Journal (newspaper)

“ More and more must these requirements be fulfilled by the aspiring journalist. As the world passes from the Rule of Force—force of prowess, force of habit, force of convention—to the Rule of Numbers, the daily journal is destined, if it survives as a power, to become the teacher—the very Bible—of the people. The people are already beginning to distinguish between the wholesome and the meretricious in their newspapers. Newspaper owners, likewise, are beginning to realize the value of character. ”

“ Taking as her motto a Scriptural phrase about lifting up a standard which should be a light unto the people, she resolved that her newspaper, instead of being a mirror for reflecting destructive agencies, should be a journal to record achievements in every useful field of human endeavor. ”

“ How different is the working of the great brain-engine above stairs! Here man rubs against man, jealousy and discontent and favoritism do what they can to clog the machinery; and the more one knows about the inner197 life of a newspaper-office, the more the wonder grows that the newspaper of to-day approximates so closely to the highest journalistic ideal. You may find flaws, gentle reader, in what your favorite journal says, but its typographical make-up is always perfect. ”

“ The modern newspaper is a product of city life; it is no longer merely an organ of propaganda and opinion, but a form of popular literature. The journal of opinion was largely a business man's newspaper. The so-called independent press added to its public the so-called artisan class. The yellow press was created mainly to capture immigrants, and women.
It was this increase of circulation that made the newspaper—formerly a subsidized organ of the parties an independent business enterprise, an envelope and carrier for advertising. ”

“ March 1, 1881.—I have just been glancing over the affairs of the world in the newspaper. What a Babel it is! But it is very pleasant to be able to make the tour of the planet and review the human race in an hour. It gives one a sense of ubiquity. A newspaper in the twentieth century will be composed of eight or ten daily bulletins—political, religious, scientific, literary, artistic, commercial, meteorological, military, economical, social, legal, and financial ”

“ I hasten to exempt from my indictment those journals that are not professedly critical; to exempt trade journals, for instance, medical journals, journals of sport and fashion, and the daily newspapers. The most one can fairly require of one's daily newspaper is that it should give one the news of the day. ”

“ Almost every kind of writing is used by newspapers. All kinds of literature are printed in them—the scholarly essay, the article of argument, the expository editorial paragraph, the story of fiction, the language of verse, the consideration of art, music, the play, all sorts of description of all kinds of happenings in every part of our old earth—and all are written without uniformity of diction or construction. There is no style that the newspaper rejects. The experienced editor seeks diversity of writing and of topic in every column. ”

“ In our books no less than in the daily press, in what is written for adults equally with what is prepared for children, in technical journals and scientific monographs as well as in popular magazines, this progressive encroachment of picture upon text is apparent. The newspaper strives for illustration in connection with all classes of news, and its staff of photographers rivals the corps of reporters in numbers and importance. Every page has its pictures, and even the gist of editorial comment is sometimes indicated by thumb-nail sketches used as paragraph-spacing. ”

“ The idea of illustrated journalism may be traced from the earliest years of the seventeenth century to 1842, the date of the first number of the Illustrated London News. The art of wood-engraving had fallen very low in the seventeenth century, and the illustrations to be found in early newspapers are mostly of a very rude description; but they show the existence of a germ which eventually grew into full and flourishing life.
The English newspaper, like many other great inventions, was a thing of gradual growth. ”

“ Before considering the common school, however, we have to notice a phenomenon in letters—namely, the evolution of the modern newspaper as a vehicle for general reading-matter. Not content with giving the news, or even with creating news and increasing its sensational character, it grasps at the wider field of supplying reading material for the million, usurping the place of books and to a large extent of periodicals. The effect of this new departure in journalism is beginning to attract attention. An increasing number of people read nothing except the newspapers. ”

“ It must not be inferred that the feature story, or any other kind of news story, should distort the facts. The writer in the Sun has merely attempted to reduce to the absurd the theory that journalism should put aside attractiveness in writing for a bare summary of facts. The modern newspaper, while its main purpose is still to inform, is coming more and more to be a source of101 entertainment also. It aims to instruct, but in such a manner that the reader will not be bored. ”

“ If we go into a library piled with books, old and new, we may find it hard to select one to suit our taste. But let a man lay his hand on a newspaper of a hundred years ago, with its stained yellow pages and its old-fashioned type, and he is interested at once. He sits down and reads it all through, advertisements and news and editorials—only, fortunately for the people of the olden times, there were very few editorials written then. And why does he do this? Because he recognizes the true nature of the newspaper. ”

“ The yellow press grew up in an attempt to capture for the newspaper a public whose only literature was the family story paper or the cheap novel. The problem was to write the news in such a way that it would appeal to the fundamental passions. The formula was: love and romance for the women; sport and politics for the men. ”

“ A modern newspaper is an enormously expensive institution. The day is past when a country printer could set up a hand-press and print news about the wedding of the village blacksmith’s daughter and the lawn-party of the Christian Endeavor Society, and so make his way as a journalist. ”

“ Practical advice and useful information in special fields, humorous matter, and fiction, as given in the daily newspaper, do not differ materially from similar matter published in other forms and cannot be considered distinctly journalistic types of writing.
How news is gathered. Since the day’s news is the essential part of the daily newspaper, the gathering, writing, and editing of news is naturally the chief concern of journalism. ”

“ It is my passion, my delight, my thought by day, and my dream by night to conduct The Herald, and to show the world and posterity, that a newspaper can be made the greatest, most fascinating, most powerful organ of civilization that genius ever yet dreamed of. ”

“ On one matter there has been no difference of opinion: in every country the printed has grown out of the written newspaper. Even after the invention of printing it was a comparatively long time before the printing-press was called upon to aid in the dissemination of news. ”

“ People had, therefore, plenty of leisure for careful perusal of the magazines, and these, by giving in many cases a summary of the news, decreased the necessity for the newspaper. For advertisements and business announcements the gazettes and advertisers were the main source, but for general information and current literature persons did not have to devote so much attention to the newspaper. ”

“ Hence, any school of professional journalism must be presumed to comprise in its scope and detail of instruction the knowledge that is essential to the making and conduct of newspapers. It must have for its aim the ideal newspaper which is ideally perfect in every department. ”

“ Our journal, like every other decent paper, prints the news. If it were to investigate every dispatch that comes to it day by day there would be precious little information for the reader who turns to it each morning. ”

“ The daily short story, a chapter of a serial novel, feature articles, humor in verse and prose, and similar forms of entertaining reading matter are a recognized part of every issue of many newspapers in all parts of the country.
The perfecting of photo-engraving processes, by which half-tone illustrations and zinc etchings can be made rapidly at relatively small cost, has added another important feature to the newspaper. Photographs of persons, places, and events that appear in the day’s news are now quickly reproduced by the newspaper half-tone. ”

“ The present-day newspaper is prepared with great care. Its ambitious articles are studied out. The errors in its news columns are the results of haste rather than ignorance—the haste compelled by necessity in getting to press on the minute. The Sunday edition supplements, devoted to general topics and to literature, are already taking the place of many kinds of literature. They print new fiction by popular authors. They exploit and expand the latest developments in science, art, music, medicine, mechanics, construction, transportation—indeed, anything that is new or important. ”

“ It is amazing that a person with any pretensions to discernment should denounce newspapers as unfitted to form a part of a public library. The best newspapers of the time are sometimes the best books of the time. A first-class daily journal is an epitome of the world, recording the life and the deeds of men, their laws and their literature, their politics and religion, their social and criminal statistics, the progress of invention and of art, the revolutions of empires, and the latest results of science. ”

“ Of course, the annual report of every public library should be printed, and as pamphlets are seldom read, and tend rapidly to disappear, its publication in the newspapers is vastly more important than in any other form. While a pamphlet report may reach a few people, the newspaper reaches nearly all; and as a means of diffusing information in any community, it stands absolutely without rival. ”

“ Modern editorials have been reprinted, as those from the London Times,—"third leaders" that "are meant to turn the reader from affairs and interests of the moment to a consideration 'of man, of nature, and of human life' in their larger, more permanent aspect. In one or another form they represent the daily demand and supply of material for thought. ... They are journalism; but in them journalism is extending itself towards, is even becoming, literature." ”

“ Thus the method of writing the body of the story is suited to the mechanical limitations of the paper.
To understand this fully some knowledge of the manner of making up the paper is necessary. One unacquainted with newspaper work may wonder idly now and then how the editors manage each day to get just enough news matter to make the paper “come out even.” The reporter learns quickly that a vast deal that is written for the paper never gets85 into print. Much is cut out of the copy; what survives and is set into type is often still further subjected to pruning. ”

“ The tireless effort to secure novelty and variety in present-day journalism prevents the news story or the headline from becoming absolutely fixed in form or style. Instead of attempting to formulate dogmatic rules and directions, the author has undertaken to analyze current methods of newspaper work with the purpose of showing the reasons for them and the causes which have produced them. ”

“ The paper came out every Monday, always truculent and always propagandizing one point of view in politics. The political issue was the only raison d’être of publication. Everything else—foreign news, essays, verses, squibs, advertisements—was filler.
Here was something original for this side of the ocean, an experiment in journalism as critical as ever was attempted by any members of our fourth estate; and successful, for the Journal lived and throve and became the ancestor of the great American political organs of modern times. ”

“ NEWSPAPERS. The word “newspaper,” as now employed, covers so wide a field that it is difficult, if not impossible, to give it a precise definition. By the English “Newspaper Libel and Registration Act” of 1881 it is defined as “any paper containing public news, intelligence or occurrences, or any remarks or observations therein printed for sale, and published periodically or in parts or numbers at intervals not exceeding twenty-six days” ”

“ Scarcely any other form of publication has regularly so great a variety of writing as the daily newspaper. Thus, although a newspaper is ordinarily thought of solely as a medium for the publication of current news and editorials, the average daily paper supplies its readers with much entertaining reading matter as well as considerable advice and useful information. ”

“ The nature of newspaper work makes it impossible to formulate an all-sufficing series of rules by which the news writer shall invariably be guided. But there are certain well-defined principles, largely technical, that set apart the news story as a distinct form of composition, and these the author has tried to put down simply and concisely—after the fashion of the news story itself. Going beyond the common practice, there is wide divergence among newspapers in the details of “office style.” ”

“ This is the right ideal of journalism whenever it is considered as more than a form of commercialism. No newspaper attains its ideal in completeness. If it steadfastly works toward attainment, it gives proof of its right to be. The advancing newspaper, going on from good to better in the substance of its character and the ability of its endeavor, is the type of journalism which affords hope for the future. ”