Modern Journalism.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 196, 15 September 1888, Page 2

Modern Journalism.

In acknowledging the receipt of that excellent little trad;? journal “ Typo, ” we cannot but express admiration for its outspokenness on a subject which should be taken to heart by every journalist. In Napier recently Mr Colenso, President of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Society, stirred up a hornets’ nest by a powerful denunciation of the baneful features that are characteristic of New Zealand journalism and particularly of those newspapers in his own district. To such an extent, he said “ has this low craving after plays and pastimes, fun, frolic, frivolity, and buffoonery been carried in this district, that it is an almost imppossible tb’ng to find a single daily local without its news column being more than half filled with such trash. . . Such thoughtless doings seem to me very much like the old Greek story of sowing the dragon’s teeth.” There was so much truth in these remarks that naturally some journals were nettled, and stinging replies were considered necessary to maintain the journalistic prestige. But “ Typo ” has taken the lash in hand, and every candid journalist must admit that there is more truth in what is said than he cares to acknowledge. There are few journals that must not plead guilty, but we think the greater part of the blame rests with the public ; nor is the remedy clear to our mind. Below we give the main points in the strictures, that are made by a disinterested journal Twenty years ago, the New Zealand papers were higher in character than they are to-day. There were always abusive and scurrilous sheets ; but the general standard, literary and moral, was higher. . . Respectable papers did not imitate the fooneries and indecencies of the gutter4fl literature known as “ society lism.” . . . There is no real demand such as is asserted to exist. Such as there is has been created by the supply. Schoolboys who daily have their imaginations fired with sensational stories of escaped criminals and champion prizefighters will probably as they I grow older demand more and more of the same kind of reading—and in time may even aspire to excel their heroes. The responsibility lies with the press. “It p*ys, ”is the poorest of all excuses for the perpetration of a social wrong. But to the question, Does it pay }we answer, It does not. Twenty years ago the leading newspapers in the colony were splendid properties. To-day we do not know of one that returns a profit to its proprietors. Pandering to folly and ignorance has not paid, and never will pay. The best newspaper New Zealand ever possessed—the Nelson Examiner—was killed by the sporting element. And many of our journals are blighted to day by the same cause. The “ sporting” department is often the costliest in the office, yields the least returns, and could most easily be dispensed with. It sickens and disgusts the best and most profitable class of readers. It degrades our journalism, and surrounds it with the atmosphere of the pot house and the training stable. It pollutes the “well of English uudefiled ” with the slang of the blackleg and the splelen It Is a cancer of journalism, even as it is of the community at large, and there will be no real soundness of constitution for either until it is cut out.