The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1859-07-06
WHAT Is A NEWSPAPER
AND WHAT SHALL
1T PRINT

lnere Is Il HletifOu, a pFlHOIi'tS III lVut
nalism that some of those who follow it
and many of the reading public fiad it
Hard to understand and still harder to
admit. The man who sets up to print
public newspaper has no right to control
its contents 10y his personal prejudices or
his private tastes and the man who sub
scribes for and reads it has no right to
ask, and no reason to expect, that he
shall find in it only what he wants to
read aud what he can approve-nothlng
to offend his prejudices or shock his SEN
sibilities. They will be disappointed who
undertake or expect either of these things.
a paper may exist for papers do exist
that are the simple rciexes of individu-
ais: yet they are not public journals, but
private publications, depending upon the
character of their conductors, and
expiring with their retirement or decease.
Necessarily thew are of limited circulation
because, failing to be newspapers, which
are the want of everybody, they appeal
only to such class of minds as are III IN
innate sympathy with the peculiar plr-
sonal opinions and tastes of their indi-
vidal conductors. This is necessarily
small.
The true newspaper is chiefly min
ute history of the tines-not necessarily
anything more, certainly nothing less;
recording. explaining. illustrating the
events and progress of daily life; draw
lag its lessons. and leading the race from
the present to the future. First it is the
Historian, second the prophet OF the poo
pfc. OF course, therefore, it must record
disagreeable and disgusting things, as
well MS the agreehle and eleyating events
of life's action. 1t has no choice but to
do this. 1t must picture life. Cowper
years ago described the newspaper as
''the map of busy life" 1t cannot gather
grapes from thorns and figs from thistles;
though it may and should seek to educe
good from the evil that it necessarily re-
cords. The true historian of the past
does not pick out only the good deeds
that lie recorded in the progress of the
world; he has to trevt of war. of murders,
of seduction, of RIGHTEOUSNESS, of crimes
of every shade and description, personal
and popular, as we'll as of bencvolcnce, of
righteousness, of progress in civilization,
the arts, sciences and morals. Indeed,
the evil and the good are so interlaced
that they cannot be separated. Through
corruption, through evil, through trials
and temptations are the individuals and
the races of the world purified and ad-
vauccd. Equally broad and impartial is
the duty of the journalist-the historian
of the present. He must take what
comes, the good and the bad, and send
it forth on its mission,, the one to pro-
duce beneficial results by example, the
other by warning; and often the evil
deeds of history are more potent for re-
formation than its illustrations of purity
and nubleness.-
The character and ability OF the joura-
alist and the historian are tested and il
Illustrated in their judgment as to what
history. What occurrences, good and
Bad,. are of a character to justify and de-
nland record. The test of this is not
their goodness or their badneSs-or the
degree of those quaities-but rather their
illustrativeness, and relative importance;
the interests they involve, the nature of
the questions they present, the instruction
they give of the crimes, the vices and
the ignorance; the virtues, the strength
and the learning OF the society to be pct
ured and of the age to be recorded
The historian must present an average
record-ho fails if he makes it one sided
with virtue, or one sided with vice. And
in the true appreciation of the character
Of the times and the people, to whom he
devotes his pages, more than in the ell
Louence of his sentences, lies the test of
ability and capacity of the historian,
whether his records appear in pressed
volumes, or the basty "folio of four
Iages."
This rule makes newspapers and books
to contain frequently inci,icuts and r:la-
tions that shock the taste of the reader, and
which may not always with pro- city
be read aloud in IN mdiscriminate COM
panv Of both sexes and of the old and
Young. If the newspaper left at a mans
door contains occasional facts and rela-
tons that he u ould rather his sons and
daughters should not read, SD have books
in his library pages ofno diff rent and no
letter reading; so has the Bible which is
the family daily food. But does it follow
that one or all should be prescribed be-
cause of these things? Does it follow
that the editor, the historian, the prophet
wantonly recorded them, in order to
gain circulation for his aper his volume
his inspired record; or as part of their
duty in representing hSe in all its variety,
and man in all his sins and his actions?
If they carry to their readers tho records
ef disagreeable vices, or even of disgust
ing and indecent performances, do they
not also present. the out side of iife-do
they not even teach to virtue through
these very pages that offend the taste and
shock the nicer sensibilities of our nature,
and teach it more forciblv and effectively
than with any milder texts! Has not
evil, even in its gre>scr forms, God-ordain-
ed mission; and is not the virtue ef in
rance, untried, attempted, unknow ne,
the pooest. weakest, and most uncertain
virtue that life can give!
Self Respect.