No doubt in these days, when the possession of a
daily newspaper means a very large amount of capital, it is as difficult to avoid the syndicate as it is in any other trade. What may fairly be objected to is that the controlled voice should pretend to be an independent voice. The ideal, we suppose, would be for every editor to own his newspaper, but as that is clearly quite impossible one does look back with regret to the days when no proprietor owned more than one newspaper. In those days the relations between proprietors and editors were of a very remarkable kind ; illogical and precarious though the relation might seem, in reality it worked very well. The editor was like the skipper of a ship who lays his own course and is not interfered with by the shipowner. When the Walters owned the Times, for instance, their editor, Delane, was a really independent man. The only apparent cure for the present undesir- able condition of affairs is that the discriminating powers of news- paper readers should grow, and this can only be accomplished by education in the best sense of the word. People will always have the newspapers they deserve.
Previous page
