accepted it or blindly protested against it, who have not under stood the operation of its invisible machinery, the impersonal character of its pages, or the source of the power it wields.
The uncertainty in regard to what is the function of the press and the blind distrust of the press find expression in the phrases used with reference to it. The newspaper has been called an advocate, a broker , an entertainer , an informant, an interpreter,
a solicitor , a teacher , and a tribune. It is spoken of as the gutter press , the sensational press , a jackal press, an inspired press, a
capitalistic press, a reptile press, a prostituted press ; the news it presents is said to have been elaborated , embroidered , garbled, colored , cooked, doctored, padded , improved , distorted , trun
cated , faked , perverted, juggled , censored , exploited, spiced, falsified, poisoned , camouflaged ; its accounts are called red, yellow , drab , gray, melodramatic, impressionistic , or tabloid ; its manner of narration has, on the other hand, been termed dull, stupid , trivial, commonplace, unattractive, heavy , ponderous,
monotonous, disjointed, and its general policy is alluded to as a
newspaper game. These general expressions of distrust and dis approval tend to become more specific and the press is accused
of “ unblushing exaggeration," of being misleading, mendacious, venal, truculent, crude, shallow , coarse, vulgar, brutal, boorish , ill-natured , flippant, impertinent, meddlesome, insolent, in temperate, scurrilous, unscrupulous, corrupt, dishonest, false , insincere, irresponsible, imbecile, ignorant, ill-informed , absurd, self-seeking, outrageous, reckless, cowardly , partisan , unfair, un just, illiberal, untrue, unreliable, vicious, malevolent, malicious; it is charged with suppressing the news, shaping the news, " hush ing up ” the news, misrepresenting the news, distorting the news, falsifying the news, creating news, misconstruing the news, with misleading the public, feeding private grudges, meddling in private affairs, with craving sensation , with general deterioration ,
and those contributing to it are said to be “ indebted to their memories for their jests and their imaginations for their facts;"'
it is arraigned for being controlled by capitalists, by Wall Street, by the trusts, by the interests, by corporations, by its advertisers,
by politics, or by commercialism . If these charges are to be accepted as stated , the historian must
