The Free Press | Page 5

public save as a bait for the advertiser. It lived (in this phase) entirely
on its advertisement columns.

V
Let us halt at this phase in the development of the thing to consider
certain other changes which were on the point of appearance, and why
they were on the point of appearance.
In the first place, if advertisement had come to be the stand-by of a
newspaper, the Capitalist owning the sheet would necessarily consider
his revenue from advertisement before anything else. He was indeed
compelled to do so unless he had enormous revenues from other
sources, and ran his paper as a luxury costing a vast fortune a year. For
in this industry the rule is either very great profits or very great and
rapid losses--losses at the rate of £100,000 at least in a year where a
great daily paper is concerned.
He was compelled then to respect his advertisers as his paymasters. To
that extent, therefore, his power of giving true news and of printing
sound opinion was limited, even though his own inclinations should
lean towards such news and such opinion.
An individual newspaper owner might, for instance, have the greatest
possible dislike for the trade in patent medicines. He might object to
the swindling of the poor which is the soul of that trade. He might
himself have suffered acute physical pain through the imprudent
absorption of one of those quack drugs. But he certainly could not print
an article against them, nor even an article describing how they were

made, without losing a great part of his income, directly; and, perhaps,
indirectly, the whole of it, from the annoyance caused to other
advertisers, who would note his independence and fear friction in their
own case. He would prefer to retain his income, persuade his readers to
buy poison, and remain free (personally) from touching the stuff he
recommended for pay.
As with patent medicines so with any other matter whatsoever that was
advertised. However bad, shoddy, harmful, or even treasonable the
matter might be, the proprietor was always at the choice of publishing
matter which did not affect him, and saving his fortune, or refusing it
and jeopardizing his fortune. He chose the former course.
In the second place, there was an even more serious development.
Advertisement having become the stand-by of the newspaper the large
advertiser (as Capitalism developed and the controls became fewer and
more in touch one with the other) could not but regard his "giving" of
an advertisement as something of a favour.
There is always this psychological, or, if you will, artistic element in
exchange.
In pure Economics exchange is exactly balanced by the respective
advantages of the exchangers; just as in pure dynamics you have the
parallelogram of forces. In the immense complexity of the real world
material, friction, and a million other things affect the ideal
parallelogram of forces; and in economics other conscious passions
besides those of mere avarice affect exchange: there are a million
half-conscious and sub-conscious motives at work as well.
The large advertiser still mainly paid for advertisement according to
circulation, but he also began to be influenced by less direct intentions.
He would not advertise in papers which he thought might by their
publication of opinion ultimately hurt Capitalism as a whole; still less
in those whose opinions might affect his own private fortune adversely.
Stupid (like all people given up to gain), he was muddle-headed about
the distinction between a large circulation and a circulation small, but
appealing to the rich. He would refuse advertisements of luxuries to a

paper read by half the wealthier class if he had heard in the National
Liberal Club, or some such place, that the paper was "in bad taste."
Not only was there this negative power in the hands of the advertiser,
that of refusing the favour or patronage of his advertisements, there was
also a positive one, though that only grew up later.
The advertiser came to see that he could actually dictate policy and
opinion; and that he had also another most powerful and novel weapon
in his hand, which was the suppression of news.
We must not exaggerate this element. For one thing the power
represented by the great Capitalist Press was a power equal with that of
the great advertisers. For another, there was no clear-cut distinction
between the Capitalism that owned newspapers and the Capitalism that
advertised. The same man who owned "The Daily Times" was a
shareholder in Jones's Soap or Smith's Pills. The man who gambled and
lost on "The Howl" was at the same time gambling and winning on a
bucket-shop advertised in "The Howl." There was no antagonism of
class interest one against the other, and what was more they were of the
same kind and