ABSTRACT
The newspaper takes to itself a variety of other features, all primarily designed to hold a body of readers together, so far as big news is concerned, are not able to be critical. The newspaper editor occupies a strange position. His enterprises depend upon indirect taxation levied by his advertisers upon his readers; the patronage of the advertisers depends upon the editor's skill in holding together an effective group of customers. For them there are published a few whole newspapers, and sections of others, devoted to the personal lives of a set of imaginary people, with whose gorgeous vices the reader can in his fancy safely identify himself. There are newspapers, even in large cities, edited on the principle that the readers wish to read themselves. But the body of the news, though unchecked as a whole by the disinterested reader, consists of items which some readers have very definite preconceptions.
