Great Britain -- Social conditions; Moral conditions; Social problems
One might extend this criticism to the general work of the press as
the great popular educator. We must, however, reflect that the press
is hampered by restrictions which the public ought to bear in mind: a
journal is always a commercial transaction with a particular section
of the public, and it is generally pledged to political partisanship.
It is only just to remark that this materially restricts the
educational ambition of many journalists. The public themselves are to
blame that a large section of our press devotes so much space to
sensational murders, adulteries, burglaries, royal births and
marriages, wars and other crimes and follies. Sunday journals often
contain twenty columns of this rubbish, and the worst parts of it are,
with the most disgusting hypocrisy, thrust into prominence by
especially large head-lines announcing "A Painful Case." One
imagines the working man spending five or six hours of the Sabbath
reading this sort of stuff. Great and grave things, which he ought to
know, are happening all over the world, but he must have sharp eyes if
he is to catch the obscure little paragraphs which--if there is any
reference at all--tell him how many have been put to death in Russia
in the last quarter, or how the republican experiment fares in
Portugal, or how democracy advances in Australia or the United States.
The space is needed for pictures of burned mansions and notorious
murderers and the commonplace relatives of politicians, for verbatim
reports of divorce and criminal cases, for inquests and royal
processions, and for the magnificent speeches of Cabinet Ministers and
would-be Cabinet Ministers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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