Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-11-12
MIsHANDLlNG THE NEWS.
{ Sioux City Journal)


An illustration of the way in which
a fact can be stated in such form as
| to amount to a lie was given last
week in the yellow newspaper ham
ding Of various reports concerning
| the laying off of railway construction
gangs. The news came in the midst
of a period of temporary financial
stringency, when the general at
mosphere was blue and the public
was apprehensive that it might hear
| calamity news. The reports Of sus-
pension of construction work on the
railways were featured as calamity
news in many newspapers. The sto-
! ries were printed under big head
lines in connection with stories Of
the financial stringency. In most
cases the public was led to infer
either directly or Indirectly. that the
| railroads were discharging tens of
thousands of employees because OF
absolute need for retrenchment. A
further inference was that the extern
| sion Of this policy in other lines Of
industry would very speedily bring
| hard times. The stories caused much
unnecessary alarm and inspired some
an already ticklish situation.
In most instances the bare news
| was true, but the differences and de-
auctions caused by the methods of
printing it were entirely unwarranted.
In fact. the railways were simply
following the regular order in stop
ping extensive construction work at
the beginning of the winter season.
1t is the custom of all railroads to
employ large amount of labor in
| construction work during the summer
, and autumn. In, the case of new
tracks the effort Is to get them COM
pleted before cold weather. In the
case of old tracks the effort is to get
them In the best possible condition
before freezing weather makes such
work expensive and difficult. In only
exceptional emergency cases is this
class of work continued to any ex.
tent during the winter. Every year
curing the last ten years of prosper
ity the railroads have pursued this
policy OF hiring large numbers Of
men for construction work during
the summer and autumn and dismiss
ing them about November EARLIER
II weather conditions prove unfavor-
able. Until this year no news editor
thought Of playing UP" the an
nual winter suspension of work az an
industrial sensation.
The news was told in few lines as
an incident of railway news Of in
terest only to those who make Iprac-
t1ce OF reading the railroad depart
ment. But last week, when the pub
lie mind was excited over the finan-
c1al and industrial situation, the en-
terprising news editor grabbed these
little items Of routine news, expand
ed them into good stories of pre-
sumably deep Significance and printed
them with such trimmings and sur
roundings as to carry inference that
the whole industrial situation was go
ing to pot. The yellow editors prob
ably didn't mean to do any harm It
is their practice to make the most of
such news as comes to them, and they
probably thought they. were merely
making the most Of these truths in
printing them in such form as to make
them spell calamity, when in reality all
that they spelled was routine. In some
cases that sort of thing does no great
HARM. but in the present Instance the
potentialities of harm doomed large.
Another example of the same sort
Of enterprise" was given by South
Dakota newspaper which got out an
extra, with headlines extending clear
across the front page, to tell Of the
decision Of the local clearing house to
issue emergency currency. The news
was true, but there was no need for
IAN extra to tell of it, nor Of scare
heads to stir excitement about it.
The fact that the news was printed
in about the same style as the news
Of the San Francisco earthquake
tended to make people think some
thing awful had happened It was a
piece of misdirected newspaper enter
prise.
1t is fine tribute to the public in
teligence and to the general conf
dence in the soundness of our insti-
buttons that trying week was not
made vastly more trying by reason
of public panic Little Of the credit
will go to the newspapers whose
main efforts We're directed toward
"making the most Of the news"