ABSTRACT
This opinion of newspapermen, published in the Encyclopedic summarized the eighteenth-century view of contemporary journalists.2
An article on journalism by Diderot in this same compendium was equally negative. After explaining how demanding the publication of a periodical would be, he noted that no journal organized itself well enough to achieve the goal. But Voltaire, who far more than Diderot believed himself to have suffered at the hands of journalists, assailed them even more vigorously in the Encydopédie. Although he disdained newspapermen as subservient, he aimed his sharpest barbs at the authors of literary magazines who, he claimed, wrote solely for money. Able to earn little through praise, these devils resorted to personal assaults and malignities to enhance sales. Still, lamented Voltaire, reason and good taste dictated that such reprobates would reap only scorn and oblivion. The great philosophe added that if these journalists wished to accomplish something, they might desist from their meddling and fill their periodicals with useful announcements.3
