Federalist atmosphere as Richmond and in competition with a well established and popular press. From the first Ritchie did not disguise his purpose to speak for the administration and his expectation of compensation for such service." ?
In the early days in America postmasters had the franking privilege and newspaper publishers therefore sought postmaster
ships in order to distribute their papers free of charge, - Franklin was for nearly forty years connected in some capacity or other with the post office department. Joseph Hume clearly recognized the double- edged character of this connection between the press and the government in Eng land , and said in the House of Commons in 1822 that if the Government wished to give publicity to its advertisements, it
ought to send them to the papers having the largest circulation , but it did not send a single one to The Times, although it had a greater circulation than any other two papers in England. On
the other hand, he feared that the same system would grow up as in Ireland, where some papers had been set on foot solely with the view of making profit by the government advertisements. Government advertisements had been inserted in some favored Irish papers two years and seven months after the transactions to which they related had been settled and he moved for a return of the amount of all sumspaid to different English newspapers for advertisements of all descriptions from public offices.3
To the more open co -operation sometimes found to -day no objection can be made, Secretary Wilson publicly announced in
1918 a plan by which seven hundred and thirty-six daily news papers were made branch offices of the United States Employment
Service and offers of co -operation were made to newspapers in cities having a population of over 20 ,000 . Much more question able must be deemed the action of one branch of the Government in asking the aid of the New England press in reporting dis loyalty .5
In France , journalism has apparently been the great highway
leading to political office . Joseph Reinach once said that in ? C . H . Ambler, Thomas Ritchie, pp. 19 – 20 . 3 Hansard , May 7, 1822 .
- New York Evening Post, March 22 , 1918 .
5 New York Times, June 12, 1918.
