CHAPTER XVI 1 1. NEWSPAPERS AS PARTY ORGANS. You have intelligence and political training of your own, and my advice to you is to read the news in the papers, to get the informa^ tion, and then to form your own judgments independently of any conventionally cut-and-dried leading articles. — Right Hon, John Morley, M.P. HEN Dickens made the partizan zeal of local newspapers a subject for humorous satire in his narrative of Eatanswill journalism in " Pickwick," he hardly exaggerated the me- thods of political warfare adopted by local buff and blue organs half-a-century ago. And in a measure his satire has not lost its force to-day. Local editors too often take sides with greater zeal than discretion. The buff organ will only allot the most meagre amount of space for ac- counts of blue meetings, from which it might be supposed that they were of small importance, but for the trenchant criticism they meet with in the editorial columns. This is a very common result of the practice of running in party grooves, which English local journalism is too read- ily content to adopt. Yet it must be said on its behalf that this state of things has been largely promoted and fostered by politicians themselves. The London newspa- pers, of course, and some of the large Provincial dailies, report political utterances on both sides with fulness and impartiality, but the country Press does not always follow this good example. Neither buff nor blue politicians are happy in a con- stituency till there are two public organs which reflect their respective views. When local newspapers are the creation of one or other side in politics, the less said about the independence of the Press in such instances
