When British Papers Were Appalled By American Excess

by Alex Massie

Once upon a time and not actually so very long ago it was the British who were shocked – nay appalled! – by the storm-tossed vigour of the American popular press. How times change.

So I am grateful to reader DD who sends this lovely item culled from one of GK Chesterton's columns in the Illustrated London News, (a proto-blog, perhaps, Mr Rauch!) in which he considered the contrast between the American (Congressional) and British (Board of Trade) investigations into the sinking of the Titanic:

It is perfectly true, as English papers are saying, that some American papers are what we should call both vulgar and vindictive; that they set the pack in full cry upon a particular man; that they are impatient of delay and eager for savage decisions; and that the flags under which they march are often the flags of a reckless and unscrupulous journalism…

Our national evil is exactly the other way; it is to hush everything up; it is to damp everything down; it is to leave every great affair unfinished, to leave every enormous question unanswered…

The educated Englishman tends to say to the Americans, "I know you and your popular persecutions. You will hunt poor Mr. Ismay from court to court, as if he were the only man that was saved – just as you hunted poor old Gorki from hotel to hotel, as if he were the only man not living with his wife."

But it is essential to remember that the educated American can say a similar thing on the other side. He will say, "I know you and your gentlemanly privacies and hypocrisies. You will shirk this inquiry into the Titanic tragedy, just as you shirked the inquiry into the Jameson raid. You will ignore plain questions and suppress existing telegrams to save the face of some rich man, just as you did it to save the face of the African millionaires. We are not so careful of millionaires. We are hounding on the pack, and we think that a pack of dogs, even if it is a pack of mongrels, is not so bad a thing for dealing with wolves – or foxes."

Splendid stuff. In this sense, perhaps the Department of Justice is these days the purest expression of the American tabloid style? And perhaps it is true that, at official levels, the British tendency still inclines towards a certain reserve that may consider the public an inconvenience to be ignored if at all possible. On the other hand, it would be nice if the American press were to recapture some of the zip and vim of its yellow journalism heyday.

Of course, that's also what the blogosphere is for.