The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-09-17

am not arralgning newspapers OF
newspaper men. 1 am asking the ques-
ton whether the best use is being made
of power and what ideas OF life our
youth are getting from the ordinary
daily paper in our large cities.
EVIL FEATURES.
Take up one. Read the headlines:
'Murder-Suicide-D ivorce-Robberie
Scandal Here are given the details
of the indecencies of an actress, there
the adulteries of a millionaire, etc,
etc. When I came to Honolulu I
thought that 1 should miss the tele-
graph news. I soon found that I was
glad to miss it. The gist of important
matters is given, about which one can
read later, If they are about matters
of real interest, but the crimes and
seductions and frauds, the dirt and
slime of the world, 1 was glad not
to have served up at MY breakfast
table and thrust before the eyes of my
children
I said once to an editor something
about the pity it was that a paper
should so largely be filled up with the
wickedness of the world. He said:
You must remember that newspaper
is mirror of life" The more I
thought of what he said the more
clearly l saw that he was wrong. The
columns telling of vice and crime are
not mirrors of life as it is any more
than a gang of convicts walking on our
streets is mirror of our men, or any
more than a picture of hula girls in
lewd posture constitutes mirror of the
life of women in these Islands.
HONOLULU PRESS MORALS.
1 am thankful that there is here a
press which avoids the description of
indecencies and scandals and descrip-
lions of vice in words of supposed
humor. But from the columns of some
papers the youth must get the idea
that society is made up of men and
women wholly given to materialism,
frivolity and scandalous deeds. We
who are experienced know how many
noble men and women with lofty pur-
poses in society. We know, also,
that, despite the fact that the youth
from his reading might think that
there was not an honest or honorable
nan in public life, we know differ
emily.
/ am aware that newspaper men say
that vice and crime must be shown up.
Yes, the Bible tells of sin and shame,
but here is the difference: No one can
read such an account, as that of David,
for exan.p pie, without being impressed
with the hatefulness of sin, the GER
tainty of judgment, and the sincerity
of the mans repentance. But In the
crimes and adulteries shown up in
many newspapers, often in that m1ser-
able attempt to be funny, which / am
glad to note is going out of fashion,
do these accounts impress the youth
rf,1l-
ness of sin and the judgments of God?
All that it does, as 1 believe, is to make
the youth familiar with scenes of
shame and to blunt their moral sense.
and to give them an incorrect idea Of
life al, it is. The scum is served up
and they mistake the scum for the real
life
/ know how much the ordinary edi-
itor hides out of consideration of the
feelings of families. ] know how much
might be printed that is not-but the
responsibility of the press as the great
eacher should lead newspapers to have
in mind not the mere vending of news,
but the good of society and the crea-
ton of a right view of life. /
THE SUNDAY PAPER.
Just a word about the Sunday news |
paper. How much is there in the or
binary Sunday paper which makes for
the moral uplift of the people? And as
for the sheets supposed to be funny,
in them are coarse and wretched pic
lures with stories of boys who are i'm
pertinent to their mother or who del
ceive her, and of boys who attempt to
deceive a sly old grandfather who 1
gets the better of them. All that / can
see in them is the teaching of disre-
pect to authority and age and the
of cunning and lying.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Who then is responsible for the fact |
that the newspaper is not the power
for good which it might be? That it
is not the factor in the education of the
people that it should be in all that
tends to produce right view of life
and duty?
The owners and editors will tell you
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES