The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-07-02
THE EDITORS IN SESSION.


their annual convention at Wrightsvill
this week. Many are there, enjoying thu
| contact, and those who are chained t,
the hard grind at their desks arc witt
them in spirit. They are a body OF use
full men-in many ways the most usefu
men in the State, spending their lives il
most laborious toll for the honor ant
prosperity of their communities and theil
State.
If all the deliberations are upon the
same high plane as the admirable address
of President Marshall, editor of the Gas
tcnia Gazette, it will be gathering po-
tential for the greatest good. We give
space. today to large portion of the ad
dress of President Marshall. 1t will in
terest every intelligent man and woman
as well as help editors. 1t treats with dis
elimination and practical sense the two
sides of journalism, the business and the
editorial side His treatment is original
and meaty. He is correct in saying that
the need of North Carolina newspapers
is more readers. Advertising is essential
TO help pay the bills, but big subscription
list means money, power and usefulness.
There is no State in the Union where
the daihes have so large a circulation out
side of the towns in which they are pub
lished, as in North Carolina Usually a
daily paper, except In great metropolis,
has its largest circulation in the town in
which it is published. Home circulation
pays best. In North Carolina, take the
News and Observer as an example, of
the situation here. 1t prints about 5000
papers daily, of which less than 1000 go
into Raleigh homes
The State has cause to feel proud of
the growth in circulation, in size, in the
improved appearance and better news SER
vice and better literature, and the all
round excellence of its newspapers. In no
line is the Improvement and progress of
North Carolina more marked
AHC uCct Analysis VI TIC newspaper OF
today we have seen anywhere is the fol-
lowing taken from the Springfield Repub-
hcan:
The best newspaper character and
standing is the product of years of service
which embodies conscience and devotion
to high ideals. Individuals have to be
proved, and SO do institutions, and among
the latter the newspaper by right of op-
portunity and service has come to occupy
its great place. The newspaper not only
deals in that most important thing. pub
hclty, but it must be supported by the
public. This is both an advantage and a
peril. 1t can labor with high ideals and
unfagging purpose to promote that which
it deems best for society; or it can cater
to those things which promise large ma
terial support, whether in news or adver-
tisements, and seek prosperity on this low
er plane of easy and often immoral com
Inercialism. Examples of both these types
are familiar to ALL Both give the reader
his news of the happenings of the world.
But the one aims with steady purpose
and broad aim to uplift, and is constant
IN assisting every cause which seeks to
benefit society; the other chooses dollars
through a more or less f1amboyant sensa-
tionalism, and is careless about, if not
neglectful of, those triumphs of virtue
and good living which are most truly
characteristic of society, while exalting
the abnormal and the criminal. The one
seeks the true picture the other, a dis
torted but profitable one. 1t IS a matter
of choice and of purpose-of character.
The readers confidence in a newspaper
is and ought to be a matter of slow
growth. In all the relations of life there
is much pretense of virtue where it is not
possessed But the years reveal the true
as surely as they uncover the false. In the
light of the public understanding men
take their places, and so do Institutions
and newspapers. Whether the purpose be
true, the management honest, the service
sterling or otherwise, Is in time
well understood. Thus do people and
things get their rating in the social or
ganism, and come to stand for what they
represent in spirit and achievement.
There is nothing in the relationships which
men establish more vital and interest
ing than the alliance between a news
paper and its enthusiastically nothing
which, on the side of the journal, should
make stronger appeal to deep sense OF
public duty Honest service on the one
side and proved faith on the other, es-
tablish the finest possible basis for mutual
The newspaper so supported
is assisted to such an opportunity to pow
erfully advance all those things which
make for the betterment of society as no
other professional agency can command.
of all public trusts this one is most at
tractive because in the nature of the
case most peryasive and ever present. Its
power for light and leading can be daily
and increasingly applied wherever the men
and women do read it, and 1T embodies
and carries an atmosphere which no read
er can escape"
A newspaper is like tree. 1t must
have time to grow if it is to be delight
a strength, a shade, a support. Ii 1T Is