to-day. Though the
doctrine that newspapers are "organs of public opinion" was (like
most nineteenth century so-called "Liberal" doctrines) falsely stated
and hypocritical, it had that element of truth about it--at least, in
the earlier phase of newspaper development. There is even a certain
savour of truth hanging about it to this day.

Newspapers are only offered for sale; the purchase of them is not (as
yet) compulsorily enforced. A newspaper can, therefore, never succeed
unless it prints news in which people are interested and on the nature
of which they can be taken in. A newspaper can manufacture interest,
but there are certain broad currents in human affairs which neither a
newspaper proprietor nor any other human being can control. If England
is at war no newspaper can boycott war news and live. If London were
devastated by an earthquake no advertising power in the Insurance
Companies nor any private interest of newspaper owners in real estate
could prevent the thing "getting into the newspapers."

Indeed, until quite lately--say, until about the '80's or so--most
news printed was really news about things which people wanted to
understand. However garbled or truncated or falsified, it at least
dealt with interesting matters which the newspaper proprietors had not
started as a hare of their own, and which the public, as a whole, was
determined to hear something about. Even to-day, apart from the war,
there is a large element of this.

There was (and is) a further check upon the artificiality of the news
side of the Press; which is that Reality always comes into its own at
last.

You cannot, beyond a certain limit of time, burke reality.

In a word, the Press must always largely deal with what are called
"living issues." It can _boycott_ very successfully, and does so, with
complete power. But it cannot artificially create unlimitedly the
objects of "news."

There is, then, this much truth in the old figment of the Press being
"an organ of opinion," that it must in some degree (and that a large
degree) present real matter for observation and debate. It can and
does select. It can and does garble. But it has to do this always
within certain limitations.

These limitations have, I think, already been reached; but that is a
matter which I argue more fully later on.

VII

As to opinion, you have the same limitations.

If opinion can be once launched in spite of, or during the
indifference of, th