The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-10-18
MAKING A YELLOW JOURNAL.
o,v . GREAT SUNDAY PAPER, IN
NEW YORK, Is EVOLVED.

I'll Ftrht Originated ana FOUND
xav Into Print-There Are Just
tive stock Subjects, Which Al
,xavs Pan out.
Ron, the New York Evening Post
IN sav at the outset that while the
.-istent vellowness of the sensational
I',r,,als arises from the native taste of
'.ir founders and proprietors, the latter
.aayze that tastes vary and that some
ne do not like their papers; so in justice
- known that these gentlemen do not
o,,tr, any superiority over us. All they
.,,,,, Is that more people like their papers
s'.a like the other kind. The great ma
.orirv Of US abides by its own opinion on
.r,-papers, and purchases the latest jour
.,,.stio sensation as naturally as it plays
t,o races" supports rowdyish base ball,
.i.ok,ved" bicycle races, "foregone" prize
sob+s and all things that profit by its
-se,r, n find a substitute for thinking.
1,rom nv. own experience of eight months
with "up-to-date" Journalism, / am con-
,,rced thar it lost a great editor when
rsrnum became a Snowman. He had just
.b. needful temperament for planning TO
et,rtie grown-up children by saying "boo%
And that is the task of the yellow Sun
dav editor" and his troupe of trained writ
ers and artists.
For the Sunday editor is the great man
Of the sensational paper, with his own
separate staff, engraving plant, and print
ing presses. to say nothing of his big sal
ary which is discussed daily in Park Row
bar-rooms by those who were once Ere
norrers with him." He is the living fact of
the yellow" journalism, the inventor of
Il He is one of a group of men who have
inns spacielized the editorial calling in or
der 10 produce the required reading mat
t.r and pictures. These are the creatures
of his brain, but, strange to say the yell
low editor does not seem to regard his
work as an art or a profession, but as a
trade He does not feel this, nor would he
know what you meant IL you told him so.
If he did it would show that he was not
very good at his work
Imbued with this idea the Sunday editor
is untrammelled with the perplexities of
taste and the poverty of his ethical in
sight becomes a most valuable implement
of his craft. Please understand that /
speak of him only in his role of earning
his salary. Personally l know such edi-
tors whose private taste is excellent, and
who similarly possess a private code of
social procedure; but they are not the
genii For good taste cannot be success
fully put on and off as the office coat is
mi off and on. One must be born with
Vretched taste to be really great Sun
day editor; one must be able TO feel in
stiuctiycfy the virtue of the commonplace
and the pictorial possibilities of disease.
Speaking TO the fact, the position Calls
for peculiar native combination of child
nd Of tail wit n
acute perception of all things but ideals.
An artist-the yellow" papers employ
very good 1rtsts-showed a drawing to the
Sunday editor one day and the editor ask
ed:
Where are these people, on the deck of
yacht?'
Yes"
Well where are the boards?"
"Boards?"
Yes the boards in the deck. / always
want an the boards drawn in the deck Of
boating picture. Remember, boards in
decks, footlights in theater pictures, fin
ger-nails on hands, and the seams in peo-
pies clothes. l don't see why you artists
never want to finish your pictures"
And he is right from his point of view.
because ne has doubtless found that his
readers aren't over particular as to the
authenticity of Lady So-and-So's portrait
So long as they can easily count the pearls
around her neck.
There is no doubt that they do spend
money, the sensational papers 1t costs as
much to run one as it does to run
white paper Il speak only Of the Sun
day supplementary The marked difference
is hat one spends its money in paper, the
other In what is printed on the paper. Thus
II you should put the bulky matter of a
yellow paper into the separating, refining,
and polishing editorial machinery of a
"a oraI -
other end, it would be miracle if so much
as a paragraph came through.
II il takes money 10 conduct yellow
paper it none the less takes brain. For eX-
ample, il requires no common order of in
te,ieci 10 lay bare the workings of great
stage Illusion or a great magician's mas
ter trick. That always makes good story,
and is a useful one when other topics are
scarce, How does the editor manage, when
need he, to always expose and confound
such frauds as these? Interview the pres
udisitateur? Absurd; he might not tell
the truth Send a spy behind the scopes?
lmplacticable out of the depths of his
knowledge and in the fight of his foresight
Inc Sunday editor buys a book, a large,
thick green book long published by the
scientific American, and containing minute
descriptions and detailed diagrams of all
tne tricks and Illusions now known to the
stage; whenever it is desirable to warn
us readers against impositionS OF TINS Or
DER The yellow journal has but to turn to
tne book, pick out a particularly fragrant
Illusion, and there it is, simply waiting
10 be exposed.
It is weI TO be good friends of the bicy-
Gle riders. We once had a story about
certain police captain of this city, who Il
was claimed, was prosecuting the bioyc.e
riders in his precinct II was good
chance to court the friendship of the
ganks' among the wheelmen, and the
Story lad on the captains brutality pretty
Aick' A large portrait of him was to go
WIN the story and an artist made the
uIaWing from photograph of the officer,
VINO had very pleasant and wholesouled
l'ee' When the editor saw the drawing,
No; that won't do. That doesn't Illus
Uate the story"
ms from a photograph" ventured the
green artist
That don't matter. I want him to look
sowing and mean Take it back and make
nm scowi, please"
III Is in the impressive exercise of such
rare qualities of judgment as these which,
inc IA inc