# Buying a newspaper does not endorse its politics

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH07.P025](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH07.P025/#char=2977,3011): "We have a censorship by the press."

The earlier argument in *Heretics* supplies a concrete meaning for this reversal. Chapter VIII, ‘The Mildness of the Yellow Press,’ names Alfred Harmsworth and C. Arthur Pearson. Chesterton argues that their apparent sensationalism conceals reluctance to challenge powerful institutions. Its concluding paragraph distinguishes newspaper sales from political assent: readers’ purchases no more establish agreement with an editor’s politics than purchases of Crosse and Blackwell products establish agreement with their makers’ philosophy. He points specifically to the disproportion between tariff reform’s prominence in the great dailies and its support among the public. See [*Heretics*, chapter VIII](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470).

Thus ‘censorship by’ means that owners and editors can restrict the public field of argument while claiming to speak for public opinion. In *Orthodoxy* this earlier criticism becomes an example of the institution that must itself be watched: an organ supposedly serving liberty can exercise unaccountable power. This is continuity within Chesterton’s argument, not independent proof that his account of newspaper ownership or political opinion is correct. *Heretics* first appeared in 1905; the inspected Gutenberg text identifies its printed source as John Lane’s twelfth edition (1919).

## Sources

- [Heretics](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470), Chapter VIII, 'The Mildness of the Yellow Press': opening paragraph and concluding paragraph beginning 'The only question now'

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_nzj6v4ua/