The Art and Practice of Journalism

The Art and Practice of Journal is the basic characteristic of the communist press is that it is devoted to the mass indoctrination of the population. This indoctrination is called education. To an extent, it is the dissemination of knowledge and techniques, but more often the "instruction" is not education but communistic indoctrination carried on in a steady, ordered, and repetitive fashion on a gigantic all-inclusive scale. When an editor indicates the real significance of an event he is performing for the readers the valuable service of interpretation. Through his special knowledge acquired from research and advice of experts it is possible for the editor to point out the vital and perhaps hidden significance of what has been reported in the day's news. He views the events with his particular readers in mind and interprets the affairs of the world as to how they would affect the people in his own area. Too many isolated items bearing on the same subject may bring the thread of interpretation which correlates and binds them and thus discloses their real meaning.

Though the editorials newspapers are able to indicate to other editors how their own communities are thinking and acting in important situations. In this sense the newspaper is crystallizing public opinion and extending its influence rather than shaping public opinion. Through this reflection of public opinion statesmen and other leaders become informed as to the wishes of the public they represent and are better able to follow the dictates of their constituents. Among the instrumentalities of communication, the newspaper generally excels because of its technical facilities, its trained personnel, and its immense public. Compared with other techniques for the communication of facts, ideas, and arguments, the press possesses a mechanism which makes it the most powerful force in public affairs. Its technical equipment includes news and opinion-gathering stations manned by thousands of trained men throughout the world; telegraph and wireless equipment that encircles every continent; devices for instantaneous transmission of news pictures; and high-speed machinery for manufacturing newspapers. Reporters and correspondents are stationed wherever government operates. They report the facts which the people in a democracy must have. American newsmen are located in every large city on the globe.