The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-10-27
THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER,

Extr1ctH from Charles Dudley Warmers |
Paper, Read Before the American Social |
Science Association, |
The newspaper is private enterprise |
Its object is to make money for its
owner. Whatever motive may be given
out for starting newspaper, expecta.
tion of profit by it is the real one,
whether the newspaper is religious,
political, scientific or literary. The ex-
ceptioual cases of newspapers devoted
to ideas of causes" " without regard to
profit, are so few as not to affect the
rule, Commonly, the cause, the sect,
the party, the trade, the delusion, the
idea, gets its newspaper, its organ, its
advocate, only when some individual
thinks he can see pecuniary return in
establishing it.
The chief function of the newspaper
is to collect and print the news. The
second function is to elucidate the news,
and comment on it, and show its rela-
tions. A third function is to furnish
reading matter to the general public.
Nothing is so difficult for the man.
ager as to know what news is; the in
stinct for it is q sort Of sixth sense.
To discern out of the mass of materials
collected not only what is most likely
to interest the public, but what phase
and aspect of it will attract most atten-
tion, and the relative importance of it;
to tell the day before or at midnight
whet the world will be talking about in
the morning, and what it will want the
fullest details of, and to meet that want
In advance, requires n peculiar talent.
There is always some topic on which the
Ia, b.,
easy enough when the news is de
veloped, and everybody is discussing it.
for the editor to fall in. But the Sue
cess of the news printed depends upon
pr5-apprehension of all this. Scarcely
less important than promptly seizing
and printing the news, is the attractive
arrangement of it, its effective presenta-
tion to the eye. Two papers may have
exactly the same important intelligence,
identically the same dispatches; the one
will be called bright, attractive, ''newsy,"
the other dull and stupid.
AMERICAN AND FOREIGN JOURNALS.
In particularly and comprehensive
ness of news collecting it may be ad-
mitted that the American newspapers
for time led the world. / mean in the
PlShlIE up VI 1OCdl luuGlliHSnCt anu uIl6
use of the telegraph to make it general.
And with this al Jse the old notion that
news is made important by the mere fact
OF its rapid transmission over the wire.
The English journals followed, speedily
overlook and, some of the wealthier
ones perhaps, surpassed the American
in the use OF the telegraph and in the
presentation of some sorts of local
news; not of casualties, and small city
and neighborhood events and social
gossips (until very recently, but Ger
tainly in the business of the law courts
and the crimes and mishaps that come
within police and legal supervision.
The leading papers Of the German press,
though strong in correspondence and in
discussion of affairs, are far less compre-
hensive in their news than the Ameri.
can or the English. The French Jour-
nails we are accustomed to say are not
newspapers at all And this is true as
we use the word. Until recently moth
ing has been Of importance to the
Frenchman except himself; and what
happened outside Of France, not directly
affecting his glory, his profit or his
pleasure, did not interest him. Hence,
one could nowhere so securely intrench
himself against the news of the world
as behind the barricade of the Paris
journals. But let us not make a mis-
take in this matter. We may have
more to learn from the Paris jour
nails than from any others. If they
do not give what We call news, local
news, events, casualties, the happenings
OF the day, they do give ideas, opinions
thaV Ap 2IGc11cc 1ooli+ino +1o ooo;o1 a lr;F
they give the intellectual ferment of
Paris. they supply the material that
Paris likes to talk over-the badinage
of the boulevard, the wit of the salon,
the sensation of the stage, the new
movement in literature and in politics;
this may be important or it may be
trivial; it is commonly more interesting
than much of what we call news.
WHAT Is NEWS?
What is news? What is it that an
intelligent public should care 10 hear
of and talk about? Run your eye down
the columns of your journal. Their e
was drunken squa6ble last night in a
New York groggery; there is petty
but carefully elaborated village scandal
about a foolish girl; q woman acci-
dentally dropped her baby out OF q
fourth story window in Maine; in Con
necticut wife, by mistake, got into the
same railway train with another
woman's husband; child fell into a
we'll in New Jersey; there is column
about peripatetic horse-race which
exhibits, like a circus, from city to
city; O. laborer in @ remote town in
Pennsylvania had sunstroke; there is
the edifying dying speech of a mur-
derer, the love-letter of suicide, the
set-to of couple of Congressman, and
there are columns about the gigantic
war of half dozen politicians over the
appointment of a sugar-gauger. Grant
ed that this pabulum is desired by the
reader, why not save the expense of
transmission by having several columns
stereotyped, to be reproduced at proper
intervals? With the date changed it
would always have the original value
and perfectly satisfy the demand, if Il
demand exists, for this sort of news.
This is not, as you see, a description
of your journal; it is description of
only one portion of it. 1t is complex
and wonderful creation. Every morn
ing it is mirror of the world, more or
less distorted and imperfect, but such a
mirror as it never had held up to it be-
fora Rut oonc;dar bou p,1,ob Snooa ;s