this matter. We may have more to learn from the Paris journals
than from any others. If they do not give what we call news--local news,
events, casualties, the happenings of the day,--they do give ideas,
opinions; they do discuss politics, the social drift; they give the
intellectual ferment of Paris; they supply the material that Paris likes
to talk over, the badinage of the boulevard, the wit of the salon, the
sensation of the stage, the new movement in literature and in politics.
This may be important, or it may be trivial: it is commonly more
interesting than much of that which we call news.

Our very facility and enterprise in news-gathering have overwhelmed our
newspapers, and it may be remarked that editorial discrimination has not
kept pace with the facilities. We are overpowered with a mass of
undigested intelligence, collected for the mast part without regard to
value. The force of the newspaper is expended in extending these
facilities, with little regard to discriminating selection. The burden is
already too heavy for the newspaper, and wearisome to the public.

The publication of the news is the most important function of the paper.
How is it gathered? We must confess that it is gathered very much by
chance. A drag-net is thrown out, and whatever comes is taken. An
examination into the process of collecting shows what sort of news we are
likely to get, and that nine-tenths of that printed is collected without
much intelligence exercised in selection. The alliance of the associated
press with the telegraph company is a fruitful source of news of an
inferior quality. Of course, it is for the interest of the telegraph
company to swell the volume to be transmitted. It is impossible for the
associated press to have an agent in every place to which the telegraph
penetrates: therefore the telegraphic operators often act as its
purveyors. It is for their interest to send something; and their judgment
of what is important is not only biased, but is formed by purely local
standards. Our news, therefore, is largely set in motion by telegraphic
operators, by agents trained to regard only the accidental, the
startling, the abnormal, as news; it is picked up by sharp prowlers about
town, whose pay depends upon finding something, who are looking for
something spicy and sensational, or which may be dressed up and
exaggerated to satisfy an appetite for novelty and high flavor, and who
regard casualties as the chief news. O