SOURCE: Lovett, Robert Morss. “Personality and the Press.” Nation 117, no. 3046 (21 November 1923): 584-85.

In the following review, Lovett examines Villard's Some Newspapers and Newspapermen.

There has been in the last few years a notable increase in the number of books dealing with public opinion in its formation and expression. Obviously this is a result of the war, in which we had the experience of finding ourselves moving under the impulse of mass currents in a direction quite opposite to that prescribed by our national character and tradition, and to a destination which we could never, as individuals, have desired or chosen. We have become curious as to the processes of social psychology by which we were controlled. The war has educated public opinion into self-consciousness. Naturally a prime object of our consideration is the daily press.

Mr. Villard's book [Some Newspapers and Newspapermen] has a more modest aim than...