The Newspaper World

by Alfred Baker

THE

NEWSPAPER WORLD:

ESSAYS ON

PRESS HISTORY AND WORK,

PAST AND PRESENT,

BY

ALFRED BAKER,

Member of the Institute of Journalists (Incorporated).

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"The Press is the impersonation of a grand cosmopolitan Revolution,—not revolution in the anarchic or worst sense of the term, but in the sense of a great moral, social, and political transformation."—James Grant.

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LONDON: ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, 1 AMEN CORNER,
PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
BATH: PHONETIC INSTITUTE.
NEW YORK: 3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET.

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1890.

CONTENTS.

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Preface
I. — Origin of British Newspapers to the Abolition of the Censorship
II. — From the Imposition of the Stamp Duty to Mr Fox's Libel Bill ...
III. — London and County Newspapers of the Eighteenth Century
IV.~The Struggle for Freedom
V. — Development of the Free Press
VI. — Organization of Journalism
VII. — Old and New Journalism — London
VIII. — Old and New Journalism — Provincial
IX.— The Telegraph and the Press
X. — Editors and Leading Articles
XI. — Special Correspondents
XII. — "Our London Correspondent"
XIII.— The Sub-Editor
XIV.— The Reporter ...
XV.— The Reporter at Work
XVI.—Liners and Lineage
XVII. — Women as Journalists
XVIII Newspapers as Party Organs
XIX. Art and Literary Criticism
XX.— The Press of Greater Britain
Notes

PREFACE.

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In the following chapters the attempt has been made to present in a succinct form the chief incidents in the history of British Journalism, from its early days down to the granting of the Royal Charter—a period of more than two centuries-and-a-half—and to give some account of the journalist's vocation, in all its varied phases, in the present day.

The story of the struggle and ultimate triumph of the Press of our land over Government censorship, repressive laws, crushing fiscal imposts, and all the forces of prejudice and ignorance, forms a branch of national history as important, as interesting, and as full of lessons for the present and the future, as any part of the narrative of the struggle for religious and political liberty. In a compendious volume like the present—where the historical retrospect forms only a portion of the scheme of contents—it is possible to present only the outlines of newspaper history, but it is hoped that what has been written may prove a useful introduction to the study of such works as the late Mr James Grant's "The Newspaper Press," and Mr H. R. Fox Bourne's "English Newspapers." The long and interesting story of Parliamentary reporting has not been touched on, because it was felt that to treat it adequately would need, not a chapter, but a volume.

For the general reader, some account is given of the functions of the various members of the newspaper staff in the present day, from the editor downwards, and—without making the description at all technical — the conditions of newspaper production and the methods of work have been described in a fashion which it is hoped will interest and inform, and at the same time serve to clear away some of the misconceptions which still exist in the public mind on these subjects. It is not imagined that in this there is much, if anything, which is not familiar to every member of the profession to which the author feels it an honor to belong, but he claims at least to have endeavored to portray faithfully and describe truthfully newspaper workers and work as they exist.