Comment

In a speech made at the 77th annual convention of the Amer Newspaper Publishers Association, of which Irwin Maier is president, he let a cat out of a bag in connection with the Washington furor over "managed news." What Mr. Maier said was that "the newspaper exists to bring to its readers the truths they need to know and understand." The cat whizzed out of the bag when Mr. Maier's phrase "they need to know" came tumbling out of his mouth. For his statement implies that the American newspaper is engaged not simply in telling the truth but in deciding what truths the readers "need to know," and that implies that managing news is something American journalism goes in for. If a Congressional committee of one kind or another should now decide to investigate the extent to which American journalism is guilty of managing news, the Lord only knows what the thing might lead to. Among the first things such a committee would discover is that most of the newspapers in this country have at least one editorial employee whose title is "managing editor." This is one of those truths that newspaper readers clearly don't need to know.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com