Newspaper quote

[badvoc]

Afternoon all,

I'm new to the forum as a poster but have been reading with interest the comings and goings ala Timbo and Cruisey since way back in '04.

Anyway, just wanted to garner opinion about an aside HG mentioned towards the end of Book 1, regarding newspapers:

"People in these latter times scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth-century papers"

Now, bearing in mind the text was written by the writer a couple of years after the events, have you big boys & big girls any opinion what the writer was saying about the post-invasion media?

Was he insinuating government control and censorship over the press after the events? It's been bugging me for a while and seems odd as a 'throwaway' comment. Just what was he getting at? Surely, life (albeit more considered and watchful) would have continued as before, barring the expected heightened military activity and presence that I would have thought would have been the norm after such an invasion?

I mean, the press were not to blame for what happened, so is everybody's take on this quote? Cheers.

[mctoddridesagain]

Welcome to our little forum, Badvoc.

Was he insinuating government control and censorship over the press after the events?

No. For a start, he's referring to the pre-invasion media, hence 'nineteenth century papers' (remember, the invasion took place in the early 20th century). Secondly, he's simply referring to the large number ('abundance') and innovative marketing ('enterprise') of late Victorian papers and journals. Remember, it was only in the last couple of decades of the nineteenth century, what with the introduction of universal (albeit basic) education in the early 1870s, that the printed media (which is all there was) became so widespread because there was now a market for it. This was still relatively new to the people of the 1890s. It was also incredibly varied, with what were effectively the first tabloid newspapers, and illustrated magazines which carried a variety of factual articles, investigative reportage, and new fiction by up-and-coming young authors, part of those journals' enterprising attempts to market themselves to a mass audience (such as WOTW itself, which was first published in 'Pearson's Magazine', itself a new example of 'enterprising' late nineteenth century journalism).

As for a throwaway comment, that is precisely what it is - one of many small, incidental details that add narrative colour - although I suspect, given WOTW's origins in a popular magazine, that it may have been a subtle in-joke.