The Style of a Revolutionary Journalist

Abstract

In his famous lecture on Politics as a Profession, Max Weber observed that while employment as a journalist at the beginning of the twentieth century represented one of the most important ways to become a full-time politician, it was, however, difficult for a journalist to become the leader of a political party. Without any form of private wealth or additional income, a journalist would have remained tightly bound to his job, especially given the tremendous increase in the demands placed upon the profession of journalism at the time: a lack of personal funds would certainly have been an obstacle to any individual’s political ambitions. As Weber stated “The necessity of earning a living by writing articles on a daily or weekly basis hampers politicians like a ball and chain, (…) I know examples of born leaders who precisely due to such constraints were permanently stymied in their rise to power both with regard to what they could achieve in their public lives and, above all, by the effect that these financial needs had on their beliefs and attitudes.”¹