The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1888-03-01
THE NEWSPAPER AND CRIME.


Our esteemed cotemporary, the Chris
tian Neighbor, seems to think that our
statement that the world is growing bet
ter instead OF worse, was rather an argu-
ment against our position. 1t may have
so appeared, but we think differently.
There can be little doubt that the news
papers OF to-day give entirely too much
encouragement and space to the cultiva-
ton of the taste for crimes and sensation
al reading, and therebyhelp to make the
demand for such matter greater. Mr..
Elliott, New York journalist, writing
for the March number Of the Forum,
shows the relative Importance OF the
different Kinds of news as put upon it
by the great dailies of the country, and
the result of his investigation was that
the ratio of religious news to the total
reading matter was three and one half
per cent.
The trouble is that even religious peo-
pie do not seem to care for religious
news as much as they do for recital,
even to minor details, OF crimes, mur-
ders, boat recing, the theatricals, base
ball and such like, and the newspapers
try to supply this demand because they
find such effort to be more beneficial and
profitable pecuniarily. Mr.. Elliott in
speaking further of this matter says:
How comes it that baseball and
horse-racing news is reported with great
care and fnilness, while the leading re-
ligious events are either ignored alto
gether or indiffcrently reported? Is it
not because newspaper editors have
learned that persons who belong to the
theatrical or the sporting or the mercan-
tile public buy their papers according as
they find in them full, prompt, and SYM
pathetic treatment of theatrical, sport
ing, and market news; whereas religious
people, as such, do not discriminate in
their patronage of newspapers with a
corresponding exactneSs? In other
words, do religious peole feel as keen an
interest in religious news as the base
ball pubic feels in baseball news, or as
the horse-racing public feels in the news
of horse-race? Do religious people to
any considerable degree, choose one pa
per rather than another because one pa
per gives more prominence to religious
news than another. or treats it with
more 81 mpathetic apprehension? You
can 60 up one bench and down another
at baseball game. and every man in
the crowd will tell you what papers of
the next morning will have full and
glowing account of the match then in
progress, and which will dismiss it in
few cold lines. and very many Of them
will make their purchase Of paper on
the following morning on that basis of
choice. Now apply that mode of reason
ing to religious people. Ont Of an audi
ence assembled in a city for some nota-
BILE religious occasion. how many will be
able to predict the relative prominence
that will be given to that meeting by the
newspapers? And how many will 60
to the newspaper stand the following
day and buy a paper. confident, without
looking it through, that it gives good
account Of the event? In short, it is not,
after all, question Of supply and de-
mand."
And thus it is that many COOL deeds,
many noble ones, go >uanoticed by the
press. Even mauy who claim to be re-
ligiou> do not give that support and en-
couragement-do not show that appre-
citation of-the religious newspaper they
should. And then Judging from the re-
cital Of crime OF all shades as mirrored
in the great newspapers Ct the day one
might conclude the world was growing
worse.
But we still believe, despite all this,
that the world is growing better. We
would like to see this appetite for sensa-
tional matter, and the recital OF crime
grow weaker, but the matter is in the
hands OF the religious people and they
can control it, but as long as they crave
this kind OF matter in the secular press,
and count newspapers energy and
enterprise in proportion to the alacrity
with which it gathers such news, this
demand will continue 10 be supplied and
fed by the secular press, for it would
mean obscurity and death to any paper
that did not furnish it, even to minute
details.
There is room for reform in this mat
ter on the part of the newspapers, in
creating a taste fer different kind of
matter.