ways in perplexity in his efforts to effect a compromise between himself on the one side and all these discordant elements on the other side.[1] His Autobiography is filled with accounts of the wranglings of editors and of publishers and owners. The letters mutually exchanged are often abusive and personal to an extent that would not be tolerated to-day.
The lives and letters of John Murray, and of William Blackwood, are filled with accounts of the almost inevitable misunderstandings and disagreements among the owners, publishers, and editors of periodicals.[2]
James Macdonell was brilliant and able, a Liberal in politics and a vigorous opponent of all the policies that Disraeli stood for. "But the curb was put upon the enthusiastic leader writer, with his strong humanitarian views, and he had to see the paper with which he was identified taking a course of which he could not approve."[3]
J. A. Spender says that during his thirty-three years' connection with the press he has seen the power of the editor and writer constantly diminishing and the power of the proprietor constantly increasing. "Journalists can neither do justice to themselves nor serve the public honestly in a syndicated press producing opinion to a pattern designed by its proprietor."[4]
Similar statements have been recently made by Henry Watterson who declared that "he has seen many newspaper properties wrecked by internal dissentions and by the attempt of an ambitious business manager to dominate and control the editorial department."[5]
W. S. Robinson, the editor of the Boston Republican in 1848, found more than once that his editorial had been altered by one
- ↑ Autobiography, I, chap. XII.
- ↑ S. Smiles, Memoirs and Correspondence of the Late John Murray, 2 vols.; Mrs. Oliphant, The Annals of a Publishing House; William Blackwood and His Sons, 3 vols.
- ↑ S. J. Reid, Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid, p . 135; W. R. Nicoll, James Macdonell, pp. 294–295.
- ↑ "The Editor vs. the Proprietor," in the Westminster Gazette, cited by the Literary Digest, April 13, 1918, 57: 29–30.
The relations between editor and proprietor are discussed by A. W. à Beckett, The à Becketts of "Punch," chap. X , "Advice Gratis," pp. 293–310.
- ↑ New York Tribune, June 26, 1917.
