Mexico weekly ledger., 1893-05-25
fHE COUNTRY PRESS.
Its Editurs Talk to Mere Critical
People Throughout the World
Than Do the Ministers.
ErN.sgs Esa NhRAsn lmteN Nseaa.

" MIA! SuA[tI1AiN IL StNhpu Va az
the country press" Ii has other
,ses, but most Of them originate in
suggestions made by editors of
newspapers with Calculations rang
ng from 1900 10 5000. The coun-
nv editor has become a very inn
person, and justly SO, for
no country preacher or lawyer now
to an audience of 1900, but
the editor of quite an obscure coun-
try paper talks to that many every
week. There are not a dozen preach
ers throughout the world each of
talks to 5000 at one time, but
there are thousands of country edi-I
tors who talk to that many every
week.
Furthermore, the country editors
audience is a critical one; it is apt
to compare what he says with what
the editorial writer's on the metropoI-
itan newspapers say, and it de-
mands that he shall not talk much
less vigorously or much less learn
edly than they do. So that the
country editor is a gentleman who
reads much and who thinks a great
deal about what he reads. He also
must be a man of affairs, for except
in cases Of exceptionally fortunate
partnerships between a natural
Journalist and a natural business
man, the country editor must be
his own advertising solicitor, his
own circulation agent and his own
| business manager. When a man OF
this kind talks he has something to
say and it is because men OF this
kind are doing most of the talking
that the National Editorial Conven-
ton proceedings are interesting.
Mexico, Mo, is a very small city
with rather less than 5000 popula-
ton by the census of 1890, but the
editor of its LEDGER read to the con-
vention a better essay on "What is
a Newspaper and What is News?'
than could have been prepared by
any graduate of a university "clas:
in journalism''-an addition to col
legiate branches which the editor o
the LEDGER would institute ant
where-from we dissent, believing
that neither college nor professor cal
teach the art and science of news
paper making. Colleges can furnish
a man with a scholarship that i
useful to a newspaper worker, bu
they never a teach him how t
use it to advantage. Intuition ant
experience are the only trustworth..
teachers of newspaper work. But
) except as to his project of "a chat
of journalism III every college," W
accept the obiter dicta of the Mexic
LEDGER as good law. We do nc
think that this excerpt from his es
say could be mended by an
+ professor of journalism in an.
; college.
A newspaper never falsifies, bu
under all circumstances gives tn
: news impartially, and does nc
ignore or corrupt an item or articl
for the purpose of saving its ow
convictions and interests. 1t rattle
: records facts as it finds them, an
such a newspaper will prevail b
+ the honesty of its purpose and th
logic of Legitimate arguments base
4 on the facts. Nothing should |
E printed in a newspaper that cannt
be read by every member of th
e family.
e 1t is by twenty-one years of col
r formity to these rules that the Int
e Ocean has made itself what it i!
E and by continued conformity to thel
s it expects to far exceed its alread
f satisfactory measure of success:
Whether the place of publicatio
be a village of 500, a town of 500
a city of 500, 900, or a metropolis
100000, the best newspaper wi
be the one that prints all the new:
but that is able to discern betwee
scandal and news, suppressing th
one and publishing the other.