In a recent book called Fleet Street and Downing Street, by Mr. Kennedy Jones, who was one of the driving forces behind that enormous engine of publicity known as “ the Northcliffe Press,” there are some candid remarks about the status and influence of modern journalism. In a series of chapters he argues that journalism has become more of a business than a profession, and, in one chapter, he states bluntly that at no previous time has the reading public been so suspicious of the “ news “ presented to it by English newspapers as it is to-day owing to the suppression, exaggeration or falsification of news for political reasons. I think both statements are true, at the present time, and as a journalist proud of my “ profession,” and of what I refuse to call my “ business,” I think both are lamentable.

It is a curious thing that during the past twenty-five years which have seen the evolution of the New Journalism, represented by the Northcliffe Press, with many other imitators and rivals, two opposing tendencies have been at work. The first is the gradual loss of political prestige, owing to the capture of the papers’ policy by financial and wire-pulling groups, and the second is the social elevation of the journalist himself, especially in the lower ranks of the newspaper world. Both these changes have been brought about by the same pioneers, and I prophecy that there will soon be a struggle between the professional journalist and the business groups that control his work and life.