The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-08-01
THE MORALS OF JOURNALISM.

In the discussions of journalism
which have been started by edi-
torial conventions and the estab-
lishment of chairs of journalism
in one or two academic institu-
tions, it is well not to forget the
matter of morals. A great deal
of Indignation has been melted out
to those presses which publish
quack advertisements, calculated
to encourage vice and crime. In
this thing, a gnat is strained at
that a camel may be swallowed;
for, almost without exception, the
papers which denounce and refuse
to publish these advertisements,
take endless pains to spread he
fore their readers the details of the
crimes which the advertisements
are supposed to engender or en-
courage. Murders, suicides, Sc
auctions, adulteries, burglaries,
thefts, scandals-all disagreeable
and dIsgraceful things-detailed
histories of events which appeal
to prurient tastes and a morbid
desire for coarse and brutal excite
ments-are not these the leading
material of q great multitude of
our daily papers? Wen may be mis-
taken, but we believe that there is
no department of the worlds news
given with such exhaustive par
ticularity as that which relates to
vice and chime. If this be doubt
ed, let the first papr at hand be
taken mp, and the fact will, we
think, be determined as we appre-
bend it. We know that in many
papers the remedial agencies of
society--the churches, schools,
social neutrality-suspicious. and
organized charltIes-beg for space
that is freely accorded to the re-
cord of petty thief or an IN
faithful husband or wife. That
| which will make a spicy paragraph
is chosen before that which will
make a healthy one.
Nor is this all. The crimes
which are thus spread before the
public for its daily food are often
treated like anything but crimes.
Some of our papers have a way of
doing up their columns of local
crime as if it were all a joke. The
writer makes an ingenious Jest of
everything he is called upon to
notice. The poor women who are
lost TO virtue and society, with hell
within them and before thGm, fur
nish grateful theme for the re-
porter's careless pleasantries.
Their arraignment, their trial, their
sentence, their appearance, their
words, are chronicled with unfeel-
ing slang, with the intent to excite
laughter. That which TO a good
man or woman is infinitely pathetic
is made to appear a matter to be
laughed at, or TO be passed over as
of no account. A case of infidel-
ity In the marriage relation, In
Yolying the destruction OF the
peace of families, the disgrace OF
the children. and the irremediable
shame OF the parties primarily
concerned, comes to US labeled
ssrich developments" The higher
the life involved and the purer the
reputation, the richer the ode.
velopments' always. Nothing
pleases oar TESTING reporter like
large game. A clergyman is the
best, next lay member, and then
any man or woman who may be in
q high social position. 4Crime in
high life7 is a particularly grateful
dish for those TO serve up who
| cater for the prurient public. II
/ is impossible not to conclude thai
/ the men who write these Uterus and
articles delight in them. and thai
the men who publish them regard
them only with relation to theii
mercantile value. We know o.
4 nothing more heartless than the
way in which criminals and crime
Iare treated by portion Of tn.
J daily press, and nothing more de