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The Image of the Journalist in France, Germany, and England, 1815–1848*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Extract
The growth of the professions in the nineteenth century occurred as a process of specialization; distinct functions separated out of certain broad categories of activity. The church, the law, and medicine were the matrices from which new professions emerged and became differentiated in response to the growing needs of an increasingly complex society. The reasons for that complexity were in the main economic and stemmed from the industrialization of the first half of the century.
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- Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1968
References
1 It may be objected at the outset that journalism does not qualify as a profession, and if one adopts a rigorous definition of a profession, stressing possession of a systematic body of knowledge acquired through a long specialized training, then the objection is valid. Decisive, however, is the fact that journalism was commonly regarded in the nineteenth century as a profession and is now. It requires considerable education and experience, and the journalist does as a rule have access to certain information denied the ordinary person.
2 Karr, Alphonse, Les guêpes, 3 vols. (Paris, 1858), I, 9.Google Scholar On the French newspaper press during this period there is the standard work of Hatin, Eugène, Histoire politique et littéraire de la presse en France, 8 vols. (Paris, 1859–1861)Google Scholar, and the indispensable study by Collins, Irene, The Government and the Newspaper Press in France, 1814–1881 (New York, 1959).Google Scholar
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7 This was the world immortalized by Balzac, in Illusions Perdues.Google Scholar The Marxist critic Lukacs, George, Studies in European Realism (London, 1950), p. 49,Google Scholar has described this as a novel of disillusionment, the Don Quixote of the bourgeoisie. “Lost Illusions is a tragi-comic epic showing how … the spirit of man is drawn into the orbit of capitalism. The theme of the novel is the transformation of literature (and with it of every ideology) into a commodity and this complete ‘capitalization’ of every sphere of intellectual, literary and artistic activity. …” The interpretation is persuasively argued, but the reverse of Lukacs' thesis would seem to be nearer the truth. Balzac was describing the beginnings of a new profession, and his journalists were venal not so much because they lived in a capitalistic society as because their society was not capitalistic enough. With the development of capitalism all the professions were to expand, as the public demand for their services grew, and with this expansion the public understandably began to insist upon certain standards of efficiency and probity. The professions usually met this demand by regulating themselves rather than provoke outside control. Also their economic rewards increased as society grew richer, so that the incentive to dishonesty lessened.
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88 The editors listed by Salomon, L., Geschichte des deutschen Zeitungswesen, III,Google Scholar in almost all cases were originally professors, civil servants, pastors, lawyers, librarians, or military officers. The same picture is given by studies more restricted in scope: e.g. Hanspach, Werner, Die periodische Presse der Stadt Dresden in der ersten Hälite des 19. Jahrhunderts (Dresden, 1939);Google ScholarWitzleben, E. D., Geschichte der Leipziger Zeitung (Leipzig, 1860).Google ScholarBrunohler, Kurt, Die Redakteurs der mittleren und grösseren Zeitungen im heutigen Reichsgebiet von 1800 bis 1848 (Leipzig, 1933),Google Scholar on the basis of a study of ninety editors, concludes that editing was increasingly becoming a full-time occupation, that the greater number of editors came from the middle class, mainly from families of teachers and pastors, and that most had a university education. It must be born in mind, of course, that those journalists who did not rise to the rank of editor were probably in most cases from less educated and socially respectable backgrounds, but it seems safe to claim, in view of the nature of the profession and the structure of German society, that the great majority must have come from the lower middle class at least, and enjoyed a decent education.
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