—DOUGLAS WOODRUFF ” Buy a twopenny newspaper and you get the real news " is an inference to he drawn from Mr. Douglas Woodruff's remarks at Ashridge (Association for Education in Citizenship) last week, when he took part in a discussion on the press, " With newspapers it is twopence plain and a penny coloured," he said, and lamented the spirit of a democracy in which a penny made so much difference.
A Counsel of Perfection
The separation of news from views, he thought, was desirable but impossible. Bias, conscious or unconscious, would creep in somehow. Brevity demanded selection and that meant the exclusion of undesirable news.
It was a minor disaster when a cartoonist like Low declared war on Italy on his own account.
Ominous Use
In an editor's room in Australia he saw the motto "Today's paper lights tomorrow's fire." That was a healthy reminder, but it had a more ominous meaning than the editor had in mind.
He did not think there was a possible corrective to the present position of the press; it was going to become not more political but more of an entertainment. To bring serious matters into the popular press was like making oneself a nuisance at a theatre : it was sometimes done, but nobody thought anything of those who did it.