St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1883-04-27
DebaSed JOurn aliSIn.

There is a salutary lesson contained
in the result of recent newspaper Ii
bel suit tried at Detroit. The offend
ing paper was the Detroit News, and
the owner and publisher, James f.
Scripps, also publishes half a dozen
other daily newspapers in as many
western cities. These journals are all
penny papers and they have all gained
a wide circulation from the fact that
they are largely devoted not to legiti
mate news but to so-called "spicy"
matter, which seems to be a popular
article of literary diet at the west. Mr..
Scripps's idea of journalism is to print
anything that will make his papers
sell. The more sensational the scandal,
the nastIer the story, so much the bet
ter; and no matter how irresponsible
the source from which the story comes,
if it is only "spicy" in it goes. This
sort of thing was done once too often,
and Mr.. Scripps and his News have
come to grief. The basis of the libel
suit to which we have referred was an
infamous attack on DR.. Mclean, one of
the professors in the medical depart
ment of the University of Michigan. 1t
was charged that he had abused the
confidence of female patient, had Sc
duced her and that her husband had
become insane in consequence. DR..
Mclean sued the News for libel, and
after a long and thorough trial the
News story was adjudged absolutely
false and baseless, and DR.. Mclean
was awarded 800, 200 damages.
A successful libel suit against a
newspaper is no common thing. Juries
are apt to favor decent journals. They
know that well conducted and well in
tentioned newspapers are not infallible
and are subject to mistakes ; that their
sources of information, though of an
apparently satisfactory character, are
not invariably trustworthy; and that
the intentions of the publishers and ed
itors are upright and honorable and
| their course of action such as seems in
their own eyes just and proper, and for
the best good of the community. Decent
newspapers, in short, mean to tell the
truth, to deal justly with all, to inten-
| tiOnally wrong no one. These facts
are well understood, and hence it is the
rarest of things for jury to mulct such
papers in damages for libel. But be-
tween these journals and those which
are represented by the News there is a
great gulf fixed. The former collect
legitimate news in a legitimate man
ner. The latter unearth private scan
dal, print the gossip of the neighbor-
hood, gather the filth of the sewers, fol
the sole purpose of making their pa
pers sell. What matter to them how
many homes are made unhappy, how
many lives of women and young girls
are blasted, how many hopes are with
cred, how much the public morality is
debased and its taste corrupted AL
these things are nothing if the paper.
are "spicy" and sell well. We are, un-
fortunately, not without some knOwl-
edge of such papers here in Vermont
papers which owe their continued eX-
Il istence to their dissemination of sean
dal. whose editors devote themselve:
to that sort of thing and whose perfect
ly irresponsible correspondents are al
lowed to assail the private charactel
in the most reckless and brutal fashion
, Shame on such papers and the public
that gives them the encouragement o
its support As the Cleveland PlaiI
Dealer well SAYS, sit is time that the
: line was drawn between newspaper
that publish the news and those tina
print sensational lies between honor
t able newspapers that defend the righ
, and attack the wrong, and those that
] for the sake of notOriety, assall TIN
5 regulations and asperse the character
5 of respectable aud honorable men.
e The verdict in the libel case of whicl
= we have spoken draws this line prett.
r distinctly, and it ought also to serve a
e warning for journalistic offenders
!. Burlington Free Press.