THE ACTIVITIES AND PATRIOTIC SERVICE OF NEWSPAPERS IN TIMES OF WAR

The war correspondent is perhaps the most picturesque figure in journalism. He endures the dangers and the hardships of war as does the soldier, possibly more so, for no one looks out for him in the field or especially cares how he fares. He has some glorious moments; but for the most part his time is consumed in heart-breaking effort to overcome obstacles. His reputation depends on his success in dealing with these difficulties.

The reporting of other wars was easy compared with the late World War. In the South African campaign, for example, the London newspapers were permitted to send as many correspondents as they chose and they went when and where they pleased. The London Daily Mail had thirty-six men there with a staff editor in command—the other London newspapers about the same number each. And all were competing in hustle and grab to get news and flash it to the home office. With little censorship and no restriction the reporting of that war was not difficult. And this was186 true of nearly all war reporting up to the conflict between Turkey and the Balkans in 1912.

But the great war, 1914–1918, was started with almost as much hostility toward the correspondent as toward the enemy. As though by common consent, all the conflicting nations sought to crush him. Every big newspaper in all the world wanted to send a correspondent to the firing lines: some of them wanted to send two, four, six, even more, for the line of battle soon became more than a hundred miles long in France and much longer on the Russian frontier. At first not any were permitted to approach the firing front or even the division headquarters and the correspondents worked under great disadvantage. A strict censorship was made over the little information they were able to obtain. It was very unsatisfactory. At this time London was almost entirely without information about the war. The solemn silence with reference to the armies and the fighting served to dampen enthusiasm and patriotic ardor. Calls for enlistments were ignored, recruiting came to a standstill. Lists of the dead began to appear, adding to the gloom. No stirring descriptions of personal heroism or glorious achievement were printed. The newspapers made a great row about it and the people joined in.

It was not until later, when the papers were permitted to print stirring news from the front of the ebb and flow of the battle tides, that enthusiasm was aroused and England made splendid response to the call for fighting men. The government at length came to appreciate187 that to suppress all war news was to breed indifference; and in the same proportion as the censorship was relaxed, public spirit was aroused.

All of the London newspapers made the most elaborate preparations to report the war. Those of the Times were perhaps the most comprehensive and may serve as illustration. It sent ninety correspondents to the army fronts scattering them all along the lines. They were, in the main, high priced men and the expenditure amounted to something like fifteen thousand dollars a week. But the censors shut them out entirely. They were not allowed within miles of the fighting lines and were forbidden to send a scrap of news. It was useless to keep them there and they were recalled. The only news printed in London, Paris, or Berlin, at first, were the government reports.

It was in response to public clamor for more news that a new plan of war reporting was adopted, namely, the syndicating of news. Very few correspondents were permitted on the firing line and each man represented a number of newspapers. In 1918, for example, as many as eight or ten English newspapers shared the work of one man. Reuter’s agency had a man at all fronts. His reports went to all newspapers. This was a great service and also a great saving to the smaller sheets; but the big newspapers wanted their own men to do their work.

In London, a combination of all the daily papers was formed, called the Newspaper Proprietors Association, and it made virtually all arrangements for reporting188 the war. If a member had in mind a good thing to do he was required by the arrangement to tell it to all the others, for nothing could be done except under this cooperative scheme. These conditions destroyed all competition. Newspaper “beats” disappeared. It was a very unsatisfactory arrangement. There was no freedom of movement for individual publications. And it is more than likely that a similar system will prevail in future wars. No room, no facilities for several hundred correspondents are to be had at the field headquarters of a fighting army. The number must be restricted and the news passed around to all newspapers.

In the latter months of the war, conditions, as compared with the first months, were reversed. Censorship was relaxed somewhat and correspondents were allowed to approach the battle lines with greater freedom. The syndicating plan was not changed. It worked more smoothly as the writers had more liberty but it was not ever satisfactory to the newspapers. The feeling of resentment toward the presence of correspondents in the field somewhat passed away. The writers who kept faith and observed the censorship rules were made more welcome. But army officers never have been reconciled to the presence of correspondents and doubtless never will be.

It was difficult for the newspapers to obtain quick news of the war for reasons already mentioned, yet, reviewing the months of the conflict, it is difficult to recall any serious misrepresentation of facts or conditions. We understood always, with substantial accuracy,189 how many men each power had in the field, where the armies were gathered, what the losses were, what advantages had been gained or surrendered, and substantially how things were going.

The war was not reported with especial brilliancy until just before its end. In the closing months some very fine work was done, but until then dull routine narration was the vogue. Censorship, the syndicate requirement, the never ceasing congestion of the wires, the compelled reduction in the size of newspapers, were the chief causes for the moderation. A correspondent who knows that his matter is to be cut and slashed two or three times by censors before it reaches his editor loses much of the inspiration to brilliant work.

For the first time in any war, correspondents were compelled to wear a uniform—the ordinary officers’ uniform without any mark or rank, but with a green brassard around the left upper arm. Each correspondent was compelled to provide himself with everything needed in the field including his transport which meant motor car and horses. It has been estimated that the correspondent’s expenses were about eight hundred dollars a month. The correspondents were paid from four thousand to ten thousand dollars a year salary, three or four of especial reputation getting more than the latter sum.

The war involved vast additional expense to newspapers. The cost of maintaining men in the field and in news centers, the cost of transmitting dispatches, especially through the cables, as well as the enormously190 increased price of every product that entered into newspaper construction helped to swell the total. The increase in the price of printing paper alone cost our newspapers of large circulation an additional eight hundred thousand dollars or nine hundred thousand dollars a year. Instead of paying from seven to ten cents a word for cable transmission, as before the war, the press paid latterly twenty-five to thirty-five cents from London and Paris. Some papers paid as much as one thousand dollars for single dispatches and frequently expended ten thousand dollars a week for the transmission of war reports. In the Gallipoli drive, messages were sent to Constantinople by automobile, thence wired to Vienna, relayed to Berlin, relayed again to The Hague and again to London, whence cabled to America at a total cost of about a dollar and a half a word. Yet we failed to note any relaxation of effort or of expense on the part of American newspapers to get the news. It is an axiom of the business that the very life of the sheet depends on a lavish expenditure for the purchase of information. The big newspapers were compelled to have special correspondents in all the big centers of allied, belligerent and neutral countries, to cover the political situation and other things arising from the administrative state of the war. For example, Holland was the center of German news, being on the frontier and on the main route. Here, naturally, a man obtained the big German news first of all, the German newspapers, the narratives of persons passing from Germany. Switzerland was a news center of almost191 equal importance for the same reasons. Sweden and Norway had to be covered. It was very trying for the newspapers, very expensive.

In reporting the great war the newspapers were under great disadvantage in consequence of the censorship. It was the more exacting in the European cities, for there it included the censorship of comment as well as news; but much more important war news was permitted to pass through the Atlantic cables than was permitted to be published in London, Paris, or Berlin. Nevertheless, every cable message, every mail letter to America was car............