"What did you think of their stories of the accident?"
"I seemed to notice a suspicious similarity."
"You can bet every one of those stories came straight from E.M. Pierce"s own office. You"ll see, they"ll be the same in to-morrow morning"s papers. Now that we"ve opened up, they all have to cover the news, so they"ve thoughtfully sent around to inquire what Elias M. would like to have printed."
"From what they say," remarked Hal flippantly, "the nurse ought to be arrested for trying to b.u.mp a sixty-horsepower car out of the roadway."
"We strive to please, in the local newspaper shops."
Ellis turned to answer the buzzing telephone. "Get on your life preserver," he advised his princ.i.p.al. "Shearson"s coming up to weep all over you."
The advertising manager entered, his plump cheeks sagging into lugubrious and reproachful lines, speaking witnesses to a sentiment not wholly unjustifiable in his case. To see circulation steadily going up and advertising as steadily going down, is an irritant experience to the official responsible for the main income of a daily paper, advertising revenue.
"Advertisers have some rights," he boomed, in his heavy voice.
"Including that of homicide?" asked Hal.
"Let the law take care of that. It ain"t our affair."
"Would it be our affair if Pierce didn"t control advertising?"
Shearson"s fat hands went to his fat neck in a gesture of desperation.
"That"s different," he cried. "I can"t seem to make you see my point.
Why looka here, Mr. Surtaine. Who pays for the running of a newspaper?
The advertisers. Where do your profits come from? Advertising. There never was a paper could last six months on circulation alone. It"s the ads. that keep every paper going. Well, then: how"s a paper going to live that turns against its own support? Tell me that. If you were running a business, and a big buyer came in, would you roast him and knock his methods, and criticize his family, and then expect to sell him a bill of goods? Or would you take him out to the theater and feed him a fat cigar, and treat him the best you know how? You might have your own private opinion of him--"
"A newspaper doesn"t deal in private opinions," put in Hal.
"Well, it can keep "em private for its own good, can"t it? How many readers care whether E.M. Pierce"s daughter ran over a woman or not?
What difference does it make to them? They"d be just as well satisfied to read about the latest kick-up in Mexico, or the scandal at Washington, or Mrs. Whoopdoodle"s Newport dinner to the troupe of educated fleas. But it makes a lot of difference to E.M. Pierce, and he can make it a lot of difference to us. So long as he pays us good money, he"s got a right to expect us to look out for his interests."
"So have our readers who pay us good money, Mr. Shearson."
"What are their interests?" asked the advertising manager, staring.
"To get the news straight. You"ve given me your theory of journalism; now let me give you mine. As I look at it, there"s a contract of honor between a newspaper and its subscribers. Tacitly the newspaper says to the subscriber, "For two cents a day, I agree to furnish you with the news of your town, state, nation, and the outside world, selected to the best of my ability, and presented without fear or favor." On this basis, if the newspaper fakes its news, if it distorts facts, or if it suppresses them, it is playing false with its subscribers. It is sanding its sugar, and selling shoddy for all-wool. Isn"t that true?"
"Every newspaper does it," grumbled Shearson. "And the public knows it."
"Doubted. The public knows that newspapers make mistakes and do a lot of exaggerating and sensationalizing. But you once get it into their heads that a certain newspaper is concealing and suppressing news, and see how long that paper will last. The circulation will drop and the very men like Pierce will be the first to withdraw their advertising patronage.
Your keen advertiser doesn"t waste time fishing in dead pools. So even as a matter of policy the straight way may be the best, in the long run.
Whether it is or not, get this firmly into your mind, Mr. Shearson. From now on the first consideration of the "Clarion" will be news and not advertising."
"Then, good-_night_ "Clarion,"" p.r.o.nounced Shearson with entire solemnity.
"Is that your resignation, Mr. Shearson?"
"Do you want me to quit?"
"No; I don"t. I believe you"re an efficient man, if you can adjust yourself to new conditions. Do you think you can?"
"Well, I ain"t much on the high-brow stuff, Mr. Surtaine, but I can take orders, I guess. I"m used to the old "Clarion," and I kinda like you, even if we don"t agree. Maybe this virtuous jag"ll get us some business for what it loses us. But, say, Mr. Surtaine, you ain"t going to get virtuous in your advertising columns, too, are you?"
"I hadn"t considered it," said Hal. "One of these days I"ll look into it."
"For G.o.d"s sake, don"t!" pleaded Shearson, with such a shaken flabbiness of vehemence that both Hal and Ellis laughed, though the former felt an uneasy puzzlement.
The article and editorial on the Pierce accident had appeared in a Thursday"s "Clarion." In their issues of the following day, the other morning papers dealt with the subject most delicately. The "Banner"
published, without obvious occasion, a long and rather fulsome editorial on E.M. Pierce as a model of high-minded commercial emprise and an exemplar for youth: also, on the same page in its "Pointed Paragraphs,"
the following, with a point quite too palpably aimed:--
"It is said, on plausible if not direct authority, that one of our morning contemporaries will appropriately alter its motto to read, "With Malice toward All: with Charity for None.""
But it remained for that evening"s "Telegram" to bring up the heavy guns. From its first edition these headlines stood out, black and bold:--
E.M. PIERCE DEFENDS DAUGHTER
MAGNATE INCENSED AT UNJUST ATTACKS WILL PUSH CASE AGAINST HER TRADUCERS TO A FINISH
There followed an interview in which the great man announced his intention of bringing both civil and criminal action for libel against the "Clarion." McGuire Ellis frowned savagely at the sheet.
"Dirty skunk!" he growled.
"Meaning our friend Pierce?" queried Hal.
"No. Meaning Parker, and the whole "Telegram" outfit."
"Why?"
"Because they printed that interview."
"What"s wrong with it? It"s news."
"Don"t be positively infantile, Boss. Newspapers don"t print libel actions brought against other newspapers. It"s unprofessional. It"s unethical. It isn"t straight."
"No: I don"t see that at all," decided Hal, after some consideration.
"That amounts simply to this, that the newspapers are in a combination to discourage libel actions, by suppressing all mention of them."
"Certainly. Why not? Libel suits are generally holdups."
"I think the "Telegram" is right. Whatever Pierce says is news, and interesting news."
"You bet Parker would never have carried that if his holding corporation wasn"t a heavy borrower in the Pierce banks."
"Maybe not. But I think we"ll carry it."