NEWSPAPERS AND THEIR READERS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1028, 26 January 1882, Page 4

NEWSPAPERS AND THEIR READERS.

A newspaper is a business enterprise, and must be conducted on business principles. Men are constantly asking favors from newspapers which mean a sacrifice of space, representing money, who would never dream of asking lawyers to take cases without fees, or expect their doctors to take their pay in thanks. The deadhead is disappearing from other departments of business life and the newspaper deadhead, distinguished though he may be, must follow. Newspapers, being business enterprise, must live in a business way. if the public does not support the best newspapers, it must expect to see the worst newpapers thrive. The daily journal is a product rather than a force. It will not reflect but represent the age it lives in. It is true, and especially true of our own country, that newspapers in the hands of men having convictions and believing that they could, with this modern lever, help move the world, have accomplished great things. Without them the great movements of the past century for the furtherance of personal, religious, and political liberty would have travelled at a snail’s pace. But this w r as possible only because they had the support anil sympathy of the best men and women of the community. The newspapers can lead, but leadership implies a following, and where none will follow', none will be brave enough to lead. As a rule newspapers are what their readers make them. The responsibility of the subscriber is as great in its way as that of the editor. The surest way of keeping the standards of our journalism high, and of raising them, is for that portion of the public which knows the value and necessity of a dignified and able press to withhold its support altogether from newspapers which cater to depraved tastes and are reckless of the truth, and to give it to newspapers which can safely be taken into the family, and are not only decent, but just.— JVeic York Tribune.