St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-07-17
ITS DAYS NUMBERED
The Long Winded Editorial
Declared a Relic Of the
Past.
News Department Usurping
the Functions of the Edi-
torial Columns.
w. H. Hills, Of Boston, OUT
lines the Work OF the Fut-
upe Editor.
The Flippant Editorial Para
graph is a Sign Of
Weakness.

The editorial has got to goat leasg
so says w. II. Hills, of Boston, who
read paper yesterday on the editor
ial department. Mr.. Hills is the editor
of the Writer, aud an all round news
paper man. He knows, therefore,
whereof he speaks. A carefully con-
densed report of his address reads:
The editorial department. no longer ont.
ranks the news department i'll importance.
On the contrary, the news department today
dominates the editorial and the question
sure evidence of heresy in the Dalmy days
when editors had something to say. and an
audience not too hurried or pressed with
other matters to listen 10 1.-THE question
whether live newspaper needs to have any
editorials at all has been a matter of serious
discussion. We have no great editorial writ
ers to-day-no writers, that Is, whose names
are household words throughout the land as
those of the famous New YORK journalists
were; no writer's whose daily utterances are
as eagerly looked for as those of the oracle
at Delphi-and much more clearly under
stood. Henry Waterson and Charles A.
Dana are to-day the only survivors of the
Old Race of Editors
whose personality made them conspicuous
leaders OF thought through the editorial col
umns of the press and even they as editors
are simply interesting features of the Courier.
Journal and the New York Sun, and by no
means indispensable elements of their sue
cess. Not one man in all this assembly Of
active newspaper men, venture to say, can
name the present chief editorial writer's of
the New York daily papers, or of the daily
papers OF Boston, or of Philadelphia, or Chi
cago, or st. Paul. Editorial personality no
longer exists except in towns and villages
so small that the editorial we cannot help
meaning to every reader the editorial ~
where the editor of the local paper mas in-
fiuence and prominence, not so much be-
cause of his transcendent ability, but because
of the publicity Of his position; Taking the
newspapers of the country throughout to.
day, the editorial department
rs the Weakest,
and In itself the least interesting of any OF
the departments of the paper. For ten years
past it has been my privilege to handle about
200 newspapers every day as exchange editor
of the Boston Globe They are not the local
newspapers OF New England, but the more
important dailies and weeklies OF the coun-
try outside of the New England states. In
reading them have been struck by three
things: The cheerful readiness with which
the American editor will proceed to express
his opinions about any subject under the
sun, whether he knows anything about it or
not: the smartness, bright though it may be
fiippant, of his comments on current events,
and the astonishing similarity of the edi-
tOrial departments in papers of similar ten
denotes throughout the country. This SINH
larity which have noted would be more as
tonishing still if it were simultaneous. That
it is motifs consecutiveness. on the other
baud, being its most noticeable feature
shows that while
Editorial Great Minds
may and do run in the same channel, they
do not always run side by side. The
editorial department, then. has lost the pres
tige and surprising. Importance which it
possessed thirty. or forty, or fifty years ago;
To-day the hlgh-priced newspaper men OF
the country are reporters, and correspond
ents and city editors, and managing editors,
and news edltOrs-nOt editorial writers.
People look to the editorial columns for
partisan presentation of the doctrines OF
their political faith. and for sharp comments
on political characters and current events,
but they do not look there for guidance and
instruction, as they did years ago, and they
buy the papers rather Tor the news and the
pictures, and the magazine features, than
for the editorials which they contain. This
being so, the practical questions arise ::
WhaI should the editorial department be in
modern journalism, and now that its func-
tions are acknowledged TO have changed.
how can it be made to attain its best and
highest use?
1 believe that the main function of the news
paper to day is TO
Chronicle the Events
of the world, and that the best use of the
editorial is to explain those events so that
they will be best understood by the people.
do no believe that an editor-an editorial
writer, | mean-ShOuld fulfill the function OF
a lawyer, whose task it is to persuade his
hearers to his way of thinking, so much as
that of an eypOunder, who gives to others
the benefit of his knowledge and sets matters
before them in so clear a light as TO enable
them to make up their own minds Alright.
The editor is an educated man. who is sup
posed to keep better Informed on current
topics than most other men, and who GER
tainly has advantages for acquiring informa-
ton such as few men possess. If some event
occurs his readers must naturally depend on
him to point out its relation to other events
and to enable them to understand it's import
ance and its effects as well as he does HIM
self Such editorials, explanatory of the
news, are naturally connected with it, and
might advantageously be printed away from
the editorial page.
Following the News
paragraphs which they expound. They
would be more than news, since they would
be inevitably colored by the personal expert
enee and beliefs of the editor who wrote
them and taken with the news-which, ac-
cording to the highest standard, should al
wavs be free from editorial opinion, or par
izanship Of any .kind-they would give 10 the
reader as complete an understanding of the
subject as he could Wish TO attain. The edi-
columns
political writing, which san inevitable fea-
ture of newspapers in acOuntry like ours; {;
for general comments and editorials not di-
rectly connected with the news of the day,
and for the graceful or humorous articles
which editorial writer's now produce i'll their
daily or weekly struggle against inexorable
space.
In these modern times it is even conceiva-
BILE that some issues of newspaper should be
made without any editorial at all, and still
the world continues i'll its daily revolution.
SO many editors. under present conditions,
write when they have nothing at all to say!
The editor who does not circulate among
the people and
Keep ia Touch
with their feeling about the daily affairs of
life will find that his editorials do not pos
sess that human interest which makes the
chief merit of everything literary in this
world. from novel to paragraph of local
news. The editor who does not read other
papers, and particularly those expressing
different opinions from his own, loses the
best available means of Frightening his own
intellect and broadening his views.
1t seems hardly necessary to say that hon.
esty is the best policy in editorial writing, as
it is in everything else but love and war
The editor who writes what he does not be-
lieve viii never write his best and sooner or
later his constituents will find him out. Ii
takes a smart man to lie successfully, even
WAen ne only taikS, anu Wnen he writes. q
professional liar needs to have Argus eyes
and to keep them all upon his record to
avoid contradicting himself. An honest
editorial is one of the noblest works of man.
The tendency of editorial writing to-day is
toward the paragraph, and this is we'll, be-
cause most editors. Ill view of their limita-
tions Of time. can express in paragraph all
that is valuable in their minds on any SUBJ
ject that they are likely to discuss. The
temptation is, however to make the para
graphs flippant and to cover their weakness
by their pointed wit. The wise editor will
resist this temptation, for his own and his
readers good.