Commercialism and Journalism

While looking for something else today, I found this:

There is no such thing is America as an independent press. I am paid for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like Othello's, would be gone. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools or vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

This comes from Commercialism and Journalism, by Hamilton Holt, 1909. I found it on the Google Book Search pages.

Wasn't that just after the period of yellow journalism? Did we ever exit from that, or is the new millennium just echoing the past?

I was taken with how little things have changed in 100 years. It is as it has always been, it appears. But is it all intentional? I know it isn't on my part. However, I think the public cannot comprehend how much information gets left out of an article. There's only so much you can do with 500 words, after all, but readers expect miracles.

Why doesn't the public participate more in the governmental process? It would make such a difference, regardless of the news. Then they wouldn't be so reliant on the press as the conduit. In their absence, here I am, trying to make governmental officials adhere to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) at every turn.

How sad that we've moved forward so very little.