"NOBLE PROFESSION"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23269, 11 February 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

"NOBLE PROFESSION"

SURVEY OF JOURNALISM To undertake a survey of the modern Press is a task not lightly to be approached, for it demands very special qualifications. A practical inside knowledge of the production of newspapers must bo combined with the detached judgment of an outside observer and a wide knowledge of affairs; and Mr. "Wickham Steed, who has written a, study of, the Press for the Penguin, Library, possesses these essential qualifications in a high degree. As an accomplished journalist, he also has tho gift of handling his subject with, not less vivacity than authority. He has made his little book eminently readable for the general public, and certainly not less so for the journalistic profession. While his main purpose is expository, he does not_ forbear from criticism, though his criticism is cast on a philosophic plane becoming an observer whose first allegiance is to the public interest, and who sees the problem of the Press as "the central problem of democracy."

Mr. Steed thinks nobly of the profession 'of journalism; he regards tho diffusion of news as "a social service second to 110110" —as, indeed, a public trust; and he lays it down that no man can he a true journalist "without some passion" in the practice, of his profession.

The Press will only deserve to endure, he proclaims, "as long as it. can discharge in free commvnities its function of public criticism and its wardenship of the public conscience."

"The Press," by Wickham Steed. (Penguin Books, Ltd.)