We are told that the first qualification of anyone who aspires to success in modern journalism is the instinct to know what the public wants; and what the reading public is said to want nowadays is sensational news with a strong human appeal. The news may be trivial, like the publicity accorded to the Prime Minister’s ubiquitous pipe, or tremendous, like the declaration of a world-war. But in every case it must be news that touches in some way the fringe of human life, and it must be presented in a way that people can grasp at once, without any strain being put upon their thinking intelligence and without anything being left to their imagination. And it must be presented in this tabloid form because the demands of modern life leave little or no time for quiet thought, so that people want their thinking done for them and their opinions readymade for them by the press. That is why we have the short leader, the snappy article, and the scare headline. Metaphorically, this is an age of the automatic machine and the penny in the slot. In America it is possible to get a meal by inserting a coin and pulling a handle. The same principle is said to operate to-day with regard to the reading public, which insists on being able to assimilate the maximum amount of news with the minimum of effort; which, by inserting its penny in the slot-machine of journalism, can extract its thoughts and opinions without personal trouble or inconvenience.