A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post
that discussed how people in the past predicted the future and I promised a
sequel. Here it is with another sequel to follow.
Back in 1895 several prominent
newspaper editors were asked to speculate on what newspapers would look like in
the 20th Century. Some of their predictions were quite uncanny, and some were,
well, a bit off the mark.
Here are a couple of examples:
·
Felix Agnus, Editor of the Baltimore American: “Today I saw a new invention that distributes
written messages to its customers, the matter clearly printed on convenient
sheets. The inventor tells me he can afford to place these at a very moderate
cost in offices or in homes. All it needs is a long roll of paper. It does the
rest. Now what is to prevent the people of the next century from having their
news continuously? As soon as an event occurs it is broadcast over the wires
and is immediately printed by the automatic machine. How will a newspaper
published once a day compete with a scheme such as that?”
Sounds a lot like something we used
to call a telex machine. They never made it into homes, at least not on a large
scale, but they were in just about every newsroom in the world.
·
Then there was this prediction from A.G. Boynton, editor of the Detroit Free Press: “Keeping...with the
limits of the possible, this much is safe to forecast….there will be great and
marked progress in independence—that the newspaper of the twentieth century
will not be tied, as the newspaper of the nineteenth century is far too often,
to a party, a sect or a creed."
Sadly, Mr. Boynton's vision of today's newspaper has proven
to be more aspiration than reality. News today is too often skewed by
reporters, editors, producers and publishers to fit their own political agendas
or world views. I should acknowledge, however, that for a while in the 20th
Century the concept of trying to achieve some form of objectivity and fairness
in reporting was rigidly adhered to in the best newspapers. At least it was at
the newspapers I worked at.
Mr. Boynton's predictions and
others appeared in an article that appeared in the Tacoma Daily News March 30,
1895.
We are able to enjoy this 120-year-old
article because of Readex, a company that for seven decades has specialized in
providing access to primary source research materials such as early American
Newspapers. Here is a link to the Readex blog: http://www.readex.com/blog
and a link to the actual article:
http://www.readex.com/sites/default/files/Notable%20Forecasts%20Tacoma%20Daily%20News%2003.30.1895.pdf
Many of these editors had already personally
witnessed amazing advancements in newspaper publishing, the Readex article
pointed out. They had seen newspapers
progress from the old Washington hand press to enormous printing presses
capable of producing tens of thousands of newspapers in just a few hours; from
the Pony Express and stage coach to the telephone and telegraph; from hand-setting
type to typesetting linotype machines and the halftone photo reproduction
process.
And while some of the predictions
may seem a little quaint, given The Internet and today's 24-hour news cycles, I
am amazed at how prescient these editors were.
Here is James Elverson, editor of the Philadelphia
Inquirer:
·
“The chief
characteristic of the twentieth century newspaper must necessarily be
correlated with the twentieth century scientific inventions….If the flying
machine is perfected, every first class reporter will have one. If the air ship
is a success, they will distribute tons of newspapers daily. If telegraphy
becomes an exact science, the inmost heart of man will be revealed daily to the
public. If Esoteric Buddhism gathers the world to its bosom and Mahatmas drops
messages about the present, past and the future through newspaper roofs from
the desert of Gobi, then every first-class newspaper will have its staff of Mahatmas
to preach ethics to its readers. Pneumatic tubes may distance trains; photo
scopes may reproduce pictures 10,000 miles away, and possibly the kinescope may
be so adapted that every reader may have one in his house in which to view the
scenes of which he reads in his favorite newspaper, the photographic strips
therefore being issued as supplements. Possibly we shall not use type any more,
but by some complex arrangement issue rolls that shall run through phonographs.
Then, as the twentieth century man sits down to breakfast he can have the news
read to him while he sees every event in the kinescope, and at the same time he
can swallow his morning meal.”
Sounds a lot like watching CNN or
FOX while eating your oatmeal. And don't forget, this was BEFORE the invention
of radio or television.
Percy S. Heath, editor of
the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette may have foreseen the ubiquitous "Op Ed" page of today's
newspaper
:
·
“A forum, where
the people may go with ideas and grievances, and appeal to public opinion. This
to my mind will be the feature and the characteristic of the future newspaper.
I believe the forceful utterances of the press will come direct from the
people; that the intelligent reader is becoming every day a man or woman of
opinion, of fixed ideas, and that sentiment will be expressed more and more
freely through the press by those not directly connected with it. There will be
less arbitrary editorial expression. The ‘fourth page’ will contain that thought
of the reader which up to this time the editor has sought to forestall or
anticipate.”
Charles W.
Knapp, editor of the St. Louis Republic seems here to presage the way many of us customize the news we get from
our online newspapers.
·
To fulfill its
mission perfectly, (the newspaper) will be issued not once, or twice, but half
a dozen times every day. Perhaps also the great fin de siècle newspaper of the
twentieth century will be issued in several different editions varying
radically in the character of their contents, so as to meet the varying wants
of different classes of subscribers and at the same time obviate the undue
enlargement of its size. It is bound to be more comprehensive in the exhaustive
completeness of its information than the newspaper of today, but it will not be
necessary for every reader to take the whole daily encyclopedia. Those who wish
will have the opportunity to designate certain classes of news to be sent to
them, and in some degree every subscriber will have the privilege of ordering
his newspaper made to fit his own individual and particular wants."
.
George A. Robertson, editor
of the Cleveland World sees
newspapers using several "new" inventions to collect and disseminate
news faster. He also sees the use of more photography. However, his vision falls a little short when
it comes to his altruistic view of the 20th Century newspaper.
·
“Already within sight are numerous remarkable inventions that
will be made use of to improve the newspaper of the future. A machine is
already patented and in limited use that sends messages by wire ten times as
fast as the present telegraphic code and these messages are automatically
written out as they arrive. This will be employed by the coming newspaper in
improving its news facilities. A machine for transforming pictures by wire will
be fully perfected within the near future and there will be such a cheapening
of engraving processes that newspapers will be much more fully and beautifully
illustrated than at present. Telegraphic accounts of happenings in all parts of
the world will be accompanied, as received, with engravings ready to be dropped
into the forms….Sensationalism is on the wane and the time will come early in
the next century when the newspaper that lies will be considered as despicable
as the man who does the same thing now. The twentieth century newspaper will
not be entirely composed of the record of the ‘evil that men do,’ but some the
good things will be mentioned also.”
Finally here is Frank A. Richardson, editor
of the Baltimore Sun. While I applaud his optimism concerning the human
condition and his
laudable vision of scrupulous and truthful editors, there are far too
few of these trustworthy souls toiling in today's newsrooms.
·
“As mankind
with the march of time becomes more noble and elevated, the newspaper, which is
at once the leader and the follower of public sentiment, must share in this.
Therefore I should say the newspaper of the twentieth century must be conducted
on a higher plane. Its great aim must be to instruct and purify, rather than
merely amuse for an idle hour and increase its circulation by pandering to the
baser instincts of humanity. There are a few striking instances among the
leading newspapers of this day where the desire for gain is not made the
paramount consideration. In the twentieth century this will become more and
more apparent, for incentives to the contrary course which exist now will
disappear. The newspaper of the next century will be guided by the hand of
strictest truth and honor, for policy, if not conscience, will make it so.”
Perhaps the most troubling part of
this story is the fact that of the 13 newspapers polled in this 1895 exercise,
only four are still being published today. That none of the editors could
foresee the demise of their own newspapers is not surprising to me.
The 1890s were an optimistic decade
in American history with a young nation just beginning to flex its political and
economic muscles on the world stage.
Given the gloomy, often deplorable world
we live in today with its poverty and wars waged by religious fanatics like
ISIL with its beheadings and mutilation of innocents; its pervasive drug use;
the decline of the traditional family; the inexorable secularization of society
and with it the relentless obliteration of morality, integrity and civility; I
wonder how today's 21st Century editors would foretell the world of the 22d
Century.
With much less optimism I would
wager.
No comments:
Post a Comment