84 : 420 .
A limitation on the press is found by the historian in what may be termed the seasonal character of the news. Many years ago
Samuel Foote observed in The Bankrupt, “ The conductor of a
newspaper , like a good cook, should always serve up things in their season : who eats oysters in June? Plays and parliament houses are winter provisions,” while a writer of to -day finds that " what in May or June would scarcely be worthy of a four-line paragraph, in September is considered entitled to half a column."
Yet itmay be in May or June that the historian ismost anxious to secure detailed information .
The specific adverse criticism has been made that where the
press falls short is, not in failing to give the news, but in failing to report correctly public opinion . Sir Wemyss Reid , in speaking
of the overthrow of the Conservative party under Beaconsfield in 1880 and the success of the Liberals under Gladstone, held the
London press distinctly responsible for failing to interpret correctly English opinion outside of London — " The amazement
approaching to consternation,” he says, “ with which the Liberal uprising at that time was regarded in London , and by society of all ranks, from its most illustrious personages downwards, affords sufficient proof of the fact that the people who might reasonably be supposed to be the most intelligent and the best-informed in all public affairs, had been kept in the profoundest ignorance of what was happening all round them in the country .” Men read The Times, he says, “ not so much to learn what may be the opinions of its Editor upon any particular question, as to dis cover what, according to his judgment, is the prevailing opinion of the public upon that question .” 20 But the very nature of the press prevents it from representing public opinion , even in the imperfect way in which it may be said to be represented by its regularly chosen delegates in a
legislative body. Each paper may have its own constituency, but as a rule it ignores , and perhaps to a certain extentmust ignore, public opinion outside of that constituency . The instability of the claim of any paper to represent public opinion is evident from an examination of its basis; the judgment of the press can not be 20 T . W . Reid, “ Public Opinion and its Leaders,” Fortnightly Review , August , 1880, n . s . 28 : 230 - 244.
