The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1906-08-10
THE EVENING NEwsPAPEH.

Ii Is called newspaper by cour-
tesy. 1t should be spoken of as the
evening miscellany or the evening
fake. or a newspaper it neither has
nor can have any of the attributes. +.
How can it be a newspaper when
the whole solar system is working
to prevent it? Nine-tenths of the inn
portant news of the world natures
between noon and midnight. Even if
it has its conception in the forenoon.
| it is not complete or fully understood
until late in the afternoon.
How, then, can paper that goes
60 press at o'clock and that must be
made up an hour earlier be news
paper? 1t may call itself IS o'clock
edition, but this does not alter the
case. This lite. pleasantly is good
naturedly discom- ID and condoned
by an indulgent public.
How does the evening newspaper
look in the morning newspaper of the
next morning? It's paragraphs are ex-
banded to columns and it's column
stories are reduced to paragraphs.
Why is this? Because it has been
unable in the first case to get the real
news in time to print it, and because
in the second case, its full length
story is generally a fabrication. 1t
cannot be blamed for not accomplish
ing impossibilities, but it ought not
call itself a newspaper.
The life of the so-called evening
newspaper is its market report and
its sporting edition. Without these it
would suspend publication at once,
and both of them are mangled and
imperfect reports. or downright fakes.
The person who has read them waits
anxiously for the morning newspaper
to learn the real truth about them.
AS there is, properly speaking, no
such thing as an evening newspaper,
there is of course no influential even
LIS hC SP0pCAs AC2C dAC ptOOdOAN
two evening journals in this country
One in Boston and one in New
York-which may be called infiuen-
tial, and these contain the least
news" of any of them, and are sim
ply able and brilliant journals of crit
icism. They hardly claim to be news
papers.
What sort of newspaper do the
statesmen, the politician. the lawyer,
the merchant. the broker, the society
man and the sportsman read? Do
they take the evening fake seriously
or do they bank on the morning news
paper? How long would they last if
they pinned their faith to the 2 O'Clock
vacuity?
The heavenly bodies which have
forbidden such thing as an evening
newspaper, are leagued together to
make the morning newspaper the
great event of every day. For its
pages the important news, all OF which
eliminates during the afternoon and
early evening is garnered, weeded out
and composed by mightnight, after
which they are six hours in which
this half of the world sleeps and lit
tie real news develops and in which
the wonderful story of the preceding
day is printed and distributed.
This is the genuine newspaper The
sheets that are flying around the
streets all day long with headlines
in three-inch type printed in red, yell
low or green, announcing the sudden
death of thousands of people, the
burning of entire cities and dreadful
scandals in the best society-what are
they? 1t would be flattery to call them
a mere pretense or a fake. They are
journalistic billboards and nuisances.
Chicago Chronicle.