UNKNOWN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4123, 30 January 1875, Page 5 (Supplement)

UNKNOWN.

XO. XXX. [EY " SxVDEIt-"]

COLONIAL NEWSPAPERS. ~ n v very little do people outside of the erlil ot newspaper life know what goes on •"'the inner circle. What wrong notions and uo ,his jierceptionsthey have to be sure of the 1 iulinite number of details, small and lar£i% required for tile successful management of a public journal. It shall be my I'.u-ine.-s, then, out of the depths of my extitrience, to justify the -ways of newspaper jiroprifters to their fellow-men. Before any man who is not wholly insane ifirt s newspaper, the first thing he asks hiiiisclf, and also asks a good many others, is ,j.'[ (!„■ spallation pay / A newspaper lias *'o be looked upon as a business transaction from the lirst, aud must be carried on as a transaction to the last. What a pri'i'rietor may write, or has caused to be written in his introductory articles about mtri.iti.-ni, his love for his town and district. his thoroug!? independence ; his inten;j,.n to write down all abuses ; his anxious v ii-;ire to work-reforms in political institutions. with the grand mottoes over t'.ie leading articles, where his readers are informed to tho effect that he is in the place where lie is demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and the tr . he will speak impugn it whose list is—well ! is that which never was yet, and never will lie. i- spealting an unpleasant truth, and persistently maintaining it, will ruin and seriously damage tho interests of a newspaper, my humble opinion is, that the unpleasant truth will not always be spoken. Jt will l»e allowed to stand over for a more . >!!•. ."lient period. The leading newspapers I 0 taw hi :i? •• Dri .us tiu'es ai.d in •Vi-ers j uuuHe.s ;iavc tl» mged tnei' policy au i modi- : lied their tone considerably. Ant: 1 ai l very far from sure that they have not acted ri -ht. A newspaper editor, who I will say is also whole or part proprietor, has his commercial ereu't to maintain, salaries and wages to pay punctually once a week, together with many little outgoings too numerous to mention." Perhaps he has a wife, and having a | wife, it is not unreasonable to suppose he have a family, who have to be maintained in something like respectability aud comfort. He looks forward, as a reward for his ever-beginning, never-ending labours, that he may ini'ulge in a few of the vanities of life, u\r n which he has sot his heart. Now, if "chat editor was always blurting . ::r ''is convictions, perhaps formed without -L- them that consideration they should , ■ - ■ receiver, my v inion is, that 1: • .vc-' . ■ . be long in —J ining short of su- v requisite for -he gr ■ tification of his-i. -••res, be ;'.ey >ie\er so humble and innocent. I will »"li'stmte what 1 mean in what I have here written. When a butc.ier al>out to start business in a new neighbourhood he win rirst ascertain. I '"nether there is a sulhcieii* population i > giv. ::m support. V/htw ;ie has satisfied hiwseu o.t .his point he next enquires what particular class of customers is likely to deal with liim *—what are the kind of joints there will he a demand for? if for delicate dairy-fed pork, or sirloins of beef, or saddles of mutton, he provides accordingly. He must please his customers if he wishes to succeed in business, and escape the Bankruptcy Court. So with the newspaper proprietor engaged on a new journal if he really understands his business. He ascertains the political" bent of those likely to be his customers, he learns their local wants, nii<ls out all about their municipal o>- parish affairs, and other matters in which his subscribers w ill be likely to feel interested, as pertaining to their good government, their commercial progress, and their social happiness. Now the proprietor, if he is not an editor himself, hires one, and says your policy must be so and so. Your advocacy, so and so. Your columns are intended to keep readers acquainted with such and such matters. And the editor writes so and so, and such wd such. The butcher in liis line might say, my customers are very foolish tc be running so much on pork, which is indigestible, or undercuts', which .are expensive, or saddles of mutton, which are all bone. I could serve them much cheaper and better with shoulders and legs ; but if -his customers will have pork, and won't do without undercuts, and will not have '.h-ulcers an.' l_'gs of mutton, the butcher a simpleton If he don't study them. So again -with an editor. He may, by his superior intelligence, be under the impression that what he is advocating is either a fallacy or impracticable, or is too effete, or too advanced ? but if people demand that sort of thing what is he to do ? I never hear of a thoroughly patriotic editor—one who cannot bring himself to modify his principles to suit the land he is a dweller in, but that I think of his wife, wanting a decent dress for Sunday, and his children, shoes and socks. But the true power of the Press lies in this: Men in the aggregate admire what is right, what is true, and what is outspoken. They infinitely prefer a good article to An inferior one, whether it be as to what they eat, or drink, or wear, or whaS they read; and this being so, thosd - H*ho have the conduct of the newspaper Press fall in with the wishes oi their customer:!. Men like what is d'-cent; they like to sec abuses exposed ; they like to see honest measures advocated; they like to be posted up in what is passing around them within hail of their own doors, as well as what is happening at a distance. Editors know this, ani' knowing, produce papers in accordance with public feeling. And public feeling in all essentials seldom makes a mistake. It is not newspapers which direct public opinion so much as that public opinion directs •the tone of the newspaper Press. If public opinion was vicious, if the bulk of the people were licentious, if in the aggregate they wer* venal and corrupt, depend upon it we should lmve a vicious, a licentious, a venal, aud a corrupt newspaper Press. But be it ever borne in mind we certainly should not have the same stamp of writers at the head of it as we have in the present day. These would retira and leave the field to men altogether of an inferior mould. Ido not say the newspaper Press does not help greatly in imjiroving the tone and the morals of the people. 1 am quite sure it does this and very much more. The Press and the people act aud re-act upon each other to the great benefit of both ; a movement in the wrong direction on the part of any section of a people, and the press steps in and checks it; shows wherein the wrong lies, lays bare the fallacy, and turns opinion which for a moment has been diverted in the wrong channel to the right one. So with the conductors of the press; let theui endeavour to advocate the wxong course—that is a course opposed to all .good morals, to common sense md understanding when public opinion soon makes itself felt. The Press by its wide .spread of intelligence has helped to enlighten .the people, and the people are not .bow to l>e blinded or hoodwinked. Therefore a venally or corruptly conducted newspaper will never exist for any time in an enlightened community. These are to ay thinking healthy signs /if the times we live iu. I believe so. lam sure of it. At any rate then's my sentiments, It has seldom or perhaps never happened that a newspaper Kt" initiated any great reforms. As a rule these come from the leailers of the people, either on the public platform, or in our parliaments. The Corn Law Bill, Roman Catholic Emancipation, the Extensiou of the Franchise, the Abolition of Episcopal Abuses, were all initiated by die great leading minds of the day. It was when this came to pass tbai the Preps took up these subjects, and by its great controlling uowe brought them to become the law of the Lli: C U'he Press at the outset in all great '£iovemeata follows in the wake of public opinion. Then it forges a-head to guide and control it j 'au n«v< nmei

to prevent it from running intoexireries : to keep i check upon enthusiasm run riot on the one hand, and to arouse apathy and indifference to a sense of duty on the other. The Press takes the helm aud the course: but if tho wind of public opinion bo dead ahead, the helmsman will always find himself drifting to leeward if he attempts to run dead against it. The Press and the people arc a co-operative body. Each supports and protects the other. There is, however, no doubt 1 think that the newspaper press has been the means of making people mentally lazy. A man now buys twopenny-worth or threepenny-worth of thinking material when ordering a newspaper.as he buys his milk or his bread. It is troublesome to keep a cow ; it is a nuisiuice to bake one's bread. It is comfortable and convenient to have one's thinking done for him, and so he buys twopenny-worth of editorial which quite answers his purpose. If his editor does not supply him with good thinking matter he discovers it just as soon as he does when his milkman or the baker supplies him with diluted n.ilk or bad bread, and he lias no more compunction whatever in changing a newspaper lie has subscribed to which does not do the thinking to his liking than he has his baker or his tailor. Men now imbibe principles they scarcely know how, but having imbibed them and not caring to trace them to their origin they simply support the newspaper which advocates policies aud measures which coincide with their own.