the night, makes it impossible for the editors to judge with absolute accuracy of the relative value of each piece of news as it is received. Consequently news values are constantly being readjusted as each important piece of news reaches the office. In the final decision in regard to what news shall be printed, what shall be omitted, and how much space shall be given to each piece of news that is published, the personal judgment of the editors is the determining factor.
Besides inaccuracy and incompleteness in presenting the news of the day due to the personal judgment of those responsible for the making of the newspaper, other forms of suppression or distortion of news are to be found in newspaper publishing due to the influence of various forces. It is to these influences that peculiar significance attaches from the point of view of the ethics of newspaper publishing, because in such cases the incomplete and inaccurate presentation of the news is deliberate.
Some Sinister Influences. The forces that make for the suppression and the "coloring" of news as well as for the restriction of editorial independence, critics of newspapers assert, are the result of the changes in business and editorial management during the last seventy-five years. The charge is made that too many newspapers are "edited from the counting-room." Business interests, it is said, particularly those of advertisers, influence news and editorials. Because of stock company ownership and the absence of editorial management by men known to the public, as were the editors in the days of personal journalism, wealthy men or corporations, it is charged, have been able quietly to buy up the stock of some newspapers and through hired editors, of whom in these days the public knows nothing, to direct secretly the news and editorial policies
