"Well, the sewing-girls" strike."
"Engineered by a crooked labor leader and a notoriety-seeking woman."
"I see the bunch have got to you already, and have filled you up with their dope. Never mind that, now. We"re supposed to be a sort of tribune of the common people. Rights of the ordinary citizen, and that sort of thing. So we took up the strike and printed the news pretty straight. No other paper touched it."
"Why not?"
"Didn"t dare. We had to drop it, ourselves. Not until we"d lost ten thousand dollars in advertising, though, and gained an extra blot on our reputation as being socialistic and an enemy to capital and all that kind of rot."
"Wasn"t it simply a case of currying favor with the working-cla.s.ses?"
"According as you look at it." Apparently weary of looking at it at all, McGuire Ellis tipped back in his chair and contemplated the ceiling.
When he spoke his voice floated up as softly as a ring of smoke. "How honest are you going to be, Mr. Surtaine?"
"What!"
"I asked you how honest you are going to be."
"It"s a question I don"t think you need to ask me."
"I do. How else will I find out?"
"I intend the "Clarion" to be strictly and absolutely honest. That"s all there is to that."
"Don"t be so young," said McGuire Ellis wearily. ""Strictly and absol"--see here, did you ever read "The Wrecker"?"
"More than once."
"Remember the chap who says, "You seem to think honesty as simple as blindman"s-buff. I don"t. It"s some difference of definition, I suppose"? Now, there"s meat in that."
"Difference of definition be hanged. Honesty is honesty."
"And policy is policy. And bankruptcy is bankruptcy."
"I don"t see the connection."
"It"s there. Honesty for a newspaper isn"t just a matter of good intentions. It"s a matter of eternal watchfulness and care and expert figuring-out of things."
"You mean that we"re likely to make mistakes about facts--"
"We"re certain to. But that isn"t what I mean at all. I mean that it"s harder for a newspaper to be honest than it is for the pastor of a rich church."
"You can"t make me believe that."
"Facts can. But I"m not doing my job. You want to learn the details of the business, and I"m wasting time trying to throw light into the deep places where it keeps what it has of conscience. That"ll come later. Now where shall I begin?"
"With the structure of the business."
"All right. A newspaper is divided into three parts. News is the merchandise which it has to sell. Advertising is the by-product that pays the bills. The editorial page is a survival. At its best it a.n.a.lyzes and points out the significance of important news. At its worst, it is a mouthpiece for the prejudices or the projects of whoever runs it. Few people are influenced by it. Many are amused by it. It isn"t very important nowadays."
"I intend to make it so on the "Clarion.""
Ellis turned upon him a regard which carried with it a verdict of the most abandoned juvenility, but made no comment. "News sways people more than editorials," he continued. "That"s why there"s so much tinkering with it. I"d like to give you a definition of news, but there isn"t any.
News is conventional. It"s anything that interests the community. It isn"t the same in any two places. In Arizona a shower is news. In New Orleans the boll-weevil is news. In Worthington anything about your father is news: in Denver they don"t care a hoot about your father; so, unless he elopes or dies, or buys a fake t.i.tian, or breaks the flying-machine record, or lectures on medical quackery, he isn"t news away from home. If Mrs. Festus Willard is bitten by a mad dog, every dog-chase for the week following is news. When a martyred suffragette chews a chunk out of the King of England, the local meetings of the Votes-for-Women Sorority become a live topic. If ever you get to the point where you can say with certainty, "This is news; that isn"t,"
you"ll have no further need for me. You"ll be graduated."
"Where does a paper get its news?"
"Through mechanical channels, mostly. If you read all the papers in town,--and you"ll have to do it,--you"ll see that they"ve got just about the same stuff. Why shouldn"t they have? The big, clumsy news-mill grinds pretty impartially for all of them. There"s one news source at Police Headquarters, another at the City Hall, another in the financial department, another at the political headquarters, another in the railroad offices, another at the theaters, another in society, and so on. At each of these a reporter is stationed. He knows his own kind of news as it comes to him, ready-made, and, usually, not much else. Then there"s the general, uncla.s.sified news of the city that drifts in partly by luck, partly by favor, partly through the personal connections of the staff. One paper is differentiated from another princ.i.p.ally by getting or missing this sort of stuff. For instance, the "Banner" yesterday had a "beat" about you. It said that you had come back and were going to settle down and go into your father"s business."
"That"s not true."
"Glad to hear it. Your hands will be full with this job. But it was news. Everybody is interested in the son of our leading citizen. The "Banner" is strong on that sort of local stuff. I think I"ll jack up our boys in the city room by hinting that there may be a shake-up coming under the new owner. Knowing they"re on probation will make "em ambitious."
"And the news of the outside world?"
"Much the same principle as the local matter and just as machine-like.
The "Clarion" is a unit in a big system, the National News Exchange Bureau. Not only has the bureau its correspondents in every city and town of any size, but it covers the national sources of news with special reporters. Also the international. Theoretically it gives only the plainest facts, uncolored by any bias. As a matter of fact, it"s pretty crooked. It suppresses news, and even distorts it. It"s got a secret financial propaganda dictated by Wall Street, and its policies are always open to suspicion."
"Why doesn"t it get honest reporters?"
"Oh, its reporters are honest enough. The funny business is done higher up, in the executive offices."
"Isn"t there some other a.s.sociation we can get into?"
"Not very well, just now. The Exchange franchise is worth a lot of money. Besides," he concluded, yawning, "I don"t know that they"re any worse than we are."
Hal got to his feet and walked the length of the office and back, five times. At the end of this exercise he stood, looking down at his a.s.sistant.
"Ellis, are you trying to plant an impression in my mind?"
"No."
"You"re doing it."
"Of what sort?"
"I hardly know. Something subtle, and lurking and underhanded in the business. I feel as if you had your hands on a curtain that you might pull aside if you would, but that you don"t want to shock my--my youthfulness."
"Plain facts are what you want, aren"t they?"
"Exactly."
"Well, I"m giving them to you as plain as you can understand them. I don"t want to tell you more than you"re ready to believe."
"Try it, as an experiment."
"Who do you suppose runs the newspapers of this town?"