Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-06-22

And were walking around,
When our blllyg0at busted her hustle.
-lSidney Ldnier.
She was thinner than bed post,
Taller than rail;
Ana slower than a snail
She lived in Indiany;
Had Just come out Of school;
She was some on a PLAINLY,
But she cOuldn't-ride q mule.
-tJOaQuiTs MiLLer.
THE COMING NEWSPAPER.
Growing - The Nature of the I'm
pro Vements Made now that the
Limits or Growth in Size and
In Completeness OF News
have been Reached.
From Whitelaw Reid's address before the
New York press association: ''Bat, as we
have seen, the history of journalism for fifty
years has been rapid succession of revolu-
tons, and no man knows as well as the hard
working editor that perfection has not yet
been evolved. Other changes, as marked,
are certainly impending. 1t was pleasant
conceit of Henry Watterson's that, if Shakes
peare were living now, he would be an edi-
tor. The fancy might have fallen better
upon contemporary Of Shakespeare Shat
greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind, who
the modern newspaper, in taking
all knowledge to his province. But news
papers are many and perpetual. Snake
speares and Bacons come only once Ia the
centuries. Yet of this we may be sure: The
field for advantages through enterprise in
the mere getting of news is about exhausted.
The great newspapers can now all COM
mand substantially the same facil,-
ties. Generally speaking, the news that
one gets another can get if it wishes. Re-
curing, then, to Watterson's conceit, it
seems safe to say that in the next great stage
of journalism the enterprise that now ex-
hausts itself on costly cable dispatches will
go to men who can make a great news
feature valuable rather from the story it tells
than from the money spent In carrying it to
you; who will buy for you a costly thing
rather than challenge your admiration mere
ly for the money spent In the costly trans
portatIon of thing of less moment. If it
must send Stanley to Africa-and we may
we'll hope that feats SO brilliant can be re-
peated-it will send also a Macaulay to tell
his story for him. Why should the busy man
read the history of yesterday at a greater
disadvantage than the history of hundred
years ago? Yet that of hundred ye Srs ago
has been most carefully collated, siited, win
moved, relieved of surplussge, arranged in
proper perspective. You are not forced to
read the Official documents, to burrow among
inc uIN EGpUTlS, u 6G1DJ VIII MINUTE anu
painstaking care the diSjectd mentbTa. You
are not loaded with facts that are useless,
particulars that give no form or color to the
picture. All this waste is removed. Thou
sands Of pages are searched to give you one,
but on that one is all you need to know. A
moderately industrious man might spend his
lifetime r eadlng the authorities on which
Motley constructed the History Of the Dutch
Republic, yet who-speaking OF intelligent
people In the mass, not of individual Investi-
Iyators-who cares for the authorities? Who
wants anything but Motley? The greatest of
recent narrative successes has been Green s
Short History Of the English People," Why
Will not the most enterprisinR journal Of the
next decade be that which shall still employ
colossal capital to gather all the news, and
then crown and fructify its expenditure by
having staff of Greens and Froudes TO tell
It. Are busy people entitled to fewer la
bor-savIng and time-saVing appliances about
the affairs that most vitality concern them
the affairs Of their own day and home-thau
about those of past centuries? Why should
not the impeachment OF Andrew Johnson
for instance, have been as well told for Us as
the impeachment OF Warren Hastings? A
thousand want to know the story of yester-
day, where one cares for that of
hundred years ago. Shall this
one command the labor, the scholar
ship, the genius of the world, while
Tue IHOuS0AOS must lOAl 4OI llEm6GiFSS
among the consumed heaps, and winnow
bushel for every grain they get? | do not
mean that the news OF to-day must be dwarfed
INTO the space it would receive IN the histo-
ries Of q 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 eclastie principle is
precisely the same. The reader of to-day is
entitled to have the story of the day told for
him as skillfully as if it were the story of
hundred years ago; as attractively, IN pro-
portion to his interest in it; as briefly, with
rs little wave and as rigid an exclusion of
everything that does not add to the vividness
and fidelity of the picture. The Saturday
RsUieU called Macaulay the father Of pictur-
esque reporters. 1t Is in getting such repor-
tiers that the ultimate success of the wisest
and most muni6cent newspaper enterprise
must display itself in the next decade. Nor
do | mean that 1t Is only reporting on a grand
scale that is to be thus ennobled-reporting
great battle, a revolution, a pageant that
fixes the eye of the world. The genius that
enriched the dramatic story of the death of
Charles Ii, or the peace of Ryswick, never
showed itself to greater advantage than in
that famous third chapter, wherein, by
thousand subtle touches, and the use of
myriad of trifing Incidents, like those that
now lie under every reporters eye, there was
reproduced a picture OF past age, more
minute, more comprehensive, more vivid,
and, we may even say, more inter-
estipg than any newspaper has given
us Of our own. 1t will be the highest achieve
ment Of the most enterprising journalism 10
make, day by day, for the morning reader
such a picture of his own city, 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 ia
the order have named. In the foreground
will be his own city; the middle distance
will be filed by his country; beyond that, in
the smaller proportion to which its relative
Importance in his eye and for his purposes
entities 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 urder of
ability. The city department may then cease
perhaps to be the place where the raw be-
g1nners wreak their will, and become the
point at which the journalistic graduates will
be expected to display their best powers and
most thorough training. This then [ con-
ceiVe to De the next great revolution in iour.
nallsm. We shall not have cheaper news.
papers. They are the cheapest thing sold
now, considering the cost of mal<ing them
We shall not have continually growing sup
plement upon supplement of advertising.
Individual wants will seek mediums
more suitable. Only general wants will
seek the wider publicity of great Jour
nails, and these will be kept, by the increasing
cost, within manageable compass. We
shall not have more news. The world is ran
sacked for it now. Earth, sea and air carry
it to us from every capital, from every peo-
Ipte, from every continent and from every
island. We shall not have bigger newspa-
pers; they are bigger now than busy people
can read. We shall have better newspapers;
the story better told; better brains employed
in the telling; briefer papers; papers dealing
with the more important of current matters
in such style and with such fascinat on that
they viii command the w.de't interest,
There will be mcfe care gad ability Ia select
ing, out of the myriad of things you might
tell, the things that the better people want 10
be told, or ought to be told. There will be
greater skull in putting these things before
them in the most convenient and attractive
shape. Judgment in selecting the news;
genius for telling it-that is the goal for the
highest Journalists efcrt CT thhe future. In
making q newspaper, the heaviest item of
expense used to be the white paper. Now it
is t55 news. BY and by, let US hope, it viii
be- the brains.