Stereotyping Public Opinion

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 1, 17 January 1944, Page 9

Stereotyping Public Opinion

Any attempt to impose upon the public the kind of newspapers they ought to read, according to some arbitrary criteria of taste and value, or to stereotype their opinions in order to rule out proprietorial excesses would be ridiculous and wrong, in principle as well as commercially. But the present position is that, increasingly, a handful of newspaper proprietors are themselves able to do precisely thisthat is, to impose upon the public the newspapers that they (the proprietors) think they ought to read and to stereotype public opinion in a few primitive and not always very sightly moulds. Some proprietors and boards of directors do not use their power in this way ; they have a high sense of public duty and a regard for good and honest journalism, and they protect their editors and staffs, within the broad limits which they naturally feel entitled to set. But more than a few behave quite otherwise. Often they own the most powerful papers ; and they have their way because in the field of national newspapers, and increasingly of provincial newspapers as well, the consumer has a very limited choice ; mass production, concentration, and mass advertising have done their work. The really important question is whether the outspoken desire of the press for independence is matched by an equal

sense of public service on the part of those who direct it.