WHEN men are no longer united among themselves by firm and lasting ties, it is impossible to obtain the co-operation of any great number of them unless you can persuade every man whose help you require that his private interest obliges him voluntarily to unite his exertions to the exertions of all the others. This can be habitually and conveniently effected only by means of a newspaper; nothing but a newspaper can drop the same thought into a thousand minds at the same moment. A newspaper is an adviser that does not require to be sought, but that comes of its own accord and talks to you briefly every day of the common weal, without distracting you from your private affairs.
Newspapers therefore become more necessary in proportion as men become more equal and individualism more to be feared. To suppose that they only serve to protect freedom would be to diminish their importance: they maintain civilization. I shall not deny that in democratic countries newspapers frequently lead the citizens to launch together into very ill-digested schemes; but if there were no newspapers there would be no common activity. The evil which they produce is therefore much less than that which they cure.
The effect of a newspaper is not only to suggest the same purpose to a great number of persons, but to furnish means for executing in common the designs which they may have singly conceived. The principal citizens who inhabit an aristocratic country discern each other from afar; and if they wish to unite their forces, they move towards each other, drawing a multitude of men after them. In democratic countries, on the contrary, it frequently happens that a great number of men who wish or who want to combine cannot accomplish it because as they are very insignificant and lost amid the crowd, they cannot see and do not know where to find one another. A newspaper then takes up the notion or the feeling that had occurred simultaneously, but singly, to each of them. All are then immediately guided towards this beacon; and these wandering minds, which had long sought each other in darkness, at length meet and unite. The newspaper brought them together, and the newspaper is still necessary to keep them united.
Compare/Contrast:
We'll discuss this at some length on Wednesday. . . . . That is, what should media do in a democratic polity? Do they have a civic obligation?
[post bumped up]
2 comments:
Great discussion today on CSPAN about the responsibility of journalists.
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=280833-1
Ariana Huffington said that the journalist can't just take side A, side B, report them neutrally, and hope things work themselves out. She calls those journalists Pontius Pilate's - trying to wash their hands clean of judgment.
She used a similar idea back in 2007:
"Like Pontius Pilate washing his hands of responsibility, too many in the Washington press corps want to pretend they are leaving the question of "what is truth" to their readers -- refusing to admit that there is even such a thing as truth. It is particularly troubling that so many in a profession dedicated to the idea that there is a truth to be ferreted out -- and that the public has a right to know it -- remain so resolutely committed to presenting two sides to every story -- even when the facts are solidly on one side."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/denying-the-truth-petrae_b_63799.html
Post a Comment