A CAUTION TO NEWS-HEADERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 12, 10 July 1885, Page 5

A CAUTION TO NEWS-READERS.

It would be prudent if readers of news, before pinning their faith upon peace and war intelligence, should take the precaution of first looking to its authority. No benefit can be enjoyed without having 10 pay some price for it, and the price of an unfettered Press in England is the ease with which it can be utilised for the promulgation of almost any sort of news that may suit any foreign journal to scatter abroad. Russia is the country of all others to understand this to take full advantage of it ; and the Nbvoe Vremya, for example, not exactly the journal one would select as the type of impartial Yet how often is a piece of so-called information accepted on the face of its appearance in an English newspaper, simply because the reader, in his eagerness or carelessness, has omitted to define and limit the extent of his belief by noting the reference to the authority. A rising of the Afghans, or whatever it may be, draws its inspiration from Russian invention, and obtains its authority from the omission of the British public to discriminate between the sources of true and false news. The practical direction, applicable to all such cases, is simple enough, and perfectly easy to follow. It is to look to the authority, and if that be Russian, to presume it to be false unless otherwise proved to be true. The public wonld naturally lose a certain amount of excitement, but that would do no manner of harm ; and some English journals themselves would be the better for abstaining from comments due to an over-ready credulity. What Russia wants above all things, under the circumstances, is a means for spreading in this country whatever rumours suit her present purposes ; and unless people here exercise the very slight and easy amount of caution required to counteract the process, then the whole en lof Russian journalists is gained. It is right to know what she wishes us to believe ; but to swallow whatever she bids us is an entirely different thing. — Globe.