Craning for Understanding: The Newspaper

Today's WORD on Journalism: Craning for Understanding:

"The Newspaper

“A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile,
Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest men.
A newspaper is a market
Where wisdom sells its freedom
And melons are crowned by the crowd.
A newspaper is a game
Where his error scores the player victory
While another’s skill wins death.
A newspaper is a symbol;
It is feckless life’s chronicle,
A collection of loud tales
Concentrating eternal stupidities,
That in remote ages lived unhaltered,
Roaming through a fenceless world.”

—Stephen Crane (1871-1900), novelist, poet and journalist,
from War is Kind and Other Lines (1988)"

'via Blog this'

If you allow "newspaper" to represent "modern media" this poem really stands the test of time.