Journalist
circles in particular like to describe the press as a "great power" in the state. As a matter of fact, its importance really is immense.
It cannot be overestimated, for the press really continues education
in adulthood.
Its
readers, by and large, can be divided into three groups: First,
into those who believe everything they read; second,
into those who have ceased to believe anything; third,
into the minds which critically examine what they read, and judge
accordingly.
Numerically,
the first group is by far the largest. It consists of the great mass
of the people and consequently represents the simplest-minded part of
the nation. It cannot be listed in terms of professions, but at most
in general degrees of intelligence. To it belong all those who have
neither been born nor trained to think independently, and who partly
from incapacity and partly from incompetence believe everything that
is set before them in black and white. To them also belongs the type
of lazybones who could perfectly well think, but from sheer mental
laziness seizes gratefully on everything that someone else has
thought, with the modest assumption that the someone else has exerted
himself considerably. Now, with all these types, who constitute the
great masses, the influence of the press will be enormous. They are
not able or willing themselves to examine what is set before them,
and as a result their whole attitude toward all the problems of the
day can be reduced almost exclusively to the outside influence of
others. This can be advantageous when their enlightenment is
provided by a serious and truth-loving party, but it is catastrophic
when scoundrels and liars provide it.
The second
group is much smaller in number. It is partly composed of elements
which previously belonged to the first group, but after long and
bitter disappointments shifted to the opposite and no longer believe
anything that comes before their eyes in print. They hate every
newspaper; either they don't read it at all, or without exception fly
into a rage over the contents, since in their opinion they consist
only of lies and falsehoods. These people are very hard to handle,
since they are suspicious even in the face of truth. Consequently,
they are lost for all positive, political work.
The third
group, finally, is by far the smallest; it consists of the minds with
real mental subtlety, whom natural gifts and education have taught to
think independently, who try to form their own judgment on all
things, and who subject everything they read to a thorough
examination and further development of their own. They will not look
at a newspaper without always collaborating in their minds, and the
writer has no easy time of it. Journalists love such readers with
the greatest reserve.
For the
members of this third group, it must be admitted, the nonsense that
newspaper scribblers can put down is not very dangerous or even very
important. Most of them in the course of their lives have learned to
regard every journalist as a rascal on principle, who tells the truth
only once in a blue moon. Unfortunately, however, the importance of
these splendid people lies only in their intelligence and not in
their number - a misfortune at a time when wisdom is nothing and the
majority is everything! Today, when the ballot of the masses
decides, the chief weight lies with the most numerous group, and this
is the first: the mob of the simple or credulous.
------Adolf
Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 240-2
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