At its best the
press is a servant and guardian of institutions; at its worst it is a
means by which a few exploit social disorganization to their own ends.
In the degree to which institutions fail to function, the unscrupulous
journalist can fish in troubled waters, and the conscientious one must
gamble with uncertainties.
The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a
searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then
another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the
world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes,
incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light
of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a
situation intelligible enough for a popular decision. The trouble lies
deeper than the press, and so does the remedy. It lies in social
organization based on a system of analysis and record, and in all the
corollaries of that principle; in the abandonment of the theory of the
omnicompetent citizen, in the decentralization of decision, in the
coordination of decision by comparable record and analysis. If at the
centers of management there is a running audit, which makes work
intelligible to those who do it, and those who superintend it, issues
when they arise are not the mere collisions of the blind. Then, too,
the news is uncovered for the press by a system of intelligence that
is also a check upon the press.
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