Today's big business enterprise of newspapers hampers editors' freedom of expression
The newspaper business is changing from a local operation to a big business industry. As a result, Dabney believes that editors will have even less freedom to express their opinions.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Virginius Dabney, July 31, 1975. Interview A-0311-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WILLIAM H. TURPIN:
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How about the role of the newspaper editor? In the past you have had
people who were identifiable as leaders in the community. I am thinking
specifically of you and Louis Jaffé, Ralph McGill, all of
these people and now, I guess you would be hard put to name more than
three or four newspaper editors in the country. What do you think will
be the role of personal journalism in the future?
- VIRGINIUS DABNEY:
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It does seem to be going out, as you say, and I don't quite understand
why it should. I guess editors are being more restricted in their
utterances and apparently that is the case in many instances. The
newspaper has become sort of a business proposition with an anonymous
voice which is not identified with anybody. I really find it a little
difficult to understand why, particularly in the South, why it isn't
just as easy as in the past for any individual to become known as the
editor of a newspaper.