W. T. Stead
W. T. Stead
William Thomas Stead was an English newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, including his 1885 series of articles, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. These were written in support of a bill, later dubbed the "Stead Act", tha
"What is my message? That is what troubles me. I have not got a message. I am not by any means so ardent a Radical or as ardent in anything as I was. I have read so many newspapers on both sides that my old views have become so greatly modified that I no longer feel certain of anything. That is too strong, but it is true to a certain extent. Facts and existing circumstances prevent me being so enthusiastic as some are about remodelling the Universe."
"What a marvellous opportunity for attacking the devil!"
"An editor is the uncrowned king of an educated democracy."
"The Press is at once the eye and the ear and the tongue of the people. It is the visible speech if not the voice of the democracy. It is the phonograph of the world."
"No journalist is omnipotent, and even the most powerful journalist cannot influence those who do not read his paper. But within the range of his circulation — and readers, of course, are much more numerous than subscribers — he may be more potent than any other man. The damnable iteration day after day of earnest conviction wears like the dropping of water upon the stone."
"The duty of a journalist is the duty of a watchman."
"It is the great inspector, with a myriad eyes, who never sleeps, and whose daily reports are submitted, not to a functionary or department, but to the whole people."
