On newspapers ('The Crown of Life')

PIERS OTWAY AND IRENE DERWENT DISCUSS THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA

"After all, a wise autocrat might well prohibit newspapers altogether, don't you think? They have done good, I suppose, but they are just as likely to do harm. When the next great war comes, newspapers will be the chief cause of it. And for mere profit, that's the worst. There are newspaper proprietors in every country, who would slaughter half mankind for the pennies of the half who were left, without caring a fraction of a penny whether they had preached war for a truth or a lie."

"But doesn't a newspaper simply echo the opinions and feelings of its public?"

"I'm afraid it manufactures opinion, and stirs up feeling. Consider how very few people know or care anything about most subjects of international quarrel. A mere handful at the noisy centre of things who make the quarrel. The business of newspapers, in general, is to give a show of importance to what has no real importance at all -- to prevent the world from living quietly -- to arouse bitterness when the natural man would be quite different."

"Oh, surely you paint them too black! We must live, we can't let the world stagnate. Newspapers only express the natural life of peoples, acting and interacting."

"I suppose I quarrel with them," said Piers, once more subduing himself, "because they have such gigantic power and don't make anything like the best use of it."

"That is to say, they are the work of men -- I don't mean," Irene added laughingly, "of men instead of women. Though I'm not sure that women wouldn't manage journalism better, if it were left to them."

"A splendid idea! All men to go about their affairs and women to report and comment. Why, it would solve every problem of society! There's the hope of the future, beyond a doubt! Why did I never think of it!"

From The Crown of Life, XIX