The reader is the sole and the daily
judge of his loyalty, and there can be no suit against him for breach
of promise or nonsupport.
Though everything turns on the constancy of the reader, there does not
exist even a vague tradition to call that fact to the reader's mind.
His constancy depends on how he happens to feel, or on his habits. And
these depend not simply on the quality of the news, but more often on
a number of obscure elements that in our casual relation to the press,
we hardly take the trouble to make conscious. The most important of
these is that each of us tends to judge a newspaper, if we judge it at
all, by its treatment of that part of the news in which we feel
ourselves involved. The newspaper deals with a multitude of events
beyond our experience. But it deals also with some events within our
experience. And by its handling of those events we most frequently
decide to like it or dislike it, to trust it or refuse to have the
sheet in the house. If the newspaper gives a satisfactory account of
that which we think we know, our business, our church, our party, it
is fairly certain to be immune from violent criticism by us. What
better criterion does the man at the breakfast table possess than that
the newspaper version checks up with his own opinion? Therefore, most
men tend to hold the newspaper most strictly accountable in their
capacity, not of general readers, but of special pleaders on matters
of their own experience.
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