The Standard (newspaper)

“ Jugded by the comparatively rapid increase in the circulation of the Democratic socialistic and progressive journal, there is change coming over public opinion which shows itself in a growing preference for the progressive stamp of newspaper. ”

“ The problems of journalism can never be disconnected from the dilemmas that confront society as a whole and every newspaper office decision arises in some way from and has a reactive effect upon economic and social forces that play upon the community at large. ”

“ An intelligent American newspaper, the Nation, says that it is very easy to sit in one's study and find fault with the course of modern society, but the thing is to propose practical improvements for it. ”

“ This has been the principle on which I have uniformly acted in the conduct of this paper. But to suppress in a newspaper the publication of a fact which meets the eyes and ears of all people would be at once absurd and mischievous. ”

“ Thoroughly sound and admirably put is his definition of what is and what is not true democratic and patriotic policy, and there can be no doubt that a newspaper constantly devoted to the advocacy of such principles will deserve well of the Republic. ”

“ These are the men—and there are more, too, I might name—who came forward with their touch upon the pulse of the nation when the day of the daily newspaper as a leader of enlightened public opinion had waned. ”

“ It is the imperative demand for news, embracing every movement of human life in every class and every country, that sets in action the wondrous organization that produces a daily newspaper. Its ministers of communication are almost ubiquitous. ”

“ Thus the daily newspaper will be entirely a vehicle for the propagation of news, correctly so called: and very likely it will become almost entirely colourless, politically, because a well-informed public will resent obvious garbling or clearly unfair selection. ”

“ The time when the opinions, the power in phraseology, or the individuality of one man could alone make a daily newspaper a financial, literary, or political success had passed. The press had become an institution, journalism a profession, and the publication of newspapers a practical business requiring and rewarding enterprise and sagacity. ”

“ But I have about come to the conclusion that that one editor is the only one who has the right idea. He takes the job seriously. Well, who will take it seriously if he doesn't? And who will say it should not be taken seriously?
The editorial is really the mind and soul of the newspaper. It is what the newspaper is. And every community needs today as it never needed before intelligent leadership. It needs information,—information about everything, particularly itself. It needs above all, in this world of organized propaganda and partisanship,—the truth. ”

“ What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on its editorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy, accuracy, accuracy! ”

“ Now we have come to a class of newspaper stories in which we are given absolute freedom from conventional formulas. In fact, the human interest story is different from other newspaper stories largely because of its lack of forms and rules. ”

“ The controlling desire of a great modern newspaper is to give its readers the news, and the news therefore may show progressive action, the breaking of precedents, the activities of great organizations formed to uphold righteousness and peace. ”

“ Much more effort should be made by newspapers in this country to show108 the significance of acts of representative public bodies, in relation not only to the home and business interests of the individual reader, but to the welfare of the community, the state, and the nation. Intelligent interest in government on the part of the individual citizen, which is generally recognized as absolutely essential to the success of a democracy, can be more effectively created through the news columns of the daily newspaper than by any other means. ”

“ So long as party feeling ran high this style of journalism was popular and successful, but the newspaper, being in the nature of an educator of the masses, soon set the people to thinking for themselves, and created a demand for the news of public and political events without the color of individual opinion. ”

“ We need a paper—an organ that shall keep those who can not mingle actively in our public labors better informed. The Standard has done much; and I find in many other papers a disposition to do justice, to a great extent, to our cause. ”

“ The most virulent critics of the press as it exists do not deny the presence in the working personnel of the profession of a tremendous element of good will, character, technical knowledge, and aspiration for social improvement. The most satisfied of the newspaper's defenders—and there are many who point with pride to the contrast its present condition makes with its often erring past—cannot overlook the imperfections of the present and the need for vigilant care lest progress slacken and retrogression or decay set in. ”

“ This is the limit of the power of the modern newspaper of large circulation, the newspaper that appeals to the grey element, to the average democratic man, the newspaper of the deliquescence, and if our previous conclusion that human society has ceased to be homogeneous and will presently display new masses segregating from a great confusion, holds good, this will be the limit of its power in the future. ”

“ In a perfect society good journalism would be easy. Yet he who proposes to reform society as a necessary precedent to developing a better journalism is lost to all sense of proportion; the very function of good journalism is to work toward a better society; the newspaper is to be justified as an instrument and not as an end. To wait for society to demand better newspapers is to wait too long; besides, there are more signs of hope within the profession itself than are yet to be observed in the effective demand of newspaper patrons, subscribers and advertisers—society. ”

“ On the other hand, newspapers have discovered that the only justification for putting any fact in a newspaper is that publication will serve some sort of public interest, and that, in the long run, the value of a piece of news and the reputation of a newspaper that prints it depend upon the absolute accuracy and trustworthiness of its reports. ”

“ We have said nothing yet about that, which, to most people, is the most important aspect of the newspaper,—the editor's responsibility to the public for its contents. It is sufficient briefly to say here, that it is exactly the responsibility of every other person in society,—the full responsibility of his opportunity. He has voluntarily taken a position in which he can do a great deal of good or a great deal of evil, and he, should be held and judged by his opportunity: it is greater than that of the preacher, the teacher, the congressman, the physician. ”

“ They want the simpler sort of editorial comment and are better pleased with that which explains than with that which argues. They want their news adorned with breath-catching headlines in big type.
In the large cities many professional and business men read several daily newspapers, but their number is small compared with the millions who read one paper only. In smaller cities and in the villages and on the farms it is quite the exception when more than one daily newspaper enters the household. In very many instances this one sheet is all the reading matter the members of the household have. ”

“ The good newspaper is not the product of chance. Every phase of life is thought out and its relation to public interest is weighed. Public interest changes almost daily. It must be studied, must be anticipated, must be prepared for. ”

“ You know the policy of the paper. But you must remember that running a newspaper is a complex business. One's methods cannot always be direct. Life is made up of compromises, and—er—at times a turn to the left is the shortest way to the right—er—Good night! ”

“ Under its influence, through the “natural selection” of the public, a new and nobler species of journalism has arisen and now exists. The newspaper of to-day, evolved from rudimentary forms, is a splendid and heroic organism; and the last upholder of the dogma of its miraculous creation and infallible power is dead.
37
SOCIETY’S EXILES. BY B. O. FLOWER.
It is difficult to over-estimate the gravity of the problem presented by those compelled to exist in the slums of our populous cities, even when considered from a purely economic point of view. ”

“ In the compilation, care has been taken to search into contemporary publications, in order to make the work as perfect as possible. Still, however, the Editor is sensible, from the daily experience of the newspaper reports of the present time, that the sentiments they contain may, in some instances, have been inaccurately taken down, and, in others, probably, too faintly sketched, fully to gratify the inquisitive politician ”

“ The great number of, and the imperfect organization of the newspaper establishments, as has already been shown, is a principal reason; necessity, in some degree, compelling a manufacture of "news," when none exists in reality. ”

“ The ordinary man now sees the world through his newspaper. He absorbs facts and principles with the shades and variations the daily paper gives them. Reports of events and announcements of policies are colored to suit the aims and opinions of the editors and proprietors. ”

“ Want some advice from the Old Man?"
"I most surely do, Dad."
"Listen here, then. A newspaper is a business proposition. Never forget that. All these hifalutin' notions about its being a palladium and the voice of the people and the guardian of public interests are good enough to talk about on the editorial page. Gives a paper a following, that kind of guff does. But the duty of a newspaper is the duty of any other business, to make money. There's the principle, the policy, the politics, ethics, and religion of the newspaper in a nutshell. ”

“ I have seen the Globe, Standard, Daily News, Times, Echo, Daily Telegraph, and they all give perfectly fair reports of what took place. It is pleasant that they all seem to recognise that our reason for acting as we have done is a fair and honorable desire to test the right of publication. ”

“ The society man of any pretension must know what society folk are doing, must be informed of their every movement. His newspaper gives the hint for many letters. He must congratulate the family whose daughter’s engagement is announced. He must sympathize with the bereaved. Society news has the personal note, and personalities sell newspapers. Cram your sheet with them, young man!
We are living in a commercial age, a money-making age. People are thinking as never before of money accumulation and business expansion. ”

“ How can a newspaper develop if it confines itself to its own narrow quarters in order not to offend its home advertisers? If a newspaper would be a real force in its community it must be prosperous and in order to be prosperous it should enjoy the same right and privilege enjoyed by any other business enterprise. ”

“ Those who maintain that the newspaper has outgrown the looking-glass stage, and should be developed along lines of community interest, overlook the fact that the paper which devotes its energies to community welfare is but reflecting the trend of the times. ”

“ The manners of newspapers, as such, cannot be classified any more than the manners of legislatures, or of the professions or trades. This, however, seems to be true, that a well-mannered man will not produce an ill-mannered newspaper. ”

“ And if the Socialistic programme be carried out with the least fulness, we shall have lost a thing, in most respects not much to be regretted, but as a moderator of oppression, a thing nearly invaluable—the newspaper. ”

“ In the General's idea of what a newspaper should contain; news does not come first, and he does not mind crowding it out. He believes that a newspaper should stand for "principles." The Statesman was started during the progress of the Civil War, when issues were news, and the General has never been able to realize that in times of peace people buy a newspaper for its news and not for its opinions. ”

“ The young editor of a metropolitan newspaper, born to great wealth, and imbibing all the narrowness of the second generation, once asked me in those bright days when everybody was thrilling over his "liberality," "Would you call me a radical, or just a progressive?" ”

“ The general policy of a newspaper with regard to special feature stories is the same as its policy concerning news. Both are determined by the character of its circulation. A paper that is read largely by business and professional men provides news and special articles that satisfy such readers. A paper that aims to reach the so-called masses naturally selects news and features that will appeal to them. If a newspaper has a considerable circulation outside the city where it is published, the editors, in framing their policy, cannot afford to overlook their suburban and rural readers. ”

“ Otherwise active support of the cause will soon languish and be obliterated amongst the multitudinous ever-changing questions of the day, political and other, which, as newspaper editors are persuaded, have the attention of the public for the time being. ”

“ So much has the public press been taken by surprise, that, with the exception of a fierce controversy between the Standard, and Morning Herald, and the Morning Chronicle, which was conducted with great acuteness and learning, we are not aware of any explanation since offered by the leading organs of public opinion—the Times has preserved a total silence—as to the legal sufficiency or insufficiency of the grounds on which this memorable judgment of reversal proceeded. ”

“ The newspaper of the early—perhaps the immediate—future will almost certainly dispense with leading articles altogether, and be much more a news-carrier than an educator. It will attack adverse opinion by simply not reporting it. It will sometimes, no doubt, minimise facts unfavourable to its political side by garbling them. ”