I give Oxford warning that if this is not
done the place will not last another two centuries.
VI.--The British and the American Press
THE only paper from which a man can really get the news of the
world in a shape that he can understand is the newspaper of his
own "home town." For me, unless I can have the Montreal Gazette at
my breakfast, and the Montreal Star at my dinner, I don't really
know what is happening. In the same way I have seen a man from the
south of Scotland settle down to read the Dumfries Chronicle with
a deep sigh of satisfaction: and a man from Burlington, Vermont,
pick up the Burlington Eagle and study the foreign news in it as
the only way of getting at what was really happening in France and
Germany.
The reason is, I suppose, that there are different ways of serving up
the news and we each get used to our own. Some people like the news
fed to them gently: others like it thrown at them in a bombshell:
some prefer it to be made as little of as possible; they want it
minimised: others want the maximum.
This is where the greatest difference lies between the British
newspapers and those of the United States and Canada. With us in
America the great thing is to get the news and shout it at the
reader; in England they get the news and then break it to him as
gently as possible. Hence the big headings, the bold type, and the
double columns of the American paper, and the small headings and
the general air of quiet and respectability of the English Press.
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