The news, in that instance, is not "Lenin Dead" but
"Helsingfors Says Lenin is Dead." And a newspaper can be asked to take
the responsibility of not making Lenin more dead than the source of
the news is reliable; if there is one subject on which editors are
most responsible it is in their judgment of the reliability of the
source. But when it comes to dealing, for example, with stories of
what the Russian people want, no such test exists.
The absence of these exact tests accounts, I think, for the character
of the profession, as no other explanation does. There is a very small
body of exact knowledge, which it requires no outstanding ability or
training to deal with. The rest is in the journalist's own discretion.
Once he departs from the region where it is definitely recorded at the
County Clerk's office that John Smith has gone into bankruptcy, all
fixed standards disappear. The story of why John Smith failed, his
human frailties, the analysis of the economic conditions on which he
was shipwrecked, all of this can be told in a hundred different ways.
There is no discipline in applied psychology, as there is a discipline
in medicine, engineering, or even law, which has authority to direct
the journalist's mind when he passes from the news to the vague realm
of truth. There are no canons to direct his own mind, and no canons
that coerce the reader's judgment or the publisher's.
Pages:
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372