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.