204 .
it honestly believes that the public is not interested in any of these matters. When a half dozen national learned societies hold their meetings in the same city during the same week , the press
gives extensive reports of the societies whose deliberations are presumably of interest to its readers while it may barely mention themeetings of other organizations no less important.13 The fear of the advertiser is a common explanation for the so
called supression of news, and the conventional illustration is the elevator accident in a departmentstore carrying large advertising. It seems altogether reasonable, however, to assume that no re porters are at hand to send the news and that the press does not learn of it until the accident has ceased to have news value;14 that
if known, the report is not published through a desire to prevent fear in the use of elevators; that the inconspicuousness of the
individuals concerned gives the accident little interest in the eyes of the general public. Even so , it is easy to show the incorrectness
of the initial assumption , and to cite more than one illustration of
elevator accidents in department stores carrying full page adver tisements that are given full and adequate reports in the city papers . The fallacy lies in the general statement, “ the press," — the truth being that the press of large cities, in the multiplicity of news at its command, does not report elevator accidents , while
the press of small cities, with less local news to report, does re
port them .15 Here, as elsewhere, publicity is the wholesome corrective . If a
newspaper is known to suppress news that the public has a right to know , or has that reputation even if it is wholly undeserved , 13 Much interestingmaterial on this point is given in a series of contem porary letters of Henry Redhead Yorke, edited by J . A . Ç . Sykes under the title France in Eighteen Hundred and Two, especially in the section on “ Newspapers,” pp . 213 - 225. The writer, in an effort to secure for a London daily authentic information in regard to what was passing in
France, was offered much concerning the opera , plays, “ and all the other equipage of folly and pleasure, " but his informants could not understand his desire for " facts and facts only .” 14 An eminent journalist once said that the ideal reporter was one who knew something important was going to happen and was on hand to report it . 15 A serious elevator accident occurred in Poughkeepsie , New York ,
May 10 , 1918. The daily city papers gave long and detailed accounts of it, although both were carrying full page advertisements of the department store where it occurred . See Poughkeepsie Eagle-News and Star- Enterprise of that date .
