SIGNED ARTICLES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11438, 20 August 1912, Page 6

SIGNED ARTICLES.

IMPERSONAL JOURNALISM.

AN AMERICAN VIEW,

In view of the discussion which has been provoked in tho New Zealand Press by tho attempt of certain "Liberal" members of Parliament, to compel newspapers to publish only signed articles, the following editorial comment in Munsey's Magazine for August 1911, upon a similar attempt made in the State of New York, will be read with interest: — It: appears that the State Senate of New York may qualify for membership in the freak legislation club by pausing a bill requiring every newspaper editorial to bo signed with the name ot the writer. It is not likely that any bill o( this character could be enacted into lav/. If it should be, it would in all probability come, into fatal collision with the constitutional guarantee of a free press. But that it should have been introduced and seriously considered discloses a curious misapprehension in tho public 7ttind as to what modern journalism is, and as to that to which it aspires. The public man who is criticised in the press is quick to prate about the "anonymity"- in which the charge is .shrouded. \ll'e beats his breast in exa.speratiou because he cannot personally refute the written argument with physical violence. What chance, he declaims, has an honest man, honestly striving to serve the people to the best of his ability, against wanton shafts fired from the dark.. Are the men whom the people have trusted to be made the -helpless targets of irresponsible slander.' Is libel to have license to destroy from ambush? Is public, service a crime.' Is patriotism a vice? Specious as it is, this reply gains an unthinking sympathy. It does not readily appear to the public, that, behind the printed word, stands an organisation stronger, more responsible, more .•unonablo to" forced retribution, than

:tny single individual. It does not readily" .sink into public apprehension that the man thirsting for the name of the writer generally has good and suilieient reason for not risking a passage

at linns with the publication for which tho writer speaks. It is an incident apt; to he overlooked that the cry against

anonymity is, almost in itself, an admission of the justness and verity of the attack.

This country has seen the era of individual journalism, as it. lias seen the era of personal competition. Just, as business of every sort has .sacrificed personality for eftieiency, so has journalism progressed away from the time when every editorial was a. potential <luel to tno era when the journalism worthy of the name has a character and purpose all the purer, all the more offeetive, exactly because it expresses a policy and conviction superior to any human mouthpiece to whi--.h the utterance of that policy is committed.

In the old days it was possible to shoot an editor, and by that simple, means to bury his paper in the same grave. In the journalism of to-day, the passing of any particular writer, how-, ever brilliant or forceful, finds the organisation for which he works superior to his loss. The paper continues to appear, fivon as the llarriman roads continued to operate when the master hand was stilled. Another takes up the pen, keeps up the work. The ranks close over the gap, however great. The fight goes on!

There are thrill ami hope in this consciousness of the continuity and consistency of the so-called impersonal journalism which would be in great degree lacking were its spokesmen hampered with a confining ego. The cause and the principle are coming into their own. They are of and by the people, and those who expound them are but tho agents of a central thought, a consuming idea. .So far from being shackled, and farther from being incited to lic.iui.se, the anonymous writer feels alike his freedom and his responsibility—tlie freedom to speak with the .•Lutnority and power of his principal without fear and without favour; the responsibility of so expressing a ruling purpose t:s not to weaken its forceful dignity either with hate or with prejudice.

Iv/en the conspicuously great are powerful only as they represent the proxy of power. Separate the man from this cause, and you have a puny residuum of individual ineffectiveness. The reason for the anonymity of tho journalist of opinion is the worthlessness of his personal point of view. Divorced from knowledge of the man, the cause he represents makes its appeal on the high ground of conscience and intellect.