THE ETHICS OF JOURNALISM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 54, 13 March 1900, Page 2

THE ETHICS OF JOURNALISM.

Newspaper readers will in the main agree with the following remarks mad* by a contemporary on the widely different views held by piessmen as tJ what constitutes the use and duty of newspapers:—" It will probably be in some quarters viewed as a symptom of decadence when newspaper men start discussing the ethics of journalism, and when outside critics declare, as Mr. G. Bernard Shaw recently did in the Ethical World, that' journalism has no ethics at present,' aud that a newspaper is simply a commercial enterprise for the exploitation of the demand for advertisements. The daring and original critic admits, of course, that the newspaper press could never Lave been created by the advertiser; ' that had to bo done by men possessed of the demon of born journalist;' but he contends that commerce has obtained the paramountcy in these days, with the result that the modern editor has ' lost his conscience,' and newspapers in general 'live by the advertisement columns,' All t his provoked by the retirement of Mr. Maseingham from the editorial chair of the London Daily Chronicle because of his pro-Boer leanings is very smart and epigrammatic, but it is happily a gross exaggeration of fact. Even Mr. Shaw admits existence of exceptions to what ho ib pleased to consider the rule regarding the degradation of the Press. There is mora truth in Mr. Massingi barn's contention that a newsi paper is something moro than a ! kiod of investment that it is' the I intellectual companion and director o!' thousands of men and women'—an

entity with a ' soul that is in the care of the editor, subject to agreement between him and ihe owneis as to general policy. Other cheering views of the Press wero ufcterei at a recßnt gathering in London, when Mr. A. E. Fletcher—a late editor of the Daily Chronicle also, by the way—gave a ju jieial staturient of tho advance of the Press towirds ideal condition*. The. duty of the journalist, ia his estimation, is to be the historian of cjntemporary events —' to investigate tb<forces that move humanity, rec >rd their most striking phenomena, and so create a healthy public opinion.' Mr. J. M. Davidson remarked that the Press of to-day was moving towards the ideal. Journalism was now in some respects looked upon as a ' sacred profession,' iustead of being a purely mercenary one. The Pi ess was, ha maintained, the great instructor of the paople, for Church and Parliament were alike deid. The truth, as usual, is to be found between the extremes. There are newspapers that are mere advertising sheets, and whose influence in 'light and leading' is nil. Recent revelations in England showed that one commercial company had spent £4OOO in purchasing favourable notices from a 4 reptile press.' On tho other hand, the great majority ef newspapers in the British Empire are incorruptible, The enterprisj of the better class paper is appreciated by the public, as is proved by the growth of the circulation of the London Daily Mail to ov.ir a million copies daily. Newspapers are, after all, very largely what the people mike them, and to class them all as degraded and venal would ba equivalent to describing the populace as corrupt and mercenary. Fortunately, things are very far from having reached that portentous condition."