The interview to-day is credited with having "more soul" than it formerly had and it still has enthusiastic supporters of its improved form and changed purpose.[1] It is probably not consciously either doctored or colored, its errors are reduced to a minimum, and the faked interview has no reputable sup porters.
The interview has been a prolific source of error and has been the cause of more bitter complaints of the press than probably any other single cause,—errors that have seemed peculiarly exasperating because while made by the local press it has been difficult to secure retraction, correction, explanation, or apology from the papers publishing the incorrect interview. In exceptionally flagrant cases, the columns of rival papers may publish explanatory communications from those who have suffered; this, while of little service to the person immediately concerned, as explanations in other papers seldom reach those reading the original interviews, is of service to the historian in his final account of the questions involved. It must also be remembered that the press on its part suffers from those in public life "who feel no scruples about deceiving representatives of newspapers when it is their interest to tell half-truths or falsify absolutely."[2]
But after all has been said that can be said in favor of the interview, the historian must always question its absolute authoritativeness when he considers the designations attached to it, the objects for which the interview is sought and granted, the subjects of the interview, and the literary form given it.
