THE NEW DANGER OF JOURNALISM.
THE refusal of the Jury in " Lawson v. Labonchere " to find a verdict is, we imagine, in very close accordance with public feeling about the trial. Nobody, except the plaintiff and defendant, wanted a verdict. There was a feeling that Mr. Labouchere, even if he had proved his case, was hardly entitled to an acquittal. He did not contend, for he could not contend, that his words were not libellous ; and it was difficult to believe that in using thorn, he was moved entirely by anxiety for the good of the public. Society journals are not established to purify the public taste, or the public morals either; and though, we believe, Mr. Labouchere has a good deal of perfectly genuine political feeling, and was made savage by the way in which the Telegraph, ratted, still there was a kind of intellectual malignity at least in the persistency of his attacks on the whole Levy family, and especially on its deceased member, Mr. Lionel Lawson, who, whatever his character or his faults, had on the evidence very little to do with the Telegraph, beyond sharing its profits. Strong language is always being used about newspapers, and does them little harm; but admitting it to be perfectly fair for an excited partisan to denounce the Times, as O'Connell once did the Whigs, as "base, bloody, and brutal," still, if any one applied those epithets to the quiet bankers who hold or held certain proprietary rights iu the great journal, the world would judge that the provocation was not all political, and the denunciation unfair. At the same time, nobody expected. that Mr. Lawson would obtain the verdict for or against Ministries as he pleased, an evil which once to which technically he may have been entitled. His language actually existed and proved intolerable, even though the great to Mr. Labouchere was quite as strong as Mr. Labouchere's boroughmougers were for the most part, if not honest politicians, about him ; he took to the stick, which is considered. to preclude at least sincere party men. The power of the Press is, as wo a resort to law ; and he made in the witness-box a very bad fight believe, declining, under the solvent influence of the indivi- for the Telegraph. Part of his failure was his own fault, he dualism which is the characteristic of the age ; but as Lord being helpless in the hands of the cross-examiner, and making Coleridge says, a great newspaper is at all events a great foolish replies ; but part of it was the fault of the facts. Con- trumpet, and when the clang of that trumpet is suddenly sidering the immense capital held in the concern by other per- heard ou the other side, the army which had trusted in its sons, it is quite possible that he was much less free in the alliance is, at all events, startled and dismayed. The trumpet management of the paper than the defence desired to prove ; but may affect the progress of polities most seriously. In this still that was not his line of argument, and the public held him very instance, there can be little doubt that one of the causes to be the Telegraph,—and tho Telegraph, iu their view, which deluded the late Tory Government as to public feeling, stood condemned. Whatever Mr. Lawson's personal share in and, therefore, hardened them in their Jingo policy, was the the matter, and we can conceive it much less than he chose to daily blast blown so loudly in their favour by the Telegraph. allege, the Toiegraph, according to the evidence produced, did It seemed impossible that a paper so popular and so ex- rat in a way which would injure most politicians, and did tensively sold could be going directly counter to the wishes at one time publish, for extra rates of pay, advertisements and views of the majority. Yet it undoubtedly was 8o, even which in its own columns were denounced as indecent, or in London, the reason being that the Telegraph was in the even criminal. The fact that Mr. Lawson, though not last resort Mr. Lawson,—who said in Court that Epirus was owner of the paper, did at last stop those advertisements, in Greece, and that ho had no recollection of any Dr. Franklin. while they were yielding almost incredible profits, ought, Ignorance of that kind, or of any kind, is no offence in a capi- perhaps, to have been more pressed in his favour than it talist, and may help, by narrowing his range of thoughts and was ; but to a jury a newspaper is a corporate and continuous interests, to give him greater concentration on a few objects ; entity, and the corporate entity called the Telegraph could, but it disqualifies a newspaper proprietor, just as it would a under the evidence given, hardly expect a verdict. The die- statesman, for rightly exercising a great guiding influence on. charge of the jury, therefore, sufficiently met the merits of the public opinion. Nobody is bound to know geography, but case ; while neither plaintiff nor defendant wholly escaped unless you know it, you can hardly diffuse much light punishment,—Mr. Lawson from his adversary's diabolically on the Eastern Question. Yet it is clear, from a mass of clever cross-examination, and Mr. Labouchere from Sir Hardinge evidence, not only in this trial, but cropping up every-
Giffard's terribly eloquent speech. where, that immense control over the Press is passing The interest of the case for us does not lie either with plaintiff in all countries to men who neither possess nor pretend or defendant, but in the clear revelation which the proceedings to possess the qualifications of publicists. They are shrewd afforded of a grave danger to the future of Journalism. We traders, and they succeed in the newspaper trade. They direct agree with Lord Coleridge—whose summing-up seems to us to a line to be taken on an opinion of their own, which may often have been admirable, more especially in the rare dialectic skill be extremely shrewd, but need. not be based on knowledge or with which he reduced the case to its fitting proportions—that political fooling ; that line is taken, and the public and the such suits deeply shake one's faith in the advantages to be world have to accept the consequences of misdirection. It is gained by the public from anonymous journalism. That system vain to say that as the writing can only be done by has certain advantages, the greatest being, perhaps, that argu- journalists, there is always a guarantee for the public. ments are heard, and not men ; that qualified persons, without It is not so. Within certain limits, there are all opinions known names, can get their ideas and information read; that among journalists ; an able trader in newspapers will pick personalities as between journalists are eliminated from the his men, so that their permanent proclivities and his opinions debate, and that the journal speaks with the weight of an for the hour will coincide ; while, of course, there aro impersonal, corporate body. But then the disadvantages are journalists, sometimes able, who have no opinions, and regard.
becoming very great, too. Owing partly to the demand for themselves purely as advocates, employed to state an arguable expensive information, partly to the system of advertising, case. Such men—we are not applying this to the Telegraph, partly to the cost of printing-paper—an endless problem, which, on which the writers, when discussing " Imperial " questions, if it is soluble, will give a first-class fortune to the man who seem aven angrily self-opinionated—naturally accrete to capi- solves it—and partly to the characteristic and absurd English talists, who can reward well, and who are as indifferent to politics decision that a penny is the proper price for a morning newspaper, as themselves.
a newspaper speculator, above most other speculators, needs The newspaper power of the traders may thus become enor- large capital. Scarcely any one succeeds without it, while its pos- mous, yet be exercised without responsibility, either professional sessor, if he succeeds, obtains possession of an extraordinarily or of any other kind. They may be entirely ignorant of the journalist, not of a debater, not of a public man at all, but of a trader, who may care nothing about politics, who may be utterly ignorant of political knowledge, or who may be caring entirely for non-political ends,—fortune, position, or OBSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES.
power. That is exactly as great an evil as if some capitalist, rro THE EDITOR OF TILE " SPECTATOR:1
Giffard's terribly eloquent speech. where, that immense control over the Press is passing The interest of the case for us does not lie either with plaintiff in all countries to men who neither possess nor pretend or defendant, but in the clear revelation which the proceedings to possess the qualifications of publicists. They are shrewd afforded of a grave danger to the future of Journalism. We traders, and they succeed in the newspaper trade. They direct agree with Lord Coleridge—whose summing-up seems to us to a line to be taken on an opinion of their own, which may often have been admirable, more especially in the rare dialectic skill be extremely shrewd, but need. not be based on knowledge or with which he reduced the case to its fitting proportions—that political fooling ; that line is taken, and the public and the such suits deeply shake one's faith in the advantages to be world have to accept the consequences of misdirection. It is gained by the public from anonymous journalism. That system vain to say that as the writing can only be done by has certain advantages, the greatest being, perhaps, that argu- journalists, there is always a guarantee for the public. ments are heard, and not men ; that qualified persons, without It is not so. Within certain limits, there are all opinions known names, can get their ideas and information read; that among journalists ; an able trader in newspapers will pick personalities as between journalists are eliminated from the his men, so that their permanent proclivities and his opinions debate, and that the journal speaks with the weight of an for the hour will coincide ; while, of course, there aro impersonal, corporate body. But then the disadvantages are journalists, sometimes able, who have no opinions, and regard.
becoming very great, too. Owing partly to the demand for themselves purely as advocates, employed to state an arguable expensive information, partly to the system of advertising, case. Such men—we are not applying this to the Telegraph, partly to the cost of printing-paper—an endless problem, which, on which the writers, when discussing " Imperial " questions, if it is soluble, will give a first-class fortune to the man who seem aven angrily self-opinionated—naturally accrete to capi- solves it—and partly to the characteristic and absurd English talists, who can reward well, and who are as indifferent to politics decision that a penny is the proper price for a morning newspaper, as themselves.
a newspaper speculator, above most other speculators, needs The newspaper power of the traders may thus become enor- large capital. Scarcely any one succeeds without it, while its pos- mous, yet be exercised without responsibility, either professional sessor, if he succeeds, obtains possession of an extraordinarily or of any other kind. They may be entirely ignorant of the valuable monopoly. In this very case, though Mr. Lawson whole subject-matter. They may be, and on the Continent they refused to state the income of the Telegraph, and was upheld in very often are, partners in Syndicates striving for objects not his refusal by the LO'rd Chief Justice, enough came out to show in the least political. Or they may be merely intent on express- that hardly any business—except, perhaps, a great brewery— ing prejudices of their own, impressions for which they could yields such an income as a successful daily paper. The late Mr. give no intelligible reason whatever. Nevertheless, their power Lionel Lawson's fortune was, at all events, founded on his share is just the same ; they can, as Lord Coleridge put it, make a in the Telegraph, and his nephew and heir stated that fortune— mighty trumpet blow, and the public has no means of knowing accumulated, be it remembered, by the possessor in one genera- that it is blown, as it were, by mechanism, and not by tion, and before he had reached old ago—at three millions sterling. sentient skill. There is no remedy that we know of for the That is equal to three first-class fortunes, even if we suppose Mr. danger, except in the rise of a strong professional spirit, still too Lawson to have made only five per cent., and assume that a feeble in journalism, or in the abolition of anonymity, and that, man with less than L50,000 a year is only a second-rate million- in this country at all events, is still far off. The trader will aire. With such prizes in the distance, and the considerable still be attracted by newspaper enterprise, and will still succeed social power and position which belong to the Editors of the better than the cultivated or the convinced in making news- great Dailies also to be sought, the temptation to the capitalist papers succeed. They are in one sense businesses ; and business to become editor and manage his own property becomes excel- men, thinking of cash profits, are the men who make businesses sive ; and the public is in presence of this state of things. An succeed. There is no help, but the facts do not tend to make immense intellectual machine, expected or supposed at once to journalism a more honourable, a more trusted, or, iu the long- express and to form public opinion, may be in the hands not of a run, a more profitable profession.
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