PAGE 10
IS THE PRESS CORRUPT?
than the public interest If America is to be bossed by the public
opinion created by its press, if it is to fight and win this war, if it
is to make a great peace, then it should know the power of the
most powerful force vhich is abroad in this land
The press which attacked George Washington, which
denounced him as everything from a traitor to a drunkard, was
not a corrupt press. It was in fact a free press. But the press
which from 1922 (or thereabouts) to the present day attacks
New Deal F.D. Roosevelt, the same press which tried to sup­
press the old Teapot Dome scandal and the doings of Harding's
Ohio gang, vtfiile sniping at every governmental action for the
general welfare of the American people, is a corrupt press.
Why has the press become corrupt?
So long as it was possible for an itinerant printer or any
tiny minority possessing a few hundred dollars to set up shop
and issue a newspaper, there was no monopoly of public
opinion. And there was no corrupt press. In Boston, in New York,
in colonial days, and later in Washington, and in every city and
town in the wake of the pioneers marching westward, wandering
printers kept alive the free press and produced the most
picturesque era in the nation's journalism. It was still possible
toward the end of the 19th century to get out a newspaper
wthout being a millionaire in a big city, or a company with a
soul mortgaged to the banker in a small town
But, as William Allen White - the man always chosen
to prove the publishers' claim that the press still has integrity —
now confesses, it takes a comparatively large bankroll to start
a paper anywhere — his own Emporia Gazette is worth $70,000,
and if a man with another viewpoint wanted to start an opposi­
tion sheet in Emporia it would involve a much greater sum. In
Chicago or New York it would mean the risk of a million dollars
a year for many years.
Mr. White does not disagree with Frank Munsey, the
great newspaper wrecker whom he saved from oblivion with
the famous phrase: He turned a great profession into an 8%
investment. The fact is now accepted that the newspaper is big
business. Whether it is therefore ipso facto conrupt because big
business is corrupt is still being debated.
There is only one viewpoint which the entire press of the
nation expresses, respects, represents and works for: the view­
point of business, money, wealth and power represented by what
is generally known as the God of Things As They Are, or the
Status Quo. The press has been united almost to a paper in
defending existing conditions and opposing not only some
radical plan for change but even all those mild reforms which
friends of big money and the status quo, the latest of whom is
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, have initiated for the double purpose
of helping the Have-Nots and saving and preserving the system
of the Haves.
The change that has come over America is this: that
beneath the uproar the press made in our early history, the
motivation was not money, it was not commercial. Today the
press is motivated almost entirely by the motive of profit for
itself and its backers. This profit motive not only affects the
handling of all the news about labor, "defense" strikes, wage
increases, the whole problem of taxation, a large part of the
legislation of state and nation, but it also affects the news of
world events.
BY GEORGE SELDES
To commemorate the 16th anniversary in July
of the born again North Coast Times Eagle, which was
resurrected from a crypt the same day 10 years earlier
human beings first walked on the Moon, and to pay
homage to the 100th birthday this year of the cartoon
character The Yellow Kid, who gave his name to
sensationalist journalism, we offer a critique of the
American press by George Se/des. Now 103, he is one
of the premier journalists of the 20th century, reporting on
World War 1, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism,
and the Spanish Civil War. His honesty and independence
got him into trouble but also led him to publish from 1940
to 1950 the first American magazine of media criticism,
IN FACT, which inspired the famous and trenchantly
independent I. F. STONE'S WEEKLY. The following is
an excerpt from Se/des’ self-published book, "The Facts
Are...", which appears in a recent collection of his writings.
-MPMc
I
f
t
i
What is the most powerful force in America today?
Answer: Public opinion.
What makes public opinion?
Answer: The main force is the press.
Can you trust the press?
Answer: The baseball scores are always correct (except
for a typographical error now and then). The stock market tables
are correct (wthin the same limitation). But when it comes to
news which will affect you, your daily life, your job, your relation
to other people, your thinking on economic and social problems,
and, more important today, your going to war and risking your
life for a great ideal, then you cannot trust about 98% (or per­
haps 99 1/2%) of the big newspaper and big magazine press of
America.
But why can't you trust the press?
Answer: Because it has become big business. The big
city press and the big magazines have become commercialized,
or big business organizations, run with no other motive than
profit for owner or stockholder (although hypocritically still main­
taining the old American tradition of guiding and enlightening the
people). The big press cannot exist a day without advertising.
Advertising means money from big business.
I have witten several books on the press and I am
publishing a weekly newsletter devoted largely to criticizing the
big city newspapers (the public opinion-making newspapers) and
exposing their corruption, because I still believe that the press is
the greatest force in the world and can be used for good or evil.
And I believe that the American press by its control of public
opinion can either fool all the people into restoring a world in
which one-third of the nation will again live in economic slavery
without sufficient food, clothing and shelter, or it can, if it wants
to, bring out of this united effort against native as well as foreign
fascism a world approaching the Jeffersonian ideal.
In 1787 Jefferson declared that "the basis of our
government is the opinion of the people" Given the choice of
"a government wthout newspapers, or newspapers wthout
government," he would prefer the latter. Think of it! Jefferson
GERALD MOSS
was willing to let the press itself rule the country instead of
merely creating the public opinion that rules.
But Jefferson did not foresee that the American press
which creates opinion and which rules indirectly would become
almost exclusively a millionaire's press, or a corporation influen­
ced press, or the medium of big business via its advertising, and
therefor the corrupt press vhich serves private interests rather
It is my claim that the press, which could be the most
powerful force in making this country over into an industrial
democracy in which poverty would be unknown, wealth equitably
distributed, every person certain of the minimum requirements
of decent living (as well as the four freedoms), has, on the
contrary, become the most powerful force against the general
welfare of the majority of the people."
I AM
I am
Ocean waves, sandy beaches, and horses.
I like trail rides deep in nature and laying
out in the sun.
Honesty, compassion, and fun are important to me.
I find peace within myself.
I can be fooled by the cover people
put themselves under.
But I keep trusting and finding the people
underneath.
I try to live life to its fullest.
I have strong feelings when a child
is thrown into a terrible life of abuse.
I am able to keep walking down
the path of life even when trouble arises.
This is me. I am!
i
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