Perhaps the era we live in doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it makes a lot of news. And since that is true, then it seems that newspapers have a lot of responsibility in trying to explain this period of history.
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Never before has truth been more important, yet more difficult to obtain. What an awesome responsibility for the media. Never before have so many needed to be posted on so much, but never before has the public appeared so disinterested, so apathetic, to the exiting, sometimes promising, yet dangerous happenings around them. And one must wonder why so many journalists treat their responsibility so lightly and one is astounded at how long it often takes to interest the press in a noble cause.
In this sensitive, perhaps fantastic age, we find many newspapers in a nervous uncertain position, bent on outstanding goals, ignoring responsibilities and often refusing deserved criticism. Some are limited by financial restrictions imposed by the size of their towns, they are simply unable to render proper service. These, of course, we can forgive. Many newspapers seek to move forward by looking backward as readers scan the headlines and then turn on the idiot box for the evening.
I cannot forget the wise words uttered on the radio by the late Fred Allen who said of TV:
The purpose of a free press is to convey the independent dialogue of the people and their government. Without printed information, both news and opinion, where it can be studied and thought about at length, the public cannot carry out its responsibilities. Without responsible citizens along with intelligent and reliable reporting on paper (and valid criticism where required) the government will no longer govern.
The newspaper is the only news medium that has the space and time for adequate reporting and analysis in depth. The responsibility for getting this done exists whether in New York or the nearest weekly.
The sobering crux of this is that if our way of life perishes, it will be because newspapers failed first, and the people were lulled by so-called TV entertainment into a state of apathetic disinterest in their environment. Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes hit the nail on the head when he said:
This was a column I wrote in 1975 for the Missouri Press News when I was president of that organization. With so many newspapers closing publication these days, who is going to record all that is happening in our world today for future generations?
AIn two or three generations, Americans will have eyes the size of saucers and brains the size of a pea.@ His prediction, made in jest, may prove to be more of a reality than anyone could have dreamed. The danger is that if good newspapers are put out of action, there is nothing left which can properly record and shape the materials of our society.AIt is required of a man that he share the passion and action of his time, at peril of being judged not to have lived.@