The Press: The Press Defended

The public cheerfully damns the press, saying: ” It’s full of lies.” Many journalists damn it, saying: “There are no great editors left.” Rising, gray-haired and aged, to be sole defender of the press, comes a representative of a former generation of journalists. He is Talcott Williams, a newspaperman for 50 years in Springfield, Mass., Manhattan and Washington—an authority on Turkish affairs (he was born in Turkey) and now, in his 75th year, Director and Professor Emeritus of the School of Journalism of Columbia University.

His answer to the public is that journalism has never been more free from falsehood and inaccuracy than at present. His answer to those who lament “the great editors are gone ” is that we are well rid of them—they bred partisanship, they even ” precipitated the Civil War.”

Speaking before the Columbia School of Journalism last week, Dr. Williams said in substance that it is a good thing that news-gathering is becoming more and more like the manufacture of Ford cars, standardized, uniform. ” The day of ‘ beats ‘ has about disappeared, and today virtually every newspaper prints simultaneously accounts of happenings of national interest. Although Washington despatches may vary according to the way the correspondents see them, the basic facts remain the same. . . . When Secretary Mellon gave out his policy on tax reduction, it went to all the newspapers at the same time. And in a fortnight the newspapers had spoken for the country and Congress, by a non-partisan vote.

“Standardization of news brings standardized public opinion and this, in turn, rules both political parties and the national Legislature. About 50,000 men and women, who collect and edit this news, bring about this peaceful decision that settles the course to be laid by this ship of state on peaceful and prosperous seas, while Europe, with nations low and children hungry, has its guns out.”