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The Newspaper in Economic Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Harold A. Innis
Harold A. Innis
Affiliation:
The University of Toronto
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Extract

The bibliography of this subject is the subject, and the enormous filescourse of over three centuries are formidability itself. To reduce the element of formidability it is necessary to turn to studies of the newspaper in terms of countries, regions, owners, editors and journalists. But again the bibliography reflects the character of the press. Newspapermen have contributed notably, but unfortunately the training in newspaper work is not ideal for an economic interpretation of the subject. The increasing participation of university graduates in journalism provides a basis for more objective studies, but even here the training.exercises a subtle influence and weakens the possibility of a sustained and effective interpretation. Throughout the history of the newspaper industry, studies reflect the dominant influence of the moment, or perhaps it is safer to say, represent the dominant influence of the tradition of the industry; hence they show a perceptible lag between the newspaper as it is and the newspaper as it was. In the main they are obsessed with the role of the press in relation to political opinion, the importance of freedom of the press, the fourth estate and so on; they are suffused with innumerable cliches1 constantly bubbling up from the effervescence of writing.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 2 , supplement S1: The Tasks of Economic History , December 1942 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1942

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References

1 See Hudson, Frederick, Journalism in the United States from 1690 to 1872 (New York, 1973), xv–xix.Google Scholar

2 Morrison, Stanley, The English Newspaper (Cambridge, 1932), 5.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., 125.

4 Ibid., 127.

5 See Collins, A. S., The Profession of Letters (London, 1928).Google Scholar

6 Presbrey, Frank, The History and Development of Advertising (New York, 1929), 80.Google Scholar

7 Bowman, W. O., The Story of “The Times” (London, 1931), 1–2.Google Scholar

8 Morrison, 182.

9 Ibid., 4.

10 Lang, Andrew, The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart (London, 1897), I, 365.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., II, 59.

12 Ibid., I, 367.

13 Ibid., 1, 397.

14 Ibid., II, 51–2.

15 The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, (Edinburgh, 1890), II, 262Google Scholar. Frances Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review, wrote to Charles Wilkes on 13 April 1822, “The most disgusting pecularity of the present times is the brutal scurrility and personality of the party press, originally encouraged by ministers, though I believe they would now gladly get rid of it; but from their patronage and general appetite for scandal it has become too lucrative a thing to be sacrificed to their hints, and goes on, and will go on, for the benefit and at the pleasure of the venal wretches who supply it.” Cockburn, Lord, Life of Lord Jeffrey with a Selection from His Correspondence (Edinburgh, 1852), n, 200Google Scholar. Jeffrey even had qualms about the Edinburgh Review. He wrote to Frances Homer on May 11, 1803, “The risk of sinking in the general estimation and being considered as fairly articled to a trade that is not perhaps the most respectable has staggered me more, I will acknowledge than any other consideration.” Ibid, I, 145. “From the very first J have been anxious to keep clear of any tradesman like concern in the Review and to confine myself pretty strictly to intercourse with gentlemen only as contributors.” Nov. 1, 1827. Ibid., 280.

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33 On reaching farthest north in Greenland, Brainard of the Greeley expedition in 1882 wrote on May 14th, “I have never yet visited anywhere without finding Plantation Bitters advertised conspicuously. This is the highest explored latitude, could be no exception, and on the slab in the face of the cliff I carved the familiar characters St. 1860X.”

34 Presbrey, Frank, The History and Development of Advertising (Garden City, 1929), 272.Google Scholar

35 See Sullivan, Mark, The Education of an American (New York, 1938).Google Scholar

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37 “The London Times is emphatically a paper for men.… American women read newspapers as much as their liege lords. The paper must accommodate itself to this fact; and hence the American sheet involves a variety of topics and diversity of contents.” Reymond in The New York Times, Oct. 14, 1852. Breyer, 242.

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48 The significance of the newspaper to the social sciences has been evident in the deterioration, since Adam Smith, shown in the increasing obsession with facts and figures in relation to the short run immediate problems of bureaucracies, in the increasing specialization and departmentalization of the social sciences, and in their consequent divisiveness and sterility. Economic history has suffered either as a handmaiden of bureaucracy or a sink of antiquarianism. See Kierstead, B. S., Essentials of Price Theory (Toronto, 1942), v–viiiGoogle Scholar.