The Right to be Wrong
The press has behaved disgracefully. Partly because officials never tell reporters anything, it is true, but still, disgracefully. And even if the press knows more than the gossip of its own members, knows something for a hard fact, this may only be hinted at obliquely. Colleagues are talking; they say The Press, not 'We,' have behaved badly. We are the press. It is ourselves who must do something about the state of our craft. The object of the uproar is almost for- gotten. A small man, described officially as weak and not too bright, fooled all his highly educated superiors and sold his country and (in the future) thousands of young men in ships, to those who would destroy what is left of our world. For seven years. Not seven weeks before somebody noticed him, but seven years. Nobody is to blame. It just happened. Just how far can tolerance go? Of course, the press did behave badly over this man's superior for reasons that are still quite obscure to an expatriate come home. But under the corruption and commer- cialism of the popular press, there is the stirring of a deep concern about the lethargy, the slackness, of those who manage our affairs.
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