Charles Mbo

 “THE INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS” What a newspaper is? A newspaper, if the word is to be taken in its literal sense, is a paper which gives news; and this was all that the first newspaper undertook or attempted to do. But the daily press is now used for many other purposes. Besides giving news it gives advice, criticism, praise, or blame, and in several other respects has gone for beyond its original functions. Newspaper, as we now know them, are the organs of public opinion on all kinds of news, local provincial, national, imperial, and foreign, and on all kinds of subjects, social, political, legal, industrial, scientific, literary. The definition here given is a wide one, but anything less wide would not cover the ground. The phrase “organ of public opinion” presupposes that the press is free, subject to no censorship, and allowed, so long as it keep itself honest and unbridled to run its course unimpeded in any channel or channels, that it may select. In countries where the press is not free, newspaper do not express the feeling of the nation, but merely the will of the sovereign or of those who exercise the power of a sovereign. Of such newspapers no account will be taken in the present essay. Newspaper can be put to a wrong use: There is nothing under the sun but has its evil side, its powers of mischief when a wrong use is made of it. Newspapers are no exception. The press is an evil, when those who are responsible for it management take bribes to support a bad cause, or to palliate public or private misdeeds. It is an evil, when it lend its columns to attacking individuals from motives of personal malice, or from race- jealousy; when it gives out false or unsupported news as true to ensure a large and ready sale; when it panders to a morbid taste by publishing repulsive details of cruelty or vice; when it stirs up bad between one class and another, befriendly. When it is used, as it is sometimes, without the knowledge of editors, for publishing fraudulent advertisements or laying traps to catch the unwary. Newspapers are check upon one another: There are many ways then in which the press, if it is dishonestly or incautiously managed, can be productive of mischief. But the remedy for such mischief is to a large extent supplied by newspapers themselves. They are a constant check upon one another: for they cannot get rid of composition and competition provokes comparison. When the public has to decide between conflicting views or contradictory statements, the paper which has proved to be inferior to its rivals in accuracy of statement, or in honesty of intention, loses credit with its readers and does injury to itself. In the editing of newspapers, as in everything else, truth and honesty is the best policy. The press, then, is the best safeguard against its own misuse. A CHEAP DAILY PRESS IS A POPULAR EDUCATOR A free press, in a free country like our own, supplements the educational machinery provided by the government for the benefit of the nation. It supplements, as nothing else could, the work done by the educational act of . . . UNESCO, under which attendance at the school up to a certain age has been made compulsory for the son or daughter of even the poorest citizen. If there were no cheap literature such as is furnished by the daily newspaper at the cost of one penny or even one half penny, there would be nothing for the masses to read on week-days. A working man, even if he had the means to by books, would have no leisure to read them. Without the help of newspaper, he would soon forget through sheer disuse the elementary knowledge that he acquired at school, and become almost as illiterate as if he had never attended one. The daily press, therefore, is one of the great educators of the people. It qualifies a man for citizenship Granted that newspaper give the working man something to read; however, it still be asked, “what good can they do him? What can they teach him?” The answer is, that the newspaper can not only give him an intelligent interest in the passing events of his neighborhood or his country, but can help, among other influence, to engender in his mind a due sense of his rights as a citizen, and to the duties involved in such rights. In some free countries: for instance, Senegal, Tanzania, RSA, France, etc. There are different electoral bodies for which every citizen, whatever his station in life may be, is asked to use his judgment and to give his vote. He has to choose someone to represent him in the supreme ruling body of the nation. He has also to choose someone to represent him in the local body controlling the town or country in which he lives. It is only by reading the daily or weekly newspaper that he can become qualified to discharge such duties, —duties with which the law of the land has entrusted him, and in which the country has a claim to his co-operation. In a free self-governing community, a man owes his civic life to the place and country in which he lives, as he owes his physical life to his family. The greatness of a country depends on its possessing citizens of the fable; Men who feel that they belong to a great nation and are proud of belonging to it. There is nothing more likely to produce such men than a healthy public opinion, stimulated and sustained by a healthy daily press. A FREE PRESS IS THE CHAMPION OF POLITICAL FREEDOM The vitality of the daily press, the degree of confidence which it inspires, and the amount of wholesome influence that it may exercise on the public mind depend, as was stated, upon its being absolutely free; and hence the press in self-defense, if for no higher motive, has ever been the champion of political freedom. In time or war it may be necessary to place a distant correspondent under the restraint of a military censorship for some reason that may be justified by exigencies of the hour. But in time of peace, when no such exigencies can be pleaded, the press will be content with nothing short of entire independence. In many countries, chiefly advanced ones, whenever it fought for its own freedom, it was fighting at the same time for the liberties of the station. The perfect freedom that it now enjoys is only about a century old. In securing this right for itself, the press secured a great constitutional right for that nation. It fosters a sense of brotherhood within the nation It is by means of newspaper that the different sections of a nation are bound together on sympathy with great causes and noble ideals. The great discoveries and inventions, as soon known to millions, who without the help of newspapers would never hear of them. The purity of justice is maintained by reports of proceedings in law courts. No misuse of power, no miscarriage of justice, can long remain undetected. All great questions are brought to the bar public opinion. All legislation is discussed while it is in progress, from every point of view that can be brought to bear upon it by intelligent readers. All the best book that are published, whatever the subject may be, are reviewed and criticized in the daily or weekly, so that the reader may keep himself abreast of the main currents of contemporary science and literature. IT FOSTERS A SENSE OF BROTHERHOOD WITH OTHERS NATIONS Lastly, it is the function of a newspaper to teach a nation not merely to understand itself, but to understand other nation, and thus furnish a link through which all nations may be bound together by the ties of common hope and common ideals. As a form of literature a newspaper lacks, it is true, the element of permanence: but the ideas with which it seeks to inspire its readers produce an effect that is lasting. It is the only kind of reading that almost universal. No one is so occupied with the business of his calling but he finds time to read the daily newspaper, though he may not finds time to read a book. If the idea of the Universal brotherhood of man is ever to be realized, as the best men have hoped and some of the wisest men have believed, the result will be largely due to the influence of newspaper.