their names or their initials to their contributions, and thus indicate their willingness to assume the responsibility for their part of the newspaper.[1]
The newspaper makes its own regulations for its own protection as well as for that of its readers. The occasional correspondent must give his name and address, "not necessarily for publication but as a guarantee of good faith," and this regulation is frequently re-enforced by the statement that the paper will pay no attention to anonymous communications. In large cities, all notices of marriages and of deaths must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender, although no regulation seems to have been devised that will prevent a person from sending a false notice of his own marriage.
It sometimes places at the head of its "lost and found" column the section of the penal code warning the public of the penalties incurred in not making reasonable effort to find the owner of lost property and restore it to him. In every possible way the newspaper uses its authority to avert the publication of false statements sent it by those who are not members of its staff but who seek to shield themselves under its panoply.
The large number of persons connected with the press is not in itself a guarantee that statements are correct,—no reporter sees more than if he were the sole reporter, but the large number on a metropolitan press becomes an unconscious check on the way a person sees.
Not only the date of appearance, but the volume, number of issue, and number of pages in the issue are stated,—items that have more than once been important factors in determining the forgery of newspapers.
There is a somewhat general assumption that the main object of a paper is to hoodwink the public, yet even a cursory examination must show that the newspaper and other periodicals give their own explicit guarantees that they have used every known means to guarantee the reliability and the authoritativeness of the definite statements made by them, in the ways that have been
- ↑ The Concord, N. H., Evening Monitor states that "political and other communicated reading matter will be designated by a star at the conclusion of the article and will ordinarily appear on page five of the Monitor."
