Debates over the media have the habit of sound­ing awfully famil­iar. At the same time, old for­got­ten argu­ments shine a light on things we have stopped wor­ry­ing about, mostly through famili­ar­ity rather than any more com­pel­ling reas­ons. One of the most enjoy­able early crit­ics of the media was Vic­tor S. Yar­ros (1865−1956), a journ­al­ist and anarch­ist (philo­soph­ic­ally rather than ter­ror­ist­ic­ally inclined).

Although Yar­ros had the good sense to retire to Cali­for­nia, he spent much of his work­ing life in Chicago, and was an op-ed writer for the Chicago Daily News. He also edited the Lit­er­ary Digest. In Chicago he lived and worked for twenty years at Hull House, (a kind of Amer­ican Toyn­bee Hall) along­side social worker Jane Addams. He was also a friend of Scopes trial law­yer, Clar­ence Dar­row.

Here is a little of what he had to say — enjoy:

On pro­pri­et­ors

…how many men of prin­ciple, of self-respect, of dig­nity and abil­ity, run newspapers?

We have men who are in the busi­ness for profit. We have men who are in it because they are vain, ambi­tious, pushful.

We have men in the busi­ness who have polit­ical axes to grind, who have friends in pub­lic life whom they wish to advert­ise and “boom.”

We have men in the busi­ness who love power and notoriety.

We have men in the busi­ness who use their papers as adjuncts to fin­an­cial pro­mo­tion and speculation.

Finally, we have men in the busi­ness who, though per­son­ally unfit for it, have suc­ceeded fath­ers or grand­fath­ers of con­spicu­ous fit­ness for journ­al­ism, and who live on past repu­ta­tion and past prestige.

We can no more expect genu­ine journ­al­istic reform from these types of pub­lish­ers and edit­ors than we can expect the pro­ver­bial silken purses from sows’ ears.

The style, ver­ily, is the man. The news­pa­per, to repeat, and its style, from head­lines and offens­ive, naus­eat­ing self-advertising up to the edit­or­ial man­ner and the mode of present­ing news, reflect the proprietor’s men­tal and moral traits.

On trust in the media

The dis­sat­is­fac­tion and the dis­gust with many of our “great news­pa­pers” are more wide­spread and pro­found than one realizes.

As a very thought­ful and act­ive woman of national repu­ta­tion said to the writer lately:

“The pub­lic is sup­posed to be get­ting what it wants in journ­al­ism. It is really tak­ing what it gets.

“Why, I have to read every day a news­pa­per I des­pise. I have to obtain my inform­a­tion, and often I uncon­sciously form opin­ions, under the dir­ec­tion and manip­u­la­tion of men I know and do not respect either mor­ally or intellectually.

“But what can I do? There is no choice. The other papers in my city are even worse in some respects than the one I take.”

Anti­cip­at­ing John Lloyd’s What The Media Are Doing To Our Politics

It is evid­ent that when men­dacity, sen­sa­tion­al­ism, and reck­less­ness reach a cer­tain degree, the advant­ages of pub­li­city and the dis­sem­in­a­tion of facts and inform­a­tion are over­bal­anced by the mis­chiefs and demor­al­iz­ing effects produced.

When we speak of the broad­en­ing and lib­er­al­iz­ing influ­ences of the press, we imply that truth is its watch­word and inspir­a­tion. A venom­ous and hate-inspired press breeds interne­cine and inter­na­tional anim­os­it­ies, fric­tion, fan­at­ical hos­til­ity, and even war.

In France a power­ful sec­tion of the press is so vile, bru­tal, shame­less, and inhu­man that Mr. Bod­ley, in his admir­able study of that coun­try, con­grat­u­lates French­men upon the fact that mul­ti­tudes of peas­ants and labour­ers never read the newspapers.

On edit­ors
Does the editor or his sub­or­din­ate staff ever hes­it­ate to attack, judge, and cor­rect any­body? Is there a ques­tion in sci­ence, reli­gion, eth­ics, eco­nom­ies, polit­ics, that the editor can­not dis­cuss at an hour’s notice?

… The editor is glad to have the sup­port of author­ity, but he is not daun­ted or dis­turbed at find­ing recog­nized author­ity against his position.

The mature opin­ions of schol­ars and experts he treats with a flip­pancy and con­tempt which the slight­est degree of respons­ib­il­ity would render impossible. But the editor is irresponsible.

The judi­cious and com­pet­ent few may laugh at his ignor­ance and pre­sump­tion, but the cheap applause of the many who mis­take smart­ness for wit and loud asser­tion for know­ledge affords abund­ant compensation.

Con­tro­versy with an editor is a blun­der. He always has the last word, and his space is unlim­ited. He is an adept at dust-throwing, question-begging, and con­fus­ing the issue.

In private life he may be intel­lec­tu­ally and mor­ally insig­ni­fic­ant, but his read­ers are imposed upon by the air of infal­lib­il­ity with which he treats all things, and the assur­ance with which he assails those who have the auda­city to dis­agree with him.

The aver­age news­pa­per reader eas­ily yields to iter­a­tion and bom­bast. He believes that which is said daily in print by the august and mys­ter­i­ous power behind the edit­or­ial “we.”

His sen­ti­ments and notions are formed for him by that power, and he is not even con­scious of the fact.

From ‘The Press and Pub­lic Opin­ion,’ Vic­tor S. Yar­ros, The Amer­ican Journal of Soci­ology, Vol 5, No 3, (Nov 1899), pp. 372–382, and ‘A Neg­lected Oppor­tun­ity and Duty in Journ­al­ism,’ Vic­tor S. Yar­ros, The Amer­ican Journal of Soci­ology, Vol 22, No 2 (Sep 1916), pp. 203–211.