THE ETHICS OF ADVERTISEMENT.
ON Friday week -the jury returned a verdict for the proprietors of the Daily Mail in the libelaction brought by-Sir Hedley Bas. Sir Medley Le Bas based his action on the ground that the Daily Mail had accused him of having been guilty 'of " mean and loathsome conduct," of havimgaided the enemy, of having attempted to corrupt the Press, and :had- written of him as having ;brought discredit on-his club. It will be remembered-that what called forth this-abuse was the action of Sir Medley Le Bas in -paying certain newspapers to print articles signed by various writers criticizing the policy of Mr. Lloyd George. -The verdict of the jury was distinctly opposed to the summing-up by Mr. Justice Darling. In our opinion, the abuse showered upon Sir Medley Le Bras by the Daily:Mail was both extravagant and discreditable, even though, under the accepted con- ditions of political controversy,- it may not have been libellous. At the same time, in so far as the public asso- ciates this libel case with the issue whether whatever is paid for in a newspaper at advertisement rates ought to be pre- sented as unmistakably what it is—namely, an advertise- ment—we are glad. to think that the impression left by'the verdict may be very wholesome. Of course the Daily Mail does its best to keep the attention of its readers on this particular issue, as "though there were no .other. If that were the only issue, we-should agree with the Daily Mail, for it is indeed most.important that readers of newspapers should not be-ignorant of the origins of what they read.
To a certain extent we appreciate the argument of the Judge in-his-summing-up, that there is virtually no differ- ence -between paying a man to write opinions which are printed in a newspaper, and paying a newspaper to print opinions which have been written by somebody outside the walls of that particular journalistic tabernacle. The Judge might have amplified his argument by showing that in a large sense Lord Northcliffe himself is engaged in both operations ; he certainly buys up newspapers here, there, and -anywhere when be gets the opportunity, in -order to express—in other words, to advertise--his opinions. Again, Mr:Justice -Darling might have drawn a pretty and
persuasive picture -of the Government spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on propaganda—that is to say, paying for the publication of their views in order to -sway opinion not only in this country but in neutral and enemy countries without in any single case giving indication ndication -of the origin of the articles. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that all the articles which Sir Medley Le Bas paid to have inserted were signed articles. No one who read then .can have been in any doubt, no matter how ignorant he might be of the process by which they appeared in the newspaper, as
to whose opinions he was reading. But when all admis- sions have been made, and though we think that Sir Hedley Le Bas has been most hardly used, we hold by our opinion that it is impossible to be too careful in letting-the public know the sources of what they are reading. It is not easy to state the case quite logically or reduce it to a formula. But it is safe to say that if editors are paid to insert an article, they owe it to their readers to -make the position clear. Responsibility for this rests on editors more than upon anybody else. Indeed, it rests upon them almost entirely. The wholesome lesson of the verdict will be misapplied if people apply it personally to Sir Medley Le Bas rather than to the practices of some editors.
By the way, Sir Hedley Le Bas's memory seems to have been at fault in a matter of detak small but not altogether unimportant. He said that he had been informed by 'Mr. St. Loe Strachey, the editor of the Spectator, that Cobden used to pay for the insertion of Free Trade articles in papers just as -he (Sir Hedley Le Bas) had paid for the insertion of articles about Mr. Lloyd George and the future of Liberalism. What Mr. Strachey actually said—we -quote the exact words—was that " he (Cobden') inserted articles in the newspapers which would not take ' leaders' from the Corn Law League, and inserted them openly as advertisements, and so got a hearing in the enemy's camp." Of course a newspaper proprietor or editor always has a right to refuse an advertisement if he thinks that it is injurious to the -public interest. But that is his affair, not the advertiser's.
A piquant aspect of the trial was the rather-embarrassing situation in which the Daily Mail found itself in supporting its abuse of Sir Medley Le Bas as an attacker -of Mr. Lloyd George, -although times have now so changed that the Daily Mail is itself -the principal attacker of the Prime Minister. We arc saying nothing against the right to attack as such. Granted that a newspaper proprietor honestly believes that a particular Minister is rumiug the country, he has aright-and a duty to use the full power which his hold of publicity gives him in order to get rid of 'that Minister. Indeed, the more strongly he feels, the more clearly is he obliged as a patriot -to take action. :Lord Northcliffe may be assumed to have discharged a public service when he helped to drive Mr. Asquith from -office ; but the same thing cannot be said of Mr. Lloyd George's friends who used the Northcliffe Press as their instrument. When all has been written, however, what surprising difficulties newspapers fall into when they :suddenly turn round and exchange one idol for another with indecent haste ! When Sir Healey Le Bas procured the publication of his articles, Lord Northcliffe and Mr. Lloyd George were- in combination attacking Mr. Asquith. Last week the Daily Mail was forced by circumstances to defend in Court the very man—Mr. Lloyd George—whom it is at the moment assailing with increasing vehemence. On more than one occasion we have felt bound to say hard things about Mr. Lloyd George, but at all events, from tho time of the Limehouse speech and the Marconi episode till now, our course has been in one direction. Other -people have done double gyrations ; have already-twice passed us in their giddy dance ; and will perhaps pass us again and again till their genius for fantastic evolution is exhausted or they lean panting against the wall.
Previous page
