In Chapter 29 of his novel Billy Budd, Melville includes a newspaper account of the events described in the novel. Why does he do this?

In Chapter 29
of his novel Billy Budd, Herman Melville includes a newspaper
account of the events described in the novel.  His reasons for doing so can be variously
explain.  Such explanations include the
following:

• In the newspaper account, the
  execution of Billy Budd is merely one “among other matters” discussed.  For readers of
  Melville’s novel, as well as for many aboard the Bellipotent, the
  crime, trial, and execution of Billy have been matters of crucial importance.  For the
  rest of the world, however, these matters do not seem nearly so important.  Melville may
  be suggesting that newspaper accounts (unlike novels) cannot begin to do full justice to
  the events they report.


• The newspaper is “an authorized
  weekly publication.” Melville’s novel has offered the story of Billy Budd in ways that
  cause many readers to question authority; this is not, obviously, the purpose of this
  “authorized” publication.


• Melville’s narrator suggests
  that the newspaper account was “doubtless for the most part written in good faith” –
  words that are typical of Melville’s frequently ambiguous phrasing. Words such as
  “doubtless” and “for the most part” inevitably make us question the very assertions they
  seem to offer.


• The newspaper account, from its very first
  paragraph, is not only obviously incorrect but also obviously biased. Melville may thus
  be suggesting how difficult it is to discover the “real truth” of any event, if indeed
  the such is even possible.


• By suggesting that Billy was
  “no Englishman,” the newspaper account plays on xenophobic and nationalistic prejudices
  that Melville himself seems to be mocking.


• By having the
  newspaper refer to “the extreme depravity of the criminal” (that is, Billy), Melville
  implicitly pits the subtlety and nuance of his own prose and his own perceptions against
  the sensationalism and bombast of shoddy popular
  journalism.


• The fact that the newspaper account makes no
  pretense of being objective or unbiased helps highlight, by contrast, the greater
  complexity of Melville’s novel.


• The newspaper article is
  essentially a piece of propaganda, designed to dictate the way others think. Melville’s
  novel, in contrast, is a work designed to lead readers to think for themselves and to
  arrive at their own conclusions.


• The fact that the
  newspaper article explicitly approves of the swift execution of Billy Budd can be (and
  has been) used by critics of Captain Vere as evidence that Melville himself is
  undercutting the justice of Vere’s treatment of
  Billy.


• Defenders of Vere, however, might argue that the
  newspaper account doesn’t begin to do justice to the real complexity of Vere’s own
  position, thoughts, and motives.


• The final paragraph of
  Chapter 29 indirectly suggests the value of Melville’s own novel and implies how little
  of the “real truth” about the past we are usually likely to
  know.