A Shocking Phenomenon"

When Americans criticize the British press, Fleet Streeters often angrily view it as some kind of special American "prejudice." But last week the British press was keelhauled by one of its own members: the Manchester Guardian's U.S correspondent, Alistair Cooke. Delivering a Joseph Medill Patterson journalism lecture at Fordham University, Cooke pointed out that the British press has deteriorated a great deal since the late 19th century, when newspapers tried to be "a guide to the good life.

"The deterioration of the popular press in England is a shocking phenomenon of modern journalism ... I think the phrase 'gutter press' could have been invented for the modern English tabloid The British . . . took the American tabloid and they lowered their sights. They de-improved it. It is something that has to be seen to be believed ... The curious thing is that, when an Englishman imitates an American tabloid, he is five times worse than anything an American would tolerate."

Cooke, who has covered the U.S. for 16 years and is now an American citizen (TIME, March 19, 1951), also paid his respects to the U.S. press. Like the British press, U.S. papers are suffering from monopoly and consolidation." The "variety of American newspapers is shrinking disastrously. Not one American in maybe 70 or 80 has much of a choice in his own town ... of getting two sides of the news, or even two comments on the news. What I'm afraid of is that there are generations of Americans growing up who not only don't respect diversity of opinion but who don't know what it is ... We are flattering ourselves if we think that the American is a particularly well-informed man."

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