Daily Yellowstone journal., 1886-11-18
TRADITIONS IN JOURNALISM.
The Tendency GO Move Along In Bossoa
Paths-Lats Innovations.

The Tendency GO Move Along In Bossoa
Paths-Lats Innovations.
There is, or at least there was a tradi-
ton that the features of Journal must
be castiron in their permanence. An un-
written law, supposed to be as unchang-
able as the Medo- Persian statues, has
forbidden the slightest departure from
established methods. It of course isnot
surprising that the publisher of u
weekly story paper in New York should
cling to name which, sufficiently de-
scriptive OF the sheet when first issued,
by and by wholly lost its significance.
The title came TO be q valuable trade
mark and an advertisement. Perhaps
Mr.. Bonner overestimated the risk Of
change which else he would have been
glad to make. Look, for example, at
the easy nominal Transformation of one
of our most successful magazines. Scrib-
ner's had attained its full growth before
it was rechristened The Century. The
process proved to be in no respect inju-
rious. But publishers have shrunk from
notifications far less important than
these. The proprietors of The Illus
trated London News could not re in
duced to make a slight transposition in
this laundering title and call their jour
nal The London Illustrated News.
A similar onservatism-rather say su-
perstition-induces The London Times
to make all of its leading articles just
little over a column long and to send
them headless into a waiting world.
Apparently it is supposed chat the Brit
ish empire would undergo revolution
if the reader were allowed to know what
the essay was all about until he had read
the final line, or If the multitudinous
advertisements Of the Thunderer should
be classified for the convenience of its
customers and the public. A tyrannical
tradition not only forbids the mention
in the columns of q first-class newspaper
of the name of anybody concerned IN its
making; but when the editor Of The
London Saturday Review in its most
brilliant days died, while he was the
subject of more of less extended men-
ton in every other journal in the city,
his own ignored him so completely as to
take no notice of the purely personal
fact of his death. These are few Of
the examples, which might be indeii-
nitely multiplied, of the tendency Of
journalism to move along beaten paths
indeed in arbitratrary ruts.
OF late large inroads have been made
upon these rigid notions and supersti-
tions. Not the least striking have oc-
CURED ir English journalism, where they
were for long time most influential.
Right under the nose of the unchanging
Times have sprung up those social and
political publications, such as The Lon
don Truth and The London World,
which have most audaciously defied the
conventionalities and most widely de-
parted from old-fashioned rules and Gus.
toms Of the press. Note the substitution
in these prints of the frank and egotistic
Il" for the modest and impersonal "we.'
I remember when this mannerism was
first adopted in this country-by the late
Z. z. C. Judson. in New York, in his
Ned Buntline's Own. 1t was regarded
with contempt and horror by all the
editorial yves" of the town. But the
practice is readily tolerated in Mr.. Lab
ouchere and Mr.. Yates. In other ways.
here and abroad, the hard journalistic
lines have become lax, not to say loose.
The interview-an instrument SO obvious
and so convenient that, as in the case of
other ingenious and useful inventions,
one wonders that it was not discovered
before-has effected almost q revolution.
Cor. Brooklyn Eagle.