It was that very astute and remarkable journalist, C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian, who said ‘a newspaper has a moral as well as a material existence, and its character and influence are in the main determinated by the balance of these two forces’. This could be said of all individuals, all institutions, all businesses, all industries, all professions in a free society, but it applies with particular emphasis to some individuals (journalists are an example) and to some institutions (the press, radio, and television). Scott found the balance struck between the moral and the material existence of newspapers particularly significant because the newspaper ‘plays on the minds and consciences of men’. So, too, do the other mass media of communication.

Phrased in different terms, the problem of balance involves freedom on one side of the scale and responsibility on the other. Some publishers deny that this problem exists. They claim the freedom but reject the responsibility. Such is the attitude of the American publisher who said, ‘A newspaper is a private enterprise owing nothing whatever to the public, which grants it no franchise. It is emphatically the property of the owner, who is selling a manufactured product at his own risk.’ This perhaps, would have been a defensible view for a shoe manufacturer in the laissez-faire economy of the 19th century but seems to be out of step with the social trends of the 20th. But, at least, it has the merit of frankness.