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more conservative stance after changing hands in 1900
(Gifford & Seidman, 1988: 134; Kershner, 2010: 100; Platt,
1998: 736). Like Crawford’s former employer, the
Freeman’s
Journal
also underwent changes in policy during the long years
of its publication: from anti-Catholic in the late eighteenth
century to pro-Catholic and supportive of O’Connell during
the mid-1800s, to finally abandoning Parnell and falling with
him at the turn of the century (Herr, 1986: 69-70; Kershner,
2010: 99). The political inconsistency of Irish journalism is
evident in the publishers employing Crawford as well as
Crawford himself, who leaves the
Independent
at the promise
of advancement, and will likely leave the
Freeman
if he sniffs
an even more promising position. Having Crawford in mind,
Bloom comments on the pressmen in general:
Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when
they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot
and cold in the same breath. Wouldn’t know which to
believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for
one another baldheaded in the papers and then all
blows over. Hail fellow well met the next moment.
(Joyce, 1986: 103)
The pressmen look for, in a word, profit, unconcerned with
consistency and reliability; their changeability renders them
untrustworthy. The journalists-as-intellectuals who act as the
thinking and organizing element of the people and direct their
ideas and aspirations are, ironically, directed by trends. They
follow, instead of leading, the public; embrace, rather than
scorn, material profit. They may still perform a public role, but
are no longer independently representative figures with a
standpoint of their own, nor do they speak as the conscience of
the people. It is ironic that Crawford’s expectations of
advancement probably shade into anxiety, if not regret. After
rising along with Parnell and reaching its heights of influence
in the late nineteenth century, the
Freeman
began to decline;