Some more Seldes
from ch 3 Lords of the Press
...tests for the publishers which every reader can insist on:
http://www.brasscheck.com/seldes/lords3.html1.) Give equal space to the political parties.
2.) Give some space to minority parties, at least space relative to their strength. (These two tests will put the majority of our press, which styles itself independent, on the spot.)
3.) Publish the Federal Trade Commission Reports. (These reports are not enough, but they do expose many of our greatest manufacturers of food, drink, clothing, tobacco, milk, etc., as fraudulent.)
4.) Tell the truth about cigarettes and automobiles, the two largest advertisers.
5.) Give the consumer a square deal. (Publish the same reports on consumers' goods which only the liberal and left weeklies publish nowadays.)
6.) Reject organized pressure. (Inform the American Legion, the Catholic Church organizations, the business and advertising organizations, an all the other sacred cows, bulls and elephants of journalism, they will no longer influence the news. If all publishers in any one town agree on this, no losses can follow.)
7.) Publish the labor news. Give labor a square deal. (Everyone admits that the press has fallen down worse in the labor field than elsewhere.)
8.) Throw Mr. Hearst out. (The Associated Press accused Hearst of theft of the news. It won its case. But it did not throw him out. Neither did the A.N.P.A. No press organization can make any ethical claims so long as it has a Hearst around.)
9.) Stop defending child labor because of the few dollars you save on newsboys.
10.) Print both sides of a controversy. (The New York Daily News published both a "Presidential battle page" in the Roosevelt-Landon campaign and an "economic battle page" on labor. It offered them free, but only a few papers took them. No paper can claim to be free if it refuses to publish both sides.)
These are ten simple tests which come to me on the spur of the moment. Other newspapermen will think of better ones, no doubt.* But all of them look fair to me. If a paper announces itself as a Republican sheet and wants to publish nothing but Republican party news, that is fair and honest, but few newspapers so announce themselves. Not only the self-styled independent paper but any paper which claims it is a newspaper, must publish the news, and that is all that one can ask.
But if it claims it is a free paper it must give equal space to both sides.
I know that no newspaper in America will publish anything like Consumers Union's Reports on foods, automobiles, cigarettes, but it is reprehensible of them to refuse
* The following tests for a free press have been suggested by newspapermen, editors, and school of journalism professors who have read this manuscript:
1. Defend public welfare instead of public utilities.
2. Publish the facts about radicals, "Reds," etc. without Red baiting.
3. Discover the co-operative movement in America.
4. Run the advertisements of Consumers Union.
5. Stop publishing letters which agree with editorial policy only....