parcels for the outer towns; sub-editors doubting how much to make of some not very well-born rumour of a row inside the Cabinet, or if it might be libel, though it were true, to say a borough treasurer had turned invisible since Thursday; the porter from the lift bringing in callers’ cards—the Manager, Theatre Royal—would not detain the editor one instant; writer of a letter—turnstiles needed on trams—would the editor see him, simply for five minutes—reform vital; small deputation from Hospital Friday Committee—had not liked to give him the trouble beforehand to make an appointment; bankrupt of some hours’ standing—just two words about to-morrow’s report—could nothing be done about the judge’s conduct—method of choosing official receivers, too, thoroughly faulty. Thence would the war correspondent post, at Brumby’s bidding, over land and ocean without rest, bent to sweeten the sacred home life of the Warden’s readers with all the heroic pleasures of war, unalloyed by groin wounds or enteric. To this call at the heart of the hive the reporter, home from some delicate quest, would come to lay up in the charge of the queen-bee that most perfect flavoured news, which you could never put in the paper.”

There is no word here which is not true description, both in letter and in spirit, capable of being annually multiplied by the number of week-days in the year, except Christmas Day in some offices. Of all this our presumed visitor might see one quarter and understand but the half of that; yet it is all Fleet Street to a cup of coffee at 1 a.m., that what he did see and understand would dazzle and intoxicate him. He would not know, that for every one professionally concerned in the furious hive all this bustle had long ago become mere routine, that everything had its method of being tested and that while almost nothing was left to chance, intelligence had not often very much more to say in the matter. Every kind of difficulty had occurred a hundred times before; every decision given was an old one, that had been taken before the oldest compositor was born; there was only one thing that changed and kept changing and remained the perpetual preoccupation of workers, little and big—he himself, the visitor, the reader, the representative of the general public.

As far as the public is concerned, there is very little distinction made between the function of newspapers as newsgatherers and their duties as purveyors of opinion. This arises from a very simple cause. While news is nominally an impersonal thing, as a matter of practice it is far from being so. In obtaining it the faculty of selection is required in the highest degree by the newsgatherer or “story-writer.” Selection again is strenuously required in determining the competition between one item of news and another. Finally the presentation of news in words and paragraphs leaves a wide opening for individual preferences and inclinations. Thus it comes about, naturally enough, that the same series of habits, which govern the conduct of avowed opinion in a newspaper, habits summed up briefly in the term, the policy of the paper, express themselves, not so consciously but even more effectively, in its news columns. Readers, who are on their guard against the intention of the editor in that part of the paper, which is avowedly the vehicle of opinion, retaining a certain critical faculty, wherever they have reason to believe that their favourite newspaper is not what they call “sound,” are quite unsuspicious of the news columns and accept as plain facts statements, which have perhaps undergone three unconscious garblings. It is therefore paradoxically true that where a group of men conducting a paper consciously try to exert an influence in a certain direction their intention is often discounted and they produce very little effect. Whereas otherwise, through being the medium of the distribution of mere news, a newspaper will wield unconsciously a very considerable influence over its readers and may continue indefinitely to do so, so long as it does not exploit this subtle power in any way, which is detected to be conspicuously unfair.

The last aspect of a newspaper is much less impressive to outsiders than anything, which appears in print in its columns. Every newspaper is a commercial organism subject to the same laws of life and death, which govern businesses in general. It has to build up a goodwill sometimes slowly and against great odds, almost accidentally, in other cases meteorically and insolently. Its peculiar faculty of dealing in publicity both ways, through its news columns gratuitously and through its advertisements for payment, give it a special power of making its own way independently of outside help, in certain cases of advancing itself by the aid of its own enemies. To succeed it must be talked about and abuse is welcome, almost as much so as praise. Once arrived at the eminence of an extensive popularity it becomes able to help others and thus acquires the revenue necessitated by its own expensive wants. But these wants are the great obstacle to any flash success. In the case of a new daily morning paper it is impossible to start with any less equipment than the best and richest of its rivals. The income from the sales of the paper is trivial and for some time it has to support enormous expenses out of capital, until it has not only established an undoubtedly important circulation but has also convinced the numerous classes of advertisers that this circulation has been securely attained, a problem which is sometimes even more difficult to solve than the other. All these questions and problems fall under the classification of business management, which we shall arrive at in due time.

The life and power of any newspaper or periodical is thus doubly entrusted to the hands of its readers and to their opinion of it. They must draw from it amusement, instruction and business facilities and for the latter the newspaper proprietor is even more concerned than for the former. The secret of the miracle whereby 6d. or 10 cents worth of news and literary matter can be sold in the streets for one penny or one cent is that the reader makes a return to the newspaper for every copy, which he buys, equivalent to the difference in price. This return is afforded by his attention, a commodity in these days of busy competition in exchanges, which it is extremely hard to secure and worth therefore to the advertising world a very considerable body of wealth.