The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-08-09
Newspapers and Trouble.
Hartford Courant.l

aThe newspapers make all the trouble.
They gather up accounts of all the fail
ures and put them together under such
heading as the present crisis or more
failures and in order to sell a few
copies create this great business dis
turbance." That was the hasty comment
recently of well known business man,
and though he was wrong in his con-
clusion, there were several points where
he was right.
First of all, it is true that bad news
sells as readily as good news. Go tell a
dozen people that in the house on the
right everybody is perfectly well, all
happy and comfortable, and domestic
life moving along undisturbed, and that
in the house on the left every member
of the family has just been nysteriously
murdered and which house will attract
the attention of those who hear the two
statements? Now newspaper must
print the news to live up to its mission
and to be business success. If it only
tells of the happy household it fails OF its
duty and opportunity.
Imagine some wealthy crank starting
paper with the avowed purpose of Civ
ing only good news. No failures, no rail
road accidents, no disastrous storms. no
fires that do any damage, no steamship
sinkings, no defalcations, no reports OF
the doings of Congress, nothing to
| worry the public should ever appear in
| that remarkable journal whose mission
| should be to stand between the people
and their knowledge of misfortune. 1t
would not take very long for that
wealthy crank to become poor crank;
Nobody would buy such paper. beyond
| once for the sake of laughing at 1T.
THE statement that the newspaper carries
| the trouble all over the country is half
| truth only. In a land that is clothes
lined all over with telegraph and tele-
| phone wires, people are bound to know
what is going on. The newspapers spend
| millions every year to find what the news
| is and to print it, and the reading people
| buy the papers every day because they
| do give the newsstand there isn't trust
| worthy paper published that isn't sold
| for less than the cost of making it.
The banker, anxious about the situa-
| ton, especially DESTROYS to have the I'M
easiness allayed, might run his morning
paper through and find in it's list of fail
ures no name with any direct interest for
| him. Later he hears that Jones, whose
notes he holds, has gone up and that the
fact was printed in some other paper
than the one he regularly takes. Does
| he commend his own paper for it's judi
cious forbearance? On the contrary he
sends out and buys the other, and says
he wants the one that gives the news.
| That is human nature, and no news
paper is wisely conducted that is not run
with some intelligent consideration of
what human nature is and what people
| want.
Probably the news of the present dis
turbance, not probably either, but posi-
| lively, has been carried over the country
| by the newspapers. This is a misfor-
| tune. 1t has accelerated, if not added to
| the trouble But that could not possibly
be prevented. The railroads carry bad
| people as well as good people. Would
| you call them the cause of an outbreak
| of crime? They take what offers in the
| way of freight and passengers and the
newspapers takes what offers in the way
| of events The mirror of life isn't re- re-
sponsible for the picture that it pre-
sents.
But so long as the passing show goes
on people will want to see the pict1re
| and the newspaper that presents It as #
| is will meet a demand that ALWAYS exists
and be sure of its sale. Bad as the times
NAV be, there are few who can afford to
begin the day without knowing what
has happened, what the news e What
the paper will show him.