Newspaper reader

“ The hurried reader has no time for the story clogged with unnecessary words and trivial detail; the newspaper has no space for it.
Daily there comes to the newspaper a stream of copy from various sources. The local room contributes its share, while the telegraph editor receives scores of dispatches from special correspondents, besides the regular service of one of the great news gathering organizations. It would be neither possible nor desirable to print all of the immense amount of news matter received. The paper as the reader sees it is the result of a process of careful selection. ”

“ The requirement that news be printed at the earliest possible moment teaches newspaper workers to collect facts and opinions quickly and to write them up rapidly under pressure. Newspaper work also develops a writer's appreciation of what constitutes news and what determines news values; that is, it helps him to recognize at once, not only what interests the average reader, but how much it interests him. Then, too, in the course of his round of news gathering a reporter sees more of human life under a variety of circumstances than do workers in any other occupation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Forget your newspaper and work for him, for without him there wouldn't be any job for you, or any need for the newspaper. He’s the fellow that makes the newspaper possible. He makes your job possible. He is the He is the creator of business, and in sending his messages to the home of the reader, he creates an added interest in your publication. Help him in every way possible to handle his advertising in the most effective way for he measures by results. ”

“ The newspaper is the great gregarious meeting place of the minds of men and therefore it serves to develop mental association in a most intense manner. The weekly paper also serves a large constituency in the country and on the whole probably socializes in a more profound degree than the daily. The weekly permits the rural reader to associate with the leaders of popular thought and builds up that enthusiastic conviction which leadership always obtains. ”

“ Real newspaper readers are comparatively few, and besides those who come for the weekly periodicals, the newsroom attracts loafers, sporting men and all kinds of hopeless individuals, to whom the comparative comfort of the newsroom is an attraction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Well-written heads that give clearly and accurately the information of greatest significance in the stories under them are an integral part of the newspaper, the function of which, as has been said, is to give the readers in a clear and interesting form the news of the day. ”

“ But I am chiefly conscious to-night of the debt of gratitude we all owe to the press. The newspaper—say what you will of it—is the immediate recorder and interpreter of life. Morning and evening it offers us that perpetual stimulus which makes the zest of living. Be your interests what they may, though you abstract your mind from the tumult of affairs and devote it to art or science, you cannot open a news [Pg 683] paper without the sensation of laying your hand upon the throbbing pulse of the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thousands seldom listen to a clergyman. But in these wide-awake days everybody of any account must read the newspaper, for the reading of the newspaper has come to be absolutely essential to the daily routine of every intelligent person. The things we read in the morning newspaper are the things we talk about during the day. If you are interested in politics, or if you are interested in finance, or the fluctuations of prices, or the movements of society, or any phase of trade or commerce, or in any of the vital questions of the hour—for all of these you turn to the newspaper. ”

“ On the other hand there are people who depend almost entirely on the newspapers for their reading matter. They [Pg vi] seem to prefer the style of the newspaper writers. Perhaps a book that is avowedly the work of a reporter will meet their approval. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In every case, the newspaper is a vehicle for the satisfaction of human wants and that in three diverse ways; but the odd thing is that none of these ways, although they actually in practice overlap, are essentially related to one another. ”

“ One and all were too much interested in disconnected facts, and loved information for its own sake with too rash a devotion; but people in all classes display the same appetite as they gorge themselves daily with the miscellaneous gossip of the newspaper. Newspaper-reading, as far as I can make out, is often rather a sort of brown study than an act of culture. ”

“ Has the time come, or is it near at hand, when we can point to a person who is alert, superficial, ready and shallow, self-confident and half-informed, and say, "There is a product of the American newspaper"? The newspaper is not a willful creation, nor an isolated phenomenon, but the legitimate outcome of our age, as much as our system of popular education. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A newspaper is simply a news exchange. If you’re ready to read about the affairs of others, you should not resent the activity of the newspaper that attempts to present yours. I’m merely advancing a theory.”
“Damned ingenious,” admitted the polo-player. “Make a reporter a sort of public agent, eh? ”

“ 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. ”

“ These are always, in my opinion, the most interesting part of any newspaper. The editor and leader writers are no doubt abler men than most of their correspondents; but then they write because they must, and they write in a hurry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A newspaper is a living organism, threaded through with the nerves of men and women, inspired by their spirit, animated by their ideals and thought, the living vehicle of their own adventure of life. So The Tribune seemed to us then, in that last [Pg 108] hour, when we looked back on our labor and comradeship, our laughter, our good times together on “the rag,” as we had called it. ”

“ The man who has been through the newspaper mill seems to have a distinct edge on the man who enters the field without any newspaper training.
The nose for news, the ability to select and play up leads, the feel of what is of immediate public interest is just as important in magazine work as in newspaper work. ”

“ In these days of many newspapers few readers are satisfied with merely being informed; [15] they want to be informed in a way that interests them. To this demand every one connected with a newspaper office tries to cater. It is the defense of the sensational yellow journals and it is the reason for everything in the daily press. ”

“ When you come to think of it, it is surprising that so many newspaper men write so that any one but an expert can read it. The rapid and voluminous work, especially of daily journalism, knocks the beautiful business college penman, as a rule, higher than a kite. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They demand a high standard not only in the physical appearance of their newspapers but in the news service as well. Their daily paper must provide them with items of local, state and international interest and importance. In the complex activities of modern life, the newspaper must find and select the subjects which interest its readers. ”

“ To me the newspaper is a daily astonishment. What we are all in search of is fresh and vital thought and suggestion; and no one can acquire the art of newspaper reading without getting, each day, one or many new points of view on the world and its great human currents.
Each one of our metropolitan papers is at enormous outlay to get strong, capable men—young men with new minds and old men with wise minds. ”

“ All the first people does it! The newspapers does it! the gentlefolks that calls themselves the guides of the popular mind does it! I’m no ignoramus. I read the newspapers, and knows what’s what.” “You read them to some purpose,” said I. “Well, if you are lamed for life, and unfitted for any active line—turn newspaper editor; I should say you are perfectly qualified, and this day’s adventure may be the foundation of your fortune,” thereupon I turned round and rode off. The fellow followed me with a torrent of abuse. ”

“ The business man would think chiefly of a newspaper, as a vehicle for prices and a10 medium for advertising. Cooks, butlers, clerks and governesses look upon it as a daily registry office. The solicitor sells houses and lands through it. Housewives through it sometimes buy their soaps and more often their hats. Actors, singers, authors, artists and musicians each read their special column and wonder when the editor intends to engage some one really acquainted with the only subject worth reading. ”

“ The newspaper is the mass machine, the crowd thinker. To and fro, from week to week and from year to year, its flaming headlines sway, now hither and now thither, where the greatest numbers go, or the best guess of where they are going to go ”

“ I have tried to write for you a story of newspaper life and tell how a boy, who started in the lowest position,—that of a copy carrier,—rose to become a reporter. The newspaper covers a wide field, and enters into almost every home, telling of the doings of all the world, including that which takes place right in our midst.
There are many persons in the business, which is an interesting and fascinating one. ”

“ A new world of citizens henceforth occupies the ground, attracts the gaze, imposes its ideas on the public manners and stamps its image on the minds of men. In 1709 appeared the first newspaper, a sheet as big as a man's hand which the editor did not know how to fill. ”

“ The newspaper informs you, instructs you, influences you, amuses you, inspires you, directs your thoughts, assists your conclusions, fires your ambitions, enlarges your vocabulary—all of which are of the utmost importance to you. ”

“ Half the time their newspapers are upside down and they are dozing. One eye is always on the alert, and the minute they think you are watching they grip the [Pg 88] newspaper afresh, fairly pawing the print with their greasy fingers in their eagerness to carry out the rôle they have assumed. ”