“I do. The minute a sentence gets set up in type and put on a piece of paper, suddenly it’s important. It’s permanent, it’s chiseled in rock; it will last forever.”

The old man cocked his head. “Tom,” he said, “it ain’t none of my business, but you don’t look so good. Why don’t you lay down and I’ll get Freddy to do the editorial this time.”

The presses roared in Tom McDaniel’s ears.

“Running a newspaper is not a job,” Professor Cahier had said. “It’s a responsibility. Some books may have told you that newspapers reflect public opinion. They are wrong. Newspapers mold public opinion. They are more powerful than all the bombs in the world, more influential than all the politicians put together . . .” Tom’s mind traveled back to that little room, to the earnest young faces in the room; and he heard the words of a dead man ringing loud and clear. Professor Cahier.

“Newspapers comprise the greatest single force in the world today. They can hurt, heal, kill, crucify, resurrect; at will. They can start wars, and have, and will continue to do so; as easily, they can stop them. They can make gods of humble men, and cause the world to worship these gods. Or, if it is their desire, they can destroy the gods and create new ones. Nothing is beyond the median effect of newspapers, gentlemen. They are the true teachers, priests, judges and executioners of this age. They tell us whom to hate and whom to love, they tell us how to dress, how to eat, how to sleep, and, most important, how to think. They speak and their voices are heard. And they are obeyed.

“And, yet, a newspaper is an abstract thing. Newspapers do not, in fact, exist. What exists is a relatively small group of human beings—newspapermen. A few thousand of them, at most. And how many of these, I wonder, realize the power they represent? How many understand the extent of their responsibility?

“You were all attracted to journalism, my friends, because it seemed a bright, shiny and marvelously romantic subject. It is romantic, but I hope that I have shown that it is also the hardest and perhaps the most important work in the world.

“To become journalists, you must automatically—if you are honest men—give up the individual prejudices and biases that we equate with personal freedom. You must see that subjectivity has no place in the newspaper business, that it must be submerged and dissolved, always. Which is to say, you must tell the truth.

“Before you settle on this career, gentlemen, examine the question: Are you willing, are you able, to tell the truth? Is it within your power to make the intellectual and physical and spiritual sacrifices that are necessary to do that seemingly simple thing, and do it consistently? Can you tell the plain, unadorned, unslanted truth, regardless of the consequences real or imagined?