And since then things have grown worse
From an article by GK Chesterton, about 1913 (Chesterton was a journalist all his life and knew the business inside out):
THE TYRANNY OF BAD JOURNALISM
The amazing decision of the Government to employ methods quite alien
to England, and rather belonging to the police of the Continent, probably
arises from the appearance of papers which are lucid and fighting,
like the papers of the Continent. The business may be put in many ways.
But one way of putting it is simply to say that a monopoly of bad
journalism is resisting the possibility of good journalism. Journalism is
not the same thing as literature; but there is good and bad journalism,
as there is good and bad literature, as there is good and bad football.
For the last twenty years or so the plutocrats who govern England have
allowed the English nothing but bad journalism. Very bad journalism,
simply considered as journalism.
It always takes a considerable time to see the simple and central
fact about anything. All sorts of things have been said about
the modern Press, especially the Yellow Press; that it is Jingo
or Philistine or sensational or wrongly inquisitive or vulgar
or indecent or trivial; but none of these have anything really
to do with the point.
The point about the Press is that it is not what it is called.
It is not the "popular Press." It is not the public Press. It is
not an organ of public opinion. It is a conspiracy of a very
few millionaires, all sufficiently similar in type to agree
on the limits of what this great nation (to which we belong)
may know about itself and its friends and enemies. The ring is
not quite complete; there are old-fashioned and honest papers:
but it is sufficiently near to completion to produce on the ordinary
purchaser of news the practical effects of a corner and a monopoly.
He receives all his political information and all his political
marching orders from what is by this time a sort of half-conscious
secret society, with very few members, but a great deal of money.
This enormous and essential fact is concealed for us by a number
of legends that have passed into common speech. There is the notion
that the Press is flashy or trivial _because_ it is popular.
In other words, an attempt is made to discredit democracy by
representing journalism as the natural literature of democracy.
All this is cold rubbish. The democracy has no more to do
with the papers than it has with the peerages. The millionaire
newspapers are vulgar and silly because the millionaires
are vulgar and silly. It is the proprietor, not the editor,
not the sub-editor, least of all the reader, who is pleased
with this monotonous prairie of printed words. The same slander
on democracy can be noticed in the case of advertisements.
There is many a tender old Tory imagination that vaguely feels
that our streets would be hung with escutcheons and tapestries,
if only the profane vulgar had not hung them with advertisements
of Sapolio and Sunlight Soap. But advertisement does not come
from the unlettered many. It comes from the refined few.
Did you ever hear of a mob rising to placard the Town Hall with
proclamations in favour of Sapolio? Did you ever see a poor,
ragged man laboriously drawing and painting a picture on the wall
in favour of Sunlight Soap--simply as a labour of love?
It is nonsense; those who hang our public walls with ugly pictures
are the same select few who hang their private walls with exquisite
and expensive pictures. The vulgarisation of modern life has
come from the governing class; from the highly educated class.
Most of the people who have posters in Camberwell have peerages
at Westminster. But the strongest instance of all is that which
has been unbroken until lately, and still largely prevails;
the ghastly monotony of the Press.
Then comes that other legend; the notion that men like the masters
of the Newspaper Trusts "give the people what they want."
Why, it is the whole aim and definition of a Trust that it gives
the people what it chooses. In the old days, when Parliaments were
free in England, it was discovered that one courtier was allowed
to sell all the silk, and another to sell all the sweet wine.
A member of the House of Commons humorously asked who was allowed
to sell all the bread. I really tremble to think what that
sarcastic legislator would have said if he had been put off
with the modern nonsense about "gauging the public taste."
Suppose the first courtier had said that, by his shrewd,
self-made sense, he had detected that people had a vague desire
for silk; and even a deep, dim human desire to pay so much
a yard for it! Suppose the second courtier said that he had,
by his own rugged intellect, discovered a general desire for wine:
and that people bought his wine at his price--when they could
buy no other! Suppose a third courtier had jumped up and said
that people always bought his bread when they could get
none anywhere else.
Well, that is a perfect parallel. "After bread, the need of the
people is knowledge," said Danton. Knowledge is now a monopoly,
and comes through to the citizens in thin and selected streams,
exactly as bread might come through to a besieged city. Men must wish
to know what is happening, whoever has the privilege of telling them.
They must listen to the messenger, even if he is a liar.
They must listen to the liar, even if he is a bore. The official
journalist for some time past has been both a bore and a liar; but it
was impossible until lately to neglect his sheets of news altogether.
Lately the capitalist Press really has begun to be neglected;
because its bad journalism was overpowering and appalling.
Lately we have really begun to find out that capitalism cannot write,
just as it cannot fight, or pray, or marry, or make a joke, or do any
other stricken human thing. But this discovery has been quite recent.
The capitalist newspaper was never actually unread until it
was actually unreadable.
If you retain the servile superstition that the Press, as run
by the capitalists, is popular (in any sense except that in
which dirty water in a desert is popular), consider the case
of the solemn articles in praise of the men who own newspapers--
men of the type of Cadbury or Harmsworth, men of the type
of the small club of millionaires. Did you ever hear a plain
man in a tramcar or train talking about Carnegie's bright
genial smile or Rothschild's simple, easy hospitality?
Did you ever hear an ordinary citizen ask what was the opinion of
Sir Joseph Lyons about the hopes and fears of this, our native land?
These few small-minded men publish, papers to praise themselves.
You could no more get an intelligent poor man to praise
a millionaire's soul, except for hire, than you could
get him to sell a millionaire's soap, except for hire.
And I repeat that, though there are other aspects of the matter
of the new plutocratic raid, one of the most important is mere
journalistic jealousy. The Yellow Press is bad journalism:
and wishes to stop the appearance of good journalism.
THE TYRANNY OF BAD JOURNALISM
The amazing decision of the Government to employ methods quite alien
to England, and rather belonging to the police of the Continent, probably
arises from the appearance of papers which are lucid and fighting,
like the papers of the Continent. The business may be put in many ways.
But one way of putting it is simply to say that a monopoly of bad
journalism is resisting the possibility of good journalism. Journalism is
not the same thing as literature; but there is good and bad journalism,
as there is good and bad literature, as there is good and bad football.
For the last twenty years or so the plutocrats who govern England have
allowed the English nothing but bad journalism. Very bad journalism,
simply considered as journalism.
It always takes a considerable time to see the simple and central
fact about anything. All sorts of things have been said about
the modern Press, especially the Yellow Press; that it is Jingo
or Philistine or sensational or wrongly inquisitive or vulgar
or indecent or trivial; but none of these have anything really
to do with the point.
The point about the Press is that it is not what it is called.
It is not the "popular Press." It is not the public Press. It is
not an organ of public opinion. It is a conspiracy of a very
few millionaires, all sufficiently similar in type to agree
on the limits of what this great nation (to which we belong)
may know about itself and its friends and enemies. The ring is
not quite complete; there are old-fashioned and honest papers:
but it is sufficiently near to completion to produce on the ordinary
purchaser of news the practical effects of a corner and a monopoly.
He receives all his political information and all his political
marching orders from what is by this time a sort of half-conscious
secret society, with very few members, but a great deal of money.
This enormous and essential fact is concealed for us by a number
of legends that have passed into common speech. There is the notion
that the Press is flashy or trivial _because_ it is popular.
In other words, an attempt is made to discredit democracy by
representing journalism as the natural literature of democracy.
All this is cold rubbish. The democracy has no more to do
with the papers than it has with the peerages. The millionaire
newspapers are vulgar and silly because the millionaires
are vulgar and silly. It is the proprietor, not the editor,
not the sub-editor, least of all the reader, who is pleased
with this monotonous prairie of printed words. The same slander
on democracy can be noticed in the case of advertisements.
There is many a tender old Tory imagination that vaguely feels
that our streets would be hung with escutcheons and tapestries,
if only the profane vulgar had not hung them with advertisements
of Sapolio and Sunlight Soap. But advertisement does not come
from the unlettered many. It comes from the refined few.
Did you ever hear of a mob rising to placard the Town Hall with
proclamations in favour of Sapolio? Did you ever see a poor,
ragged man laboriously drawing and painting a picture on the wall
in favour of Sunlight Soap--simply as a labour of love?
It is nonsense; those who hang our public walls with ugly pictures
are the same select few who hang their private walls with exquisite
and expensive pictures. The vulgarisation of modern life has
come from the governing class; from the highly educated class.
Most of the people who have posters in Camberwell have peerages
at Westminster. But the strongest instance of all is that which
has been unbroken until lately, and still largely prevails;
the ghastly monotony of the Press.
Then comes that other legend; the notion that men like the masters
of the Newspaper Trusts "give the people what they want."
Why, it is the whole aim and definition of a Trust that it gives
the people what it chooses. In the old days, when Parliaments were
free in England, it was discovered that one courtier was allowed
to sell all the silk, and another to sell all the sweet wine.
A member of the House of Commons humorously asked who was allowed
to sell all the bread. I really tremble to think what that
sarcastic legislator would have said if he had been put off
with the modern nonsense about "gauging the public taste."
Suppose the first courtier had said that, by his shrewd,
self-made sense, he had detected that people had a vague desire
for silk; and even a deep, dim human desire to pay so much
a yard for it! Suppose the second courtier said that he had,
by his own rugged intellect, discovered a general desire for wine:
and that people bought his wine at his price--when they could
buy no other! Suppose a third courtier had jumped up and said
that people always bought his bread when they could get
none anywhere else.
Well, that is a perfect parallel. "After bread, the need of the
people is knowledge," said Danton. Knowledge is now a monopoly,
and comes through to the citizens in thin and selected streams,
exactly as bread might come through to a besieged city. Men must wish
to know what is happening, whoever has the privilege of telling them.
They must listen to the messenger, even if he is a liar.
They must listen to the liar, even if he is a bore. The official
journalist for some time past has been both a bore and a liar; but it
was impossible until lately to neglect his sheets of news altogether.
Lately the capitalist Press really has begun to be neglected;
because its bad journalism was overpowering and appalling.
Lately we have really begun to find out that capitalism cannot write,
just as it cannot fight, or pray, or marry, or make a joke, or do any
other stricken human thing. But this discovery has been quite recent.
The capitalist newspaper was never actually unread until it
was actually unreadable.
If you retain the servile superstition that the Press, as run
by the capitalists, is popular (in any sense except that in
which dirty water in a desert is popular), consider the case
of the solemn articles in praise of the men who own newspapers--
men of the type of Cadbury or Harmsworth, men of the type
of the small club of millionaires. Did you ever hear a plain
man in a tramcar or train talking about Carnegie's bright
genial smile or Rothschild's simple, easy hospitality?
Did you ever hear an ordinary citizen ask what was the opinion of
Sir Joseph Lyons about the hopes and fears of this, our native land?
These few small-minded men publish, papers to praise themselves.
You could no more get an intelligent poor man to praise
a millionaire's soul, except for hire, than you could
get him to sell a millionaire's soap, except for hire.
And I repeat that, though there are other aspects of the matter
of the new plutocratic raid, one of the most important is mere
journalistic jealousy. The Yellow Press is bad journalism:
and wishes to stop the appearance of good journalism.