Public Opinion — Chapter XXIV News, Truth, and a Conclusion

1. 1. News and truth are not the same thing and must be clearly distinguished.
2. 2. A newspaper should report 'Helsingfors Says Lenin is Dead' rather than 'Lenin Dead' when the source is unreliable.
3. 3. Journalists lack the discipline and objective tests that fields like medicine or engineering have, making their version of truth subjective.
4. 4. The press is too frail to carry the whole burden of popular sovereignty and supply the truth democrats hoped was inborn.
5. 5. The press is asked to create a mystical force called Public Opinion to take up the slack in public institutions, but this is not workable.
6. 6. The quality of news about modern society is an index of its social organization; better institutions produce more precise news.
7. 7. The press is like a searchlight that brings episodes into vision, but men cannot govern society by this light alone.
8. 8. The remedy lies in social organization based on analysis and record, abandoning the theory of the omnicompetent citizen.
9. 9. The primary defect of popular government is the failure to transcend casual experience and prejudice by organizing a machinery of knowledge.