Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-04-19
WHAT OUGHT TO BE PUBLISHED,

IL requires peculiar OTuGT VI tdlGUI " hAiOh
what to leave out of newspaper. Any per-
son can tell what to put in. Punch fairly hits
the disposition in the old country journalists to
cater to the worst as well as to the best tastes
'Not to be behind our contemporaries, he says,
eve have hired monstrous blackguard, ma
tive of Bohemia, to supply lower class OF
readers than any that we at present have with
the kind of entertainment which the scum of
the earth and the dregs of society derive from
scandal and SANDER. Our infamous contribu-
tor will supply this species of stuff from time
to time, as occasion may serve" There is
continual pressure upon popular Journalists to
make their columns purycyors of the statistics
of crime and folly. And if they Withstand the
pressure, as many of them do, it is at the risk
of personal sacrifice.
The publication of the interminable details
of the Sickles trial has called up in the minds
of many amiable people the old anxiety about
famiarizing the public mind with the grosser
details of crime. There are obvious objec-
tons to making family newspapers a kind of
substitute for Police Gazettes and Lives of Gel
ebrated Ruffians. 1t is radically injurious to
publish daily bulletins of exciting incidents,
simply because they are exciting, and convey
no moral lesson. Facts of Righteousness
atrocity, or horror, are as poisonous to intel
lectual and moral health as fictions of the same
character, when they are separated, as they
often are, from the penalties which are ordain-
ed by the memorable judgment of Deity to bal.
ance the account. 1t does not wholly relieve
publishers of their responsibility to know that
that class of intelligence is often read with the
greatest avidity, and is sure to yield the swift
est and the largest returns.
On the other hand, the journalist who aims
to give an accurate and truthful contemporary
eous history, cannot neglect class of intelli-
gence which unfortunately fills so large space
in the theatre of human conduct Let him
confne himself to dispensing milk for babes,
or limit his labor to that clean and wiry verac-
ity" which DIR. Dryasdust would have cultivat-
ed if he had been an editor his circle of infu-
ence would soon become exceedingly limited
and narrow We have seen papers of this
kind; but intelligent readers abhor them as
Nature abhors vacuum.
In degree which cannot be established or
defined by any abstract generalization, it is
part of good journalism to present to the
world examples for warning as well as for i'm
itation Special limitations have to be made
for every exigency. The privilege is often
sadly abused The picture papers in the larger
places, assuming that the immunity of free
speech extends to prurient and shocking wood
cuts, as well as to the innumerable combna-
tons of type metal sometimes excite among
virtuous people the wish for one sweeping in
terdict upon sensations of every class. But
they belong to the class of interlopers, like
quacks among doctors, or noisy knayes
among shop-keepers, for whom the profession
is not at all responsible
AS to what ought to be published, there can
be no other rule laid down, and that is a very
general one, than that the papers should keep
just above the average morality of the people
by whom they are read. Those have the
most salutary, if not the largest influence,
which refuse to recognize demands for the
gross and the impure, in whatever disguise,
and with whatever excuses, they may come
The disheartening details of crime and minute
confessions of shame ought never to be COM
mitted to paper, except for judicial purposes
1t exhibits zeal not at all commendable and en-
terprise wholly unworthy of emulation, to force
mere revelations of depravity into conspicuous
places, where they must be seen and read in
every place of business, and at every family
Preside.
The voluminous reports of the Sickles trial,
sent all over the land, are to certain extent
exposed to our own censure. But if the reader
only knew how much of them we refuse to
publish, he would allow us quick conformation.
In this, as in all other cases, the only rule is,
to accede to the public demand only SO far as
is consistent with the public good