The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-07-24
The Editors of the Future.

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per of the future, the speaker was of the
opinion that not greater quantity of
news must be printed, but more news in
the same space, that is, the reader will
require the editor to sift, digest and put
the news in the fewest possible words.
1t was pleasant conceit Of Henry
Waterman's that, if Shakespeare were
living now, he would be an editor The
fancy might have fallen better upon
contemporary Of Shakespeare's - the
greatest, wisest, meanest Of mankind,
who anticipated the modern newspaper,
in taking all knowledge to be his
province But newspapers are many
and perpetual. Shakespeares and Bacons
come only once in the centuries. Yet of
this we may be sure. The field for adj
vantages through enterprise in the mere
getting of news is about exhausted. The
great newspapers can now all command
substantially the same facilities. Cen
orally speaking, the news that one gets
another can get, If it wishes. Recurring,
then, to Watterson's conceit, it seems
safe to say that in the next great stage
of journalism, the enterprise that now
exhausts itself on costly cable dispatches
will 60 to men who can make great
news feature valuable, rather from what
it tells than from the money spent in
carrying it to you; who will buy for you
costly thing rather than challenge your
admiration for the money spent in the
costly transportation of thing Of less
moment. If it must send Stanley to
Africa-as we may we'll hope that feats
so brilliant can be repeated-it will
send us also Macauley to tell his
story for him. A moderately in
dustrious man might spend his life
time reading the authorities on
which Motley constructed the history of
the Dutch Republic, yet who-speaking
of intelligent people in the mass, not of
individual investigators cares for
the authorities? Who wants anything
but Motleyl do not mean that the
news of to-day must he dwarfed into the
space it would receive in the histories of
a hundred years hence. 1t must, of
course, be treated with the fulness which
the present, or, if you will, the fleeing
interest in it demands. But the eclectic
principle is precisely the same. The
reader of to-day is entitled to have the
story of the day told for him as skill
fully as if it were the story of hundred
years ago as attractively, in proportion
to his interest in it as briefly with as
little waste, and as rigidsin exclusion of
everything that dees not add to the WV
idness and fidelity of the picture. 1t
will be the highest achievement of the
most enterprising journalism to make,
daily, for the morning reader, such a pic
ture of his own city life, of his own
country, such picture for him of the
world, indeed, of the day before. The
elements of the picture will be arranged,
too, precisely in the order have named.
In the foreground will be his own city
the middle distance will he filled by his
country beyond that, in the smaller
proportion to which its relative import
ance in his eye and for his purposes en-
titles it, will be the rest of the world.
But, if the foreground is to be the city,
that will require the greatest care, the
most elaborate work, and certainly not
the lowest order of ability. The city de-
partment may then cease perhaps to be
the place where the raw beginners
wreak their will, and become the point
at which journalistic graduates will be
expected to display their best powers
and most thorough training. This then
Hconceive to be the next great revolu-
ton in journalism. We shall not have
cheaper newspapers. They are not the
cheapest thing sold now, considering the
cost of making them. We shall not
have continually growing supplement
upon supplement of advertifing. In
dividual wants will seek mediums more
suitable. Only general wants will seek
the wider publicity of great journals,
and these will be kept, by the increasing
cost, within manageable compass. We
shall not have more news. The world is
ransacked for it now. Earth, sea and
air carry it to US from every capital,
from every people, from every continent
and from every island. We shall not
have bigger newspapers; they are bigger
now than busy people can read. We
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