“The Press” In 1866

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31009, 15 March 1966, Page 16

“The Press” In 1866

March 15 AMERICAN JOURNALISM.—The very able special correspondent of the “Spectator.” whose letters are signed “A Yankee,” attempts in one of his recent communications to explain how it is that the press of New York is so inferior to that of not only London but of any considerable town in England. He accounts for it by the fact that each and ail the papers are made for each and all sorts and conditions of readers. “The Press,” he continues, “is the most purely democratic of all our institutions”: — The man of the highest cultivations reads the same newspaper that is read by the lowest rowdy, and the rowdy

reads his paper as regularly as the man of culture. The distinctions in journalism here are purely and only political, never social. The cultivated man and the rowdy read the same paper from necessity. They cannot consult their tastes. There are no others for them to read. . . . There is; I believe, a very much larger number of readers in this country than in any other, who would enjoy, and who crave, journalism of the highest class. Why then, does not the demand produce the supply? Simply because of the diffusion of culture, and of the fact that those readers are scattered over a vast expanse of country.