The Brass Check: A Study of American JournalismSinclair, Upton
General
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
Sinclair, Upton
Associated Press; Journalism -- United States; Press -- United States
Senator LaFollette: Mr. Stone, has there ever been any complaint made
by members of your association of unfairness on the part of the
manager or the management of the Association regarding news?
Mr. Stone: Oh, yes, sir. There is hardly—
Senator LaFollette: Have the members of your association or any member
of your association complained that you suppressed important news?
Mr. Stone: Oh, yes, sir, we have had that for years.
Senator LaFollette: That you have colored news?
Mr. Stone: No, sir, I do not think anybody has ever said that. Well, I
don’t know about that. We have had complaints on all sides.
This is the Committee on Finance of the United States Senate, holding
hearings on the subject of reciprocity with Canada (Senate Document 56,
Sixty-second Congress, First Session, Vol. II). The newspapers of the
country want a clause by which they can get free paper-pulp from Canada;
so the Associated Press sends out full reports of the testimony of
newspaper publishers before the Senate Committee. But when certain
farmers appear and oppose the reciprocity scheme—listen to Senator
McCumber, questioning Herman Ridder, a director of the Associated Press:
How do you account for the fact, which every senator here must have
noticed, that while these farmers were giving their testimony the
reporters of the Associated Press leaned back in their chairs day
after day scarcely taking a note, and that the moment any man came
forward to give testimony in favor of this bill every pencil came out
and every pad was on the table and all of our good friends were
studiously at work? And that has been the case all through these
hearings.
And again:
It is a notorious fact that we have been able to get but one side of
the question before the public so far as these hearings are concerned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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