The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-03-01

print anu WHAT 1t ought not 10 print. IneTe
can be no hard and fast rules. What
ought to be printed under certain con-
ditions it would be scandalous to print
under other conditions. newspaper
must never be a scavenger; it must not
fail to print the news If it is the conduit
pipe of the scandals that are whispered
about, it nauseates decent people, though
the gutter-snipes are eager to buy it..
If it fails to print legitimate news, even
though it may include some installment
of wrong doing or scandal, it ceases to
be newspaper, and fails of its prime
function. newspaper must be "a map
of busy life" 1t must sprint the news
that is its first mission, the reason for its
existence. 1t indeed has higher func-
ton, but printing the news is the mud
sill of it's existence.
There are two widely differing views,
both wrong, of what a newspaper ought
or ought not to print.
1. There are many good people who
contend that newspaper should close its
columns to all accounts of evil, wrong,
and crime in the world--that it should
print only the deeds of virtue, the stories
of progress, and those things that show
man in his best light. Nothing that ac-
quaints readers with vice, with weak
nesses, with crime should stain its pages
or appear in its news columns is the
creed of that class. Opposed to their
theories is the saner view of DR.. Lyman
Abbott. In his address at Trinity Col
lege something over year ago that
great man said:
I'VE ought to know the evil things that
are going on in the world. We don't
want an Index Expurgatorius. We don't
want censor, either at Washington or
in Chicago editorial chair, to tell us
what We may read. 1 want to know
everything. - = = The daily newspaper
is history of current life. It's bust
ness is to tell us what went on in the
world yesterday. 1t is first of all a re-
porter. The enterprise of the American
journal is beyond all praise. But we
have a right to>-ask for something more
than enterprise. We have no right to
ask the newspaper to select only the
pleasant things for us to read
2. There are those who think that n
newspapers columns should be chief
ly, if not almost wholly, filled with
sensation, that its reporters should fire.
quent police courts, and higher clubs of
gossip and scandal, and every day fill it's
columns with sensational stories of vice.
newspapers make such stories chief
feature and find it profitable, because
there is a large class, particularly in
the large cities land alas, increasing il
the smaller cities) who delight to feed
upon such pabulum. They scour the
country over for stories that show the
to the world, and pander to the love of
scandal and wicked gossip. They are
never so happy as when they can pa
rade the names of women who, because
of some crime or tragedy, become talked
about. They do not stop to enquire
whether the scandal-loving public have a
right to handy their names about their
clubs and loafng places The fact that
some male relative has fired a shot and
that they are supposed, remotely or di-
rectly, to be connected with it, is enough
for them to print sensational stories of
alleged dishonor. These papers ought to
be required to call themselves Gutter
Snipes'
The first of these sort of newspapers
is inane but respectable. The second is
spicy and contemplate. There is no real
reason for the existence of either, and
they exist only because sit takes all
sorts of folks to make world"
The deplorable tragedy in Raleigh of n
week ago called for the practical car
rying out of newspaper ideals. This paper
on Sunday morning after the killing
printed a three column story, carefully
and conscientiously prepared, giving
every particular of the affair, together
with the probable reasons that caused
it, emitting no proper preceding
fact that could bear upon mo-
tive. Any person who will read
the story in last Sundays News
and Observer will see that this paper
printed every single legitimate item of
news bearing upon the killing or the
causes that produced it. To be sure this
paper printed these facts briefly, plainly,
delicately, without sensationalism or dis
regard of the proprieties. 1t was with
regret that it was deemed necessary to
print even line of the deplorable story
but no paper can for any consideration
suppress legitimate news The matter
was one calling for great care and dis
elimination. This paper reached it's con-
clusion as to what it should print by
considering this inquiry: How much of
the story nrecedinp tho Sbootipo ne