The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-11-19

newspapers have recently appeared,
the one from the Rev Washington
GLADDEN.. ID. d., in the Independent,
and the other from the Rev. Nj. j. Saw
age. in the North american RepieT.
both these writer's treat the subject in
a spirit of calm and inotfensive criti-
cism. But both fall into the error of
assuming that newspapers have no
right to be managed simply to make
money" Upon this point Mr.. Savage
is particularly, and, as it seems to me,
unreasonably severe. After reproving
the daily" for publishing the darker
rather than the brighter deeds of cur
rent life, and quoting its defense that
in this way more papers are sold, he
says: "But this is confession that
money-making is the chief end of
newspaper, ana thus places it on a level
with grog-shops and the houses of ill
fame"
OF course money-making is the chief
end of anewspaperfrom the standpoint
of the publisher. And why should it
not be? If it were not we should have
no great daily newspapers. But be-
cause the chief end of business is
money making, by what sort of local
jugglery is it made to follow that the
business is degraded to the level of the
groggery and the brothel? TO rescue
O respectable trade from the clutches
OF this sweeping and debasing infer
ence we must assume that it is con-
Quoted with some other end in view.
The purpose of Jacob Sharp, then,
In laying down his horse-car rails
In Broadway, was simply to con-
vey the riding public. The OPP
timism of this view of the sharp
manipulator's scheme is pleasant to
contemplate; but to what motive shall
we ascribe the little tariff of five cents
which he exacts from each passenger?
The main object of the kings and
princes of the dry goods trade, in
maintaining high-class dry goods
houses, is presumably to cover and
adorn the bodies of their customers.
10 suspect for a moment that their
chief aim is money-making is to class
them with the lowest grades of avari-
cious mongers.
Evidently our clerical critics have
not reflected wisely upon the history of
newspapers. Fifty years ago news
BapClS WOlO 1uOSlll as bue
organs of collective opinion. They
were largely sustained" and support
ed" or, as business parlance would
say, carried, but no one thought of
making money by them, simply because
the speculative possibility was not in
them. The moment facilities for rapid
gathering were born and the con-
temporaneous demand for the publica-
ton of the days events asserted itself,
business sagacity saw money" in the
newspaper, and straightway the more
benevolent supporters" of the "or-
gans" abandoned the field to the money
makers. No fact is more familiar than
that, whenever newspaper, be it
political, literary, or religious, ceases
to pay THAT Is, to make money for
somebody it must begin to wind up.
The last great journalistic venture for
moral, religious, and benevolent pur-
poses, and not for money making. was
started in New York soon after the
widespread religious revival of 1857,
and it is recorded in every mature
memory how quickly it went down.
Our ministerial critics have not told
US upon what footing of reason they
base the claim that the publisher of
great daily newspaper in exposing his
history of the world for a day."
should be instinct with n motive of un-
mixed benevolence, while the pro-
prietor of the horse-car line, and the
dry goods jobber, may ply their bust
ness simply and solely for money-mak-
ing. Or, if the special work of adj
dressing the public mind on the daily
lite of the world is so easily perverted
to immoral use in the hands of money
makers, why is it that good men do
not give their money and their lives to
the endowment and management of
great newspaper enterprises, just as
they found and conduct great institu-
tions OF learning?
There is a glamour of goodishness
upon the oft-repeated remark that the
papers regard the bad deeds, and not
the good deeds of men, as news. Says
Mr.. Savage, ironically: "A million
people behave themselves, but that is
no news. Nobody thinks of reporting
that or saying anything about it. Yes,
and nobody ought to report or say any
thing about it. 1 shudder to think
what this world would come to, if the
performance of good or honest acts
were to be regarded as news. Once
unsettle the general conviction that
men are expected to do right and hon
estly as a matter of course and without
applause, and make such conduct ex-
ceptional and noteworthy, and public
morality is gone.
The objection to which the newspa-
per the popular daily, of course) is
Justly open is not the mere report of
immoral occurrences, but the treat
ment of those events in such way as
to awaken and feed morbid and base
susceptiblities. This is effected by
bloody, murderons and libidinous head
lines, and by an unwarranted portrayal
of details. The simple publication of
crime is profitable in many ways. The
fear of publicity is wholesome deter
rent of immortality, and there is scarce
ly default, murder, an arson, or n
rape, the prompt public report of which
is not deeply important to distant
friends or business connections. If the
record of these dark doings is regarded
/ "a iniuriouc IN tho family ,ircla than