Texts:1969 The Spanish Press: Difference between revisions

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<div class="~~container~~"><~~p class="parabox">¶{{#counter:in1}}</~~p>Early in 1966 the Spanish government instituted a new, more lenient press law with great ballyhoo: liberalization had begun. Henry F. Schulte, former Madrid bureau manager of United Press International, opens<i>The Spanish Press</i> with a cautiously favorable assessment of the 1966 law. Then he rapidly surveys the historical developments since 1470 that he thinks led to the apparent liberalization. One would expect such as account to give relatively fuller attention to twentieth-century developments than it does, since these were most relevant to the 1966 law; but this expectation is disappointed. Each period from 1470 to the Franco years receives an equally cursory glance. This superficiality is integral to the author's method; and the weaknesses of this method have been exposed by events. Early in 1969 the Spanish government suspended the press law, closed the University of Madrid, and arrested a number of accomplished Spanish publicists and exiled them to remote villages.</p>

<div class="nums"><p>Early in 1966 the Spanish government instituted a new, more lenient press law with great ballyhoo: liberalization had begun. Henry F. Schulte, former Madrid bureau manager of United Press International, opens<i>The Spanish Press</i> with a cautiously favorable assessment of the 1966 law. Then he rapidly surveys the historical developments since 1470 that he thinks led to the apparent liberalization. One would expect such as account to give relatively fuller attention to twentieth-century developments than it does, since these were most relevant to the 1966 law; but this expectation is disappointed. Each period from 1470 to the Franco years receives an equally cursory glance. This superficiality is integral to the author's method; and the weaknesses of this method have been exposed by events. Early in 1969 the Spanish government suspended the press law, closed the University of Madrid, and arrested a number of accomplished Spanish publicists and exiled them to remote villages.</p>

<p>Schulte's thesis is that the history of the Spanish press has been a history "of the oscillations between strict controls, rigorously applied, and libertine freedom." In his five-hundred-year dash the author supplies sufficient evidence of both controls and freedom. Neither of these extremes, he contends, makes for an effective fourth estate; and insofar as it is an effort to reach a mean for the first time in Spanish history, he commends the 1966 law as a major first step. This thesis should be taken as an example of the ignorant judiciousness endemic to responsible American journalists.</p>

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<p>Schulte did the right thing in giving the 1966 law the benefit of the doubt; the error of his book did not stem from the fact that he hoped for the best, but that he hoped for the best blindly. The error of his book is his failure to understand the particular genius of Spanish journalism at its best, a genius very different from that of American journalism. By better understanding this genius, he might have interpreted recent developments and their twentieth-century background differently; and, without giving up his hopes for the best, he might have warned about the probable causes of less happy possibilities, possibilities that have since become realities. These realities make a period piece of <i>The Spanish Press</i> and its interpretation of five hundred years of history as a prelude to a short-lived law.</p>

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-<div class="container"><p class="parabox">¶{{#counter:in1}}</p>Early in 1966 the Spanish government instituted a new, more lenient press law with great ballyhoo: liberalization had begun. Henry F. Schulte, former Madrid bureau manager of United Press International, opens<i>The Spanish Press</i> with a cautiously favorable assessment of the 1966 law. Then he rapidly surveys the historical developments since 1470 that he thinks led to the apparent liberalization. One would expect such as account to give relatively fuller attention to twentieth-century developments than it does, since these were most relevant to the 1966 law; but this expectation is disappointed. Each period from 1470 to the Franco years receives an equally cursory glance. This superficiality is integral to the author's method; and the weaknesses of this method have been exposed by events. Early in 1969 the Spanish government suspended the press law, closed the University of Madrid, and arrested a number of accomplished Spanish publicists and exiled them to remote villages.</p>
+<div class="nums"><p>Early in 1966 the Spanish government instituted a new, more lenient press law with great ballyhoo: liberalization had begun. Henry F. Schulte, former Madrid bureau manager of United Press International, opens<i>The Spanish Press</i> with a cautiously favorable assessment of the 1966 law. Then he rapidly surveys the historical developments since 1470 that he thinks led to the apparent liberalization. One would expect such as account to give relatively fuller attention to twentieth-century developments than it does, since these were most relevant to the 1966 law; but this expectation is disappointed. Each period from 1470 to the Franco years receives an equally cursory glance. This superficiality is integral to the author's method; and the weaknesses of this method have been exposed by events. Early in 1969 the Spanish government suspended the press law, closed the University of Madrid, and arrested a number of accomplished Spanish publicists and exiled them to remote villages.</p>
 <p>Schulte's thesis is that the history of the Spanish press has been a history "of the oscillations between strict controls, rigorously applied, and libertine freedom." In his five-hundred-year dash the author supplies sufficient evidence of both controls and freedom. Neither of these extremes, he contends, makes for an effective fourth estate; and insofar as it is an effort to reach a mean for the first time in Spanish history, he commends the 1966 law as a major first step. This thesis should be taken as an example of the ignorant judiciousness endemic to responsible American journalists.</p>
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 <p>Schulte did the right thing in giving the 1966 law the benefit of the doubt; the error of his book did not stem from the fact that he hoped for the best, but that he hoped for the best blindly. The error of his book is his failure to understand the particular genius of Spanish journalism at its best, a genius very different from that of American journalism. By better understanding this genius, he might have interpreted recent developments and their twentieth-century background differently; and, without giving up his hopes for the best, he might have warned about the probable causes of less happy possibilities, possibilities that have since become realities. These realities make a period piece of <i>The Spanish Press</i> and its interpretation of five hundred years of history as a prelude to a short-lived law.</p>
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