Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-12-18
PRINTING THE NEWS.

The Richmond News-Leader
takes the VIRGINIA CITIZEN mildly
to task for certain structures on
: the news and advertising as pub
.,,..lished in the city dailies, and sets
: forth its views as to the impor-
lance of publishing the news of
the day, no matter what, deem
ing it the business of newspaper
to print what is going on.
Not having to manage a great
daily, with it's many pages, and
being OF necessity compelled to
put what we havef for our readers
on four small sides of a sheet, we
- are. OF necessity somewhat re-
stricted. No more puzzling task
comes to the average country
editor than to decide Just what
sto select out of the great mass of
news current that he has in hand.
He hos to keep many things in
mind, such as for example the
sort of reading his subscribers
would think entertaining, the
character of the matter selected
from the great pile of clippings
that confront him, the fact that
: the weekly paper is essentially
much more of a family paper
than the great daily, and the
further fact that he has a con-
science to deal with as to the
education he is giving the young
public. 1t would indeed be easy
to fill our four pages with details
ofthe murders, assaults, divorces,
, scandals in high life and in low
as well, and the illimitable mass
OF low comedy and indecency that
flows from this cloaca of scandal
dom, the yellow journal. All this
would be easy, and would no
doubtdelight q certain class. But
the CITIZEN hopes it has higher
p mission and purer field to work
m and a more useful. Why should
we parade the indecencies of So
ciety, the horrible details of such
hth as was printed about the
14E9w people, the miserable
wretchedness of the poor-rich who
liYe,to vindicate their devotion
to the works of impurity and
baseness? Why should we wish
TO tell our country readers that
Count Blase is to marry Miss
Passee and that he gets with her
so many thousands or millions.
and gloat over the subsequent
rot that comes from such al
iianees? Will the boy or girl, the
Young man or woman, be better
lifted for pure and wholesome
life by the knowledge of all this
dreary stuff? We cannot think
so. Ii the CITIZEN cannot 90 to
the homes Gifts readers clean and |
wholesome then we had rather
: close the office and give up the
efort at keeping, so far as posi-
BILE, public morals clean and sweet.
The world is full of wretched-
ness as it lis. Many a home
has had at some time or other a
blight on it, a faint that it would
lam cover up and let die out.
Islander, base and devilish, mars
too many lives as it is. And of
the innocent, the overwhelming
shame OF having their griefs drag,
ged before the public is cruel
. beyond telling. Suppose that
one of our neighbors has slipped
or his family gone astray-better
That the newspaper had never
entered the home than it should
enter 1T to publish the private
grlefs and sorrows of those who
would rather suffer death than
publicity. If it be said that pub
llcity, the advertising of crime,
lessons 1T, We are confident that
lt not only does not, but that on
the contrary it may tend to in.
crease 1T. Tell boy, none too
We'll braced morally, of how a
5 skilful rogue picked a lock or |.
schemed to defraud his EMPLOYER.
and like asnot he will, unless we'll
. balanced, set his alert mind to
sehemlng how he might on occa-
sion do something like it. MANY
q boy, as the records of the police
courts will attest, has had his
first impulse to wrong melted by Il
reading dimenovels and the crime ,
OF the day asretailed in the daily
newspapers much ofwhose revela-
uons resembles that sort of
romance. ,
More and more the newspaper |
Is becoming the great educator {
OF the masses. Let us beware ,
now we educate wrongly. last
we pervert the minds OF these i
young. Better themillstone told !
OF IN the scriptures be hung about {
ones neck.