Liberty and the News
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Liberty and the News

Walter Lippmann, Robert McChesney

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Liberty and the News

Walter Lippmann, Robert McChesney

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About This Book

Written in the aftermath of World War I, this polemic by the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist exposes the threat to democracy posed by media bias. Walter Lippmann denounces the wartime misinformation and propaganda fed to the public by the press, calling for an honest, `spin-free` interpretation of facts and ideas. Written in an accessible rather than a scholarly style, this treatise consists of three essays that examine the tenuous relationship between facts and news and the consequences of media distortion. Its conclusions helped establish the standards of objective reporting that were subsequently embraced by reputable news-gathering agencies.
Walter Lippmann was the United States's most respected political journalist for nearly fifty years. Although this volume was first published nearly a century ago, it remains relevant to those seeking sound information as the basis for informed judgments. This edition includes `A Test of the News` by Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, and a Preface by Robert McChesney is included as well.

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Year
2012
ISBN
9780486136363

A TEST OF THE NEWS

Introduction

It is admitted that a sound public opinion cannot exist without access to the news. There is today a widespread and a growing doubt whether there exists such an access to the news about contentious affairs. This doubt ranges from accusations of unconscious bias to downright charges of corruption, from the belief that the news is colored to the belief that the news is poisoned. On so grave a matter evidence is needed. The study which follows is a piece of evidence. It deals with the reporting of one great event in the recent history of the world. That event is the Russian Revolution from March, 1917, to March, 1920. The analysis covers thirty-six months and over one thousand issues of a daily newspaper. The authors have examined all news items about Russia in that period in the newspaper selected; between three and four thousand items were noted. Little attention was paid to editorials.
The New York Times was selected as the medium through which to study the news, first because the Times, as great as any newspaper in America, and far greater than the majority, has the means for securing news, second, because the makeup of the news in the Times is technically admirable, third, because the Times index is an enormous convenience to any student of contemporary history, fourth, because the bound volumes are easily accessible, and fifth, because the Times is one of the really great newspapers of the world.
The Russian Revolution was selected as the topic, because of its intrinsic importance, and because it has aroused the kind of passion which tests most seriously the objectivity of reporting.
The first question, naturally, is what constitutes the test of accuracy? A definitive account of the Russian Revolution does not exist. In all probability it will never exist in this generation. After a hundred years there is no undisputed history of the French Revolution, and scholars are still debating the causes and the meaning of the revolt of the Gracchi, the fall of Rome, and even of the American Revolution and the American Civil War. A final history of the Russian Revolution may never be written, and even a tolerably settled account is not conceivable for a long time. It would be footless therefore to propose an absolute measurement of news gathered amid such excitement and confusion. It would be equally vain to accept the account of one set of witnesses in preference to any other set.
The “whole truth” about Russia is not to be had, and consequently no attempt is made by the authors to contrast the news accounts with any other account which pretends to be the “real truth” or the “true truth.” A totally different standard of measurement is used here. The reliability of the news is tested in this study by a few definite and decisive happenings about which there is no dispute.Thus there is no dispute that the offensive of the Russian army under Kerensky in July 1917 was a disastrous failure; no dispute that the Provisional Government was overthrown by the Soviet power in November 1917; no dispute that the Soviets made a separate peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918; no dispute that the campaigns of Kolchak, Denikin, and Yudenitch were a failure; no dispute that the Soviet Government was still in existence in March 1920.Against such salient facts the daily reports about Russia in this period are measured. The only question asked is whether the reader of the news was given a picture of various phases of the revolution which survived the test of events, or whether he was misled into believing that the outcome of events would be radically different from the actual outcome.
The question of atrocities and of the merits or demerits of the Soviets is not raised. Thus, for example, there was a Red Terror officially proclaimed by the Soviet Government in the summer of 1918; and apart from the official terror, excesses occurred in many parts of Russia. No attempt is made here to sift the truth of the accounts, to determine whether there were exaggerations, or how far the White Terror equalled the Red Terror. The attempt is not made because no dependable account is available with which to measure the news reports.There was a round measure of truth in the report of terror and atrocity. For analogous reasons no discussion of the virtues and defects of the Soviet system is attempted. There are no authoritative reports. Able and disinterested observers furnish contradictory evidence out of which no objective criteria emerge. Under these circumstances an accurate report of the Soviet Government and the Terror is no doubt more than could have been expected from a newspaper.
But what might more reasonably have been expected and what was more immediately important for Americans, was to know in the summer of 1917 whether the Russian army would fight, and whether the Provisional Government would survive. It was important to know in the winter of 1917-18 whether the Soviet Government would make a separate peace. It was important to know in the spring and early summer of 1918 whether the Russian people would support Allied intervention. It was important to know whether the Soviet Government was bound to collapse soon under Allied pressure. It was important to know whether the White Generals—Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenitch were, or were not, winning their campaigns. It was important to know whether Poland was defending herself or invading Russia. It was important to know the disposition of the Soviet Government toward peace at the time of the peace conference. It was important to know whether there was a Red Peril before Allied troops entered Russia, or whether that peril dates from the German surrender. It was important to know whether the Red regime was tottering to its fall or marching to the military conquest of the world. On each one of these questions depended some aspect of policy involving lives, trade, finance, and national honor. It is important now to know what was the net effect of the news on these points.
For the reader’s convenience certain tentative conclusions from the evidence are stated here:
  1. From the overthrow of the Czar to the failure of the Galician offensive in July 1917.
    The difficulties in Russia, and especially in the Russian army, are not concealed from the attentive reader, but the dominant tendency of the captions and the emphasis is so optimistic as to be misleading. (See Section I.)
  2. From the military disaster in July 1917 to the Bolshevik revolution of November.
    The difficulties of the regime play a bigger part in the news, but a misleading optimism still continues. In this period, the tendency to seek a solution through a dictator-savior appears in the mistaken hope placed upon the Kornilov adventure, a hope quickly falsified by his collapse. It may fairly be said that the growth of the Bolshevik power from July to November must have been seriously underestimated in view of the success of the November coup. (See Section II.)
  3. From the Bolshevik revolution to the ratification of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
    This period is on the whole the best in the three years. Different points of view are given, and the emphasis is generally neutral. After the recovery from the shock of the second revolution, the reports are inspired by an eager curiosity about the diplomatic battle between the Bolsheviks and the enemy. At the height of this diplomatic battle the news is handled in a rather uncritically pro-Bolshevik fashion, as a result of the .optimistic assumption that the Soviets would refuse to make peace with Germany. (See Section III.)
  4. From the ratification at Brest-Litovsk, which coincided approximately with the Great German offensive in March 1918, to the decision for Allied intervention in August 1918.
    Under the stress of disappointment and danger the tone and quality of the news change radically. Organized propaganda for intervention penetrates the news.This propaganda has two phases. There is a short and intense period in late March and early April, which stops rather suddenly with the announcement that the President has decided against intervention. There is a prolonged and intense period beginning about May which culminates in the American approval of intervention. (See Section IV)
  5. The months immediately following the signing of the armistice.
    The Red Peril, which had hitherto played only. an insignificant rĂŽle, now takes precedence in the news from Russia and serves as a new motive for Allied intervention. (See SectionV.)
  6. The Spring, Summer and Autumn of 1919.
    Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenitch are heralded as dictator-saviors of Russia; for their campaigns, extravagant claims are made when they are moving forward; in retreat there is a steady assurance that a better turn is coming. (See Sections VI, VII,VIII, IX and X.) Meantime the world is warned against a Russian invasion of Poland—though Polish troops are as a matter of fact deep in Russian soil. (See Section XI.)
  7. The Winter of 1919-20 and the Spring of 1920.
    Once more, with the failure of the White Armies, the Red Peril reappears.
The news as a whole is dominated by the hopes of the men who composed the news organization. They began as passionate partisans in a great war in which their own country’s future was at stake. Until the armistice they were interested in defeating Germany. They hoped until they could hope no longer that Russia would fight. When they saw she could not fight, they worked for intervention as part of the war against Germany. When the war with Germany was over, the intervention still existed. They found reasons then for continuing the intervention. The German Peril as the reason for intervention ceased with the armistice; the Red Peril almost immediately afterwards supplanted it. The Red Peril in turn gave place to rejoicing over the hopes of the White Generals. When these hopes died, the Red Peril reappeared. In the large, the news about Russia is a case of seeing not what was, but what men wished to see.
This deduction is more important, in the opinion of the authors, than any other. The chief censor and the chief propagandist were hope and fear in the minds of reporters and editors. They wanted to win the war; they wanted to ward off bolshevism. These subjective obstacles to the free pursuit of facts account for the tame submission of enterprising men to the objective censorship and propaganda under which they did their work. For subjective reasons they accepted and believed most of what they were told by the State Department, the so-called Russian Embassy in Washington, the Russian Information Bureau in New York, the Russian Committee in Paris, and the agents and adherents of the old regime all over Europe. For the same reason they endured the attention of officials at crucial points like Helsingfors, Omsk, Vladivostok, Stockholm, Copenhagen, London and Paris. For the same reason they accepted reports of governmentally controlled news services abroad, and of correspondents who were unduly intimate with the various secret services and with members of the old Russian nobility.
From the point of view of professional journalism the reporting of the Russian Revolution is nothing short of a disaster. On the essential questions the net effect was almost always misleading, and misleading news is worse than none at all. Yet on the face of the evidence there is no reason to charge a conspiracy by Americans. They can fairly be charged with boundless credulity, and an untiring readiness to be gulled, and on many occasions with a downright lack of common sense.
Whether they were “giving the public what it wants” or creating a public that took what it got, is beside the point. They were performing the supreme duty in a democracy of supplying the information on which public opinion feeds, and they were derelict in that duty. Their motives may have been excellent. They wanted to win the war; they wanted to save the world. They were nervously excited by exciting events. They were baffled by the complexity of affairs, and the obstacles created by war. But whatever the excuses, the apologies, and the extenuation, the fact remains that a great people in a supreme crisis could not secure the minimum of necessary information on a supremely important event. When that truth has burned itself into men’s consciousness, they will examine the news in regard to other events, and begin a searching inquiry into the sources of public opinion. That is the indispensable preliminary to a fundamental task of the Twentieth Century: the insurance to a free...

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