that these rumors could easily be demolished by reference to a good map and Whitaker's Almanac and the use of average
intelligence.47 Nor does this end the list of the war correspondent's sins of
omission and commission . He has been charged with drawing on his imagination in default of facts, although “ there is, after all," as E . N . Bennett observes, “ a limit to war news based apparently on second sight and complete freedom from the fetters of time and space.” Obvious " padding" has been one of the sins
laid at his door,48 the uncontrolled and irresponsible correspon dent has affected detrimentally public opinion at home through
unpleasant or inopportune truth -telling, or by deliberate false hoods, he has produced discontent in the army in the field through shattering its confidence in army leaders , he gives information to the enemy, he parades officers ' names for admira tion and this without authority, and he indulges in sensational
writing.49 Even more subtle faults have been laid at his door and he has been held to be, as was said of G . W . Steevens, “ some what too closely involved in the condition of the moment to see
life steadily and to see it whole.” 50 W . T. Arnold protested against a new war correspondent who had had an erroneous idea
ofhis work : “ Z - is no use for war. I never saw a great opportun ity so missed as in his . . . telegram . As if we wanted his noble sentiments . . . ! One wanted the chose vue— the detail which
is the life and soul of all journalism . . . but, above all, of
descriptive reporting, and one did not get it.” 51 The recent war has fostered still other mischievous tendencies , and war cor 47 A . F . Pollard , “ Rumor and Historical Science," Contemporary Review , March , 1915, 107 : 321 - 330 . The article was the annual address before the British Historical Association , January 8 , 1915. 48 “ A journalist sees a battle for a quarter of an hour , talks to a few officers, fugitives, military attachés, wounded people, and then makes off in his motor car to cable four lines of fact and four columns of padding ." Francis McCullagh , New York Evening Post, January 11, 1913 . Many complaints of “ padding ” were made during the recent war.
Especially in Canada complaint was made that one despatch might appear in several guises in the same paper . 49 Viscount Melgund, “ Newspaper Correspondents in the Field ,” Nine teenth Century , March , 1880 , 7 : 434 - 442.
60 H . W . Boynton , Journalism and Literature , p. 18 . 61 Mrs. Humphry Ward and C . E . Montague, William Thomas Arnold , p . 85.
