The Monopoly of News

by GERALD W. JOHNSON

1

THE final going down of the New York Sun is said to have thrown twelve hundred newspaper workers out of employment. The individual tragedies involved in this catastrophe are justly regarded as of more than local concern; they have a large social significance as evidence of the constricting limits of one field of human endeavor, that of daily journalism. Daily newspaper work, if not a dying profession, is certainly a shrinking one, which is a matter of concern to newspapermen everywhere, not merely in New York City.

But the figure has another significance, not for newspapermen only, but for every citizen of the United States. It takes twelve hundred men to get out a daily newspaper in New York, and that by no means the largest.

This statement portrays a change in American journalism, not only in degree but also in kind, since the time when the New York Sun was founded. It means that the newspaper proprietor of 1950 is not the same kind of man that he was in 1833 and earlier, and this invalidates some forms of traditional thinking. It was in 1787 that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Edward Carrington that if he had to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government “I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” and perhaps he would have repeated the assertion as late as 1833; but it does not necessarily follow that he would say the same thing in 1950. In 1787 Jefferson undoubtedly would have said that he preferred a horse to a car for getting about the country; but he would not say so now. Yet the meaning of the word “car” has changed hardly more since his time than has the word “newspaper.”

If you doubt it, consider the origin of the newspaper whose death last January threw twelve hundred persons out of employment, The New York Sun began in a saloon that flourished just off Newspaper Row in the eighteen-thirties. There four cronies sat together after work nearly every day and discussed the state of the world over tankards. Three of them were printers—honest, hard-working men without a doubt, but certainly no earthshakers— named Benjamin H. Day, William Swaim, and Arunah S. Abell. These were youngsters, all in their twenties. The fourth member of the group was in his forties, an amusing fellow, but a notorious ne’er-do-well, always out at elbows, and probably regarded by steady-going artisans as little better than a bum. His name was James Gordon Bennett.

Day alone was his own master. He was the proprietor of a small job-printing establishment. Swaim and Abell were compositors, and Bennett was a reporter at those relatively infrequent times when he had a job. But they are not so remembered. Historians recall them today as the founders, respectively, of the New York Sun, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, the Baltimore Sun, and the New York Herald, four newspapers that revolutionized American journalism.

Day brought out the first issue of the Sun in September, 1833, with the assistance of one reporter and two carrier-boys, and it was a success from the start. The last issue was brought out with the assistance of twelve hundred people, and it was a failure. Another Day, to start another newspaper that would be instantly recognized as better than any existing in New York, would probably have to start with a couple of thousand people. Marshall Field employed hundreds to get PM going in New York and it eventually gave up the ghost. He has had a very difficult time with the Chicago Sun. In short, the only kind of man who can start a big-city newspaper in 1950 is one with many millions at his command, and even he has no assurance of success.

The explanation is that the collection and dissemination of news in 1950 requires such tremendous equipment, and such vast numbers of people that it can be undertaken only by men in control of immense capital resources. Yet it is a necessity— in fact, the prime necessity— for the successful functioning of the sort of government we have developed. Jefferson’s remark requires adaptation, without essential change; we cannot have our kind of government without newspapers, and excellent newspapers, at that.

Remember that next November we shall have to choose the members of the Eighty-second Congress, which will determine—if only by the method of blocking— the policy of the United States for the next two years; and upon the policy of the United States depends the destiny of a large part of the world. The selection of representatives competent to deal with the problems that will confront that Congress is therefore of supreme importance. But the gravest of those problems will take shape as a result of what is now happening, not in the next county, but on the other side of the world. What you and I know about what is happening there is what the press tells us. Under the best circumstances our decision in November may be the wrong one; but if the information on which the decision is based is false, then the decision is bound to be false. We are hostages of fortune who will inevitably be sacrificed if the press fails to keep faith.

2

ACCURATE news is not merely a prime necessity in a representative democracy: it is the prime necessity. Nothing takes precedence over it.

But when any article is a necessity and when that article cannot be supplied except by an immense organization at vast expense, the business of purveying it becomes a natural monopoly. Communication is such a necessity. No rational man dreams that the public interest would be served by setting up a competing post office in every town. We did try competing telephone companies for a while, but the system didn’t work. Water is a necessity, but supplying it is a natural monopoly, and to have two sets of water mains in every street would be sheer insanity.

News is rapidly assuming the status of water, communication, and electricity. Supplying it calls for an immense, and increasing, capital investment and very large daily expenditures. Whether it comes through newspapers, by radio-television, or through the movies, it involves the employment of millions of money and thousands of men; and only great capitalists, usually in the form of great corporations, can undertake it. This means that supplying news assumes every day more of the nature of a natural monopoly.

It is already collectivized to a high degree. The Associated Press, the United Press, and the International News Service are all essentially cooperatives, even when, as in the case of INS, they preserve the form of private ownership. The local newspaper is simply an outlet, as is the individual member of a cooperative chain-store group. As regards the purity of the product, this has worked well. Even if one newspaper wished to adulterate the news, it would have little chance to do so when nine hundred and ninety-nine others draw from the same source, and many of them would object to any adulteration proposed.

But such tremendous technological changes have certainly altered the nature of the institution, and when the very nature of an institution alters, its position in the social structure calls for reconsideration. A car, in Jefferson’s day, was a horse-drawn vehicle, usually clumsy and always slow. The invention of the internal-combustion engine changed its nature. Not only were the horses discarded, but the whole attitude of society toward the vehicle changed and an entirely new field of law and an almost entirely new field of engineering were created to express that attitude.

A newspaper, in Jefferson’s day, was a journal of opinion as well as a disseminator of information. It not only published the news, but it interpreted it in comment expressing the opinion of the newspaper editor. When editorial opinion expressed the views of such people as Day, Abell, Swnim, and Bennett, it reflected pretty faithfully the opinion of the masses, for even when these men had become successful and comparatively rich they were not far removed from their origin.

It is interesting to remember that when Day, within four months, was selling four thousand copies of the New York Sun at a cent apiece, the other three rushed out and set up penny papers of their own— Bennett in New York, Swaim in Philadelphia, Abell in Baltimore. An enterprise that could take in the prodigious sum of forty dollars a day from circulation alone was, in their estimation, colossal. But a man who can manage successfully an enterprise taking in forty thousand dollars a day differs widely, in most of his attitudes and ways of thinking, from a man who is impressed by receipts of forty dollars a day. Mis opinions, therefore, are not likely to reflect faithfully the opinions of the masses.

The accuracy of this inference is attested by the fact that for the past eighteen years the majority of the American press — among big-city newspapers, the overwhelming majority—has opposed the party in power. At the same time, the majority of the voters — in the big cities the overwhelming majority— has supported that party. Thus it is evident that whatever opinion the newspapers reflect, it is not the opinion of the majority.

This is no proof that newspaper opinion is wrong, but it is proof that it is not popular opinion. So the question arises, Should this opinion, plainly not acceptable to the majority, be inseparably attached to a necessity— to wit, news?

If we are to live without excessive inconvenience in a modern city, telephones we must have, gas and electricity we must have. Hence it is unavoidably necessary to admit into our homes telephone repairmen, meter readers, and inspectors. But if these employees of the telephone company and of the gas and electric companies should take advantage of that necessity to instruct us how to vote next November, think of the howl that would go up! Why, then, should the purveyor of another necessity, news, be allowed the privilege of thrusting upon us unwanted and unacceptable advice? Why should the function of disseminating news, now that it approaches the status of a monopoly, continue to be bound to the function of interpreting news, which is distinctly different and which, under no circumstances, should be monopolized?

This is not an assertion that corporations engaged in this essentially monopolistic enterprise should be forbidden to form and express opinions on public men and public affairs. Not only are they guaranteed that right by the First Amendment to the Constitution, but the whole history of ideas supports the theory that the truth is most likely to prevail where every variety of opinion may be published without let or hindrance. To forbid a newspaper to publish an opinion on any subject, even though it is the composite opinion of a corporation, not that of any of the men who write the newspaper, would be a step away from liberty and, as I believe, away from truth.

The question is this: Should a corporation enjoying a monopolistic position in the distribution of a necessity be permitted to use that position to give its own opinion a preferred position over any other by attaching that opinion to the necessary product it purveys? We do not allow it to radio, which, by reason of the limited number of channels available, is also a natural monopoly. The Federal Communications Commission requires a radio corporation, if it expresses a controversial opinion, to give equal time to the expression of opposing opinion. If that is just as regards radio, why is it unjust as regards any other medium of communication?

As a matter of fact, many American newspapers have already seen the point and have taken, on their own initiative, steps to fortify their position. In one-newspaper towns it is a common practice for the journal enjoying the monopoly to print every day comment diametrically opposed to its own views; and few reputable newspapers will refuse to print a letter to the editor because it takes issue with the paper’s stand on a matter of public interest. Some journals not only reprint opposing comment from other sources, but go to considerable expense in buying from syndicates signed columns written by men known to be of an opposing political or economic faith.

But this is at most a plea in confession and avoidance. It attests an honorable disposition on the part of the press to play fair, and acquits it of a determination to accomplish by monopoly what the government is forbidden to do by law — namely, to abridge freedom of speech. However, it does not a (feet the relation of the institution to society. It proves only that American opinion has an intelligent and, on the whole, a benevolent master, not that it has no master. Opinion is free only when nobody can monopolize it, not when nobody does monopolize it.

3

IT IS widely believed that certain popular columnists, not always the more intelligent ones, swing more votes in every election than the greatest newspaper in the United States. The returns for the past eighteen years certainly suggest it.

Within the craft this may be taken as another brutal assault on that favorite target of every sniper, the editorial writer. If it were so, it would be inexcusable, for I have been an editorial writer myself, and know the virtues of the breed. Editorial writing is, or ought to be, journalism’s final and best contribution to society and the stale. In view of the immensity and complexity of the volume of news now poured upon the American public, careful and skillful interpretation of the significance of that news is more important and more valuable today than it ever was before. An interpretation made by a detached observer with wide information and, above all, long experience in reading newspapers can lead the average man to the truth in a fraction of the time it would take him to get there himself by floundering through the news with no guidance.

What the country needs is not the abolition of editorial writers, but more, many more, and better ones. But as daily newspapers decrease in numbers there are fewer positions open to such men; and as the corporate form grows vaster and more complex, their independence is more and more restricted. My suggestion is that the editorial writer is badly placed on a daily newspaper, and that his position grows worse with every newspaper that collapses. He deals, not so much with events, as with the ideas that spring from events, and in the battle of ideas one’s weapons are burnished and sharpened by the clash of contending opinions—and the number of contending opinions has been reduced by 40 per cent since 1929, by the disappearance of daily newspapers in that proportion.

Unfortunately, we have not developed in this country any place for this kind of worker that can serve as an alternative to the daily newspaper. With us, the journal of opinion is still rudimentary. The Nation and the New Republic have existed precariously, even as weeklies; a daily devoted to the propagation of ideas is unknown and, to most American newspapermen, unimaginable. Pre-war Paris, to be sure, could manage thirty-one, but not New York; and it is true enough that only a handful of the Parisian dailies were genuinely interested in ideas. The rest were pretty much scavengers.

Nevertheless, although the French may never have pulled it off, it is possible that they had the right idea, and it is conceivable that in time we may take it over and make it work better. That the American daily press is in a period of transition is plain to the dullest. In speed it has already been superseded; the radio can outdistance it so easily that the old-time extra long ago disappeared, and the scoop is now practically unknown. Added to economic giantism, this plainly points to the day when most cities will rely for news of record on one huge journal, issued twice — and in large cities possibly three times— a day.

But no one will look to it for opinion any more than people now look to the telephone or the electric light company for opinion. That will be supplied by a multitude of four-page sheets sold for a cent but written by exceptionally alert and well-informed men. Not being burdened with responsibility for millions of other people’s money, as a conscientious executive of a large newspaper is, they will say what they think, and they will usually think accurately. The monopolistic newspaper will continue to tell the world what happened yesterday; but small, fugitive sheets will tell it what is going to happen tomorrow. Many will guess wrong, and perish, but others will appear to replace them, for it will not take a Marshall Field to start one; any fairly prosperous job-printer, such as Benjamin H. Day, can do it, and when one comes along who pretty consistently guesses right, he will flourish. He will never be able to build another San Simeon to rival Hearsi’s, or endow the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as Munsey did, but he will take in forty dollars a day, and may even net that much after he has paid off his printer and a couple of writing hands.

That would be an income of twelve thousand dollars a year, which is mere pocket-change to a big modern publisher. But this lad would collect something else. Assuming that he really understood the news and knew how to explain it, and assuming that he actually did so, considering only the interest of the average man, not that of any corporation or class or political party, it would not be long before everybody in town would be reading his sheet and in addition to his forty dollars he would be taking in something else—he would be acquiring influence to an incredible extent.

Some men like that better than money, and such men include many of the best newspaper workers. Suppose the monopolistic journal continued to roll up millions for its owners but, if it thundered at all, continued to thunder for the current Landon, with the traditional result — eight electoral votes. And suppose some owner of a journal of opinion, able to compile his income tax return on the short form, was also able to look over mayors, and governors, and Congressmen, and say to one go, and he goeth, and to another come, and he cometh—well, I know plenty of men who would not hesitate for an instant to lake the short income with the long reach. They would not impress bankers, but they would have a wonderful time.

Be that as it may, the ordinary voter in this country should prepare himself to consider some startling arguments over the rights, privileges, and duties of the American press, and that within a short time. For the trend toward monopoly is irreversible. It was not planned by malefactors of great wealth, or by malefactors of any kind. Most of the caterwauling about the “capitalistic press” and its sins is sheer bosh. If it is a menace to liberty it was made so by its virtues, not by its sins. Its very excellence as a purveyor of news has made it so expensive that it can no longer reflect, much less mold, the opinions of the impecunious majority; yet that expense has put it into the position of a natural monopoly.

The result is that free opinion must find some other channel. What that channel will be, only the seventh son of a seventh son is competent to guess. But it will be found. To doubt it would be to doubt the final perseverance of intelligence.