The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-02-08

1
world The modern newspaper occu-7
pies a large place in the shaping of
| democracy.
IL. The Weak Points of the Modern
Newspaper.
/ 1. Much of the advertising, espe-
cially in the larger newspapers, is un-
worthy of a civilized press.
Many of our largest newspapers still
1 think it necessary to print liquor adj
vertisements. Very many more carry
what might almost be termed even
| more vicious advertising than the adj
vertisement of liquor in the tremen-
ldous display of nostrums for the cure
of every i'll known to mankind. The
patent medicine business is sustained
and retained by hosts of newspapers
which continue to print every day the
most stupendous claims. If all the
money the people of this country spend
| for patent medicines which they spend
because they see the advertisements
| in the papers were thrown into the
sea, we would have ten times the phys
zeal health and vigor we have
InoW and if it were all spent for le-
ultimate and scientific methods of
keeping well it would increase the
healthfulness of the race twenty fold.
| There is another kind of advertis-
| ing which demonstrates the weakness
| of certain kinds of newspapers
vicious and misleading and in many
cases almost criminal advertising of
fortune tellers, clairvoyants. personal
notices of parties who claim they want
to meet individuals for matrimonial
purposes, etc. Advertisements for eX-
ample, of this character. flood the
coIumns of many of the great metro
politan daiIies: Gentleman, a Stran-
ger in the city, would like to meet a
young working girl" Your fortune
can be told from the cradle to the
grave. Send three two-cent stamps
and your birth date. I will surprise
| you" Again, Love. health and wealth
| foretold.'' Poor, proud, goodlooking,
honest young man tired of poverty,s
struggle would like to correspond with
young woman" These advertisements
appear by thousands in newspapers
which have apparently good reputa-
ton otherwise. Some of these adver-
tisements can hardly be read aloud in
a mixed audience, they border so near
the indecent, Other advertisements
carried by newspapers are on the face
of them inducements to crime. The
astonishing thing about this weakness
/ of many of our papers is that no one
seems to care very much Yet accord
\ ing to a recent writer the answers to
these advertisements are thousands in
number and people OF every descrlp-
/ ton are swindled and cheated and in
many cases lured into lives of shame
| on account of advertisements which
the editors and proprietors of these
papers have no moral right to accept.
| There is great need of reform along
this line. The temptation to the news
paper proprietor to take advertising
matter must be at times something al
most overwhelming; but after wading
| through g. large number of eastern pa
pers, which contain more than any
other this kind of advertising,
was reminded of the old story of the
subscriber to an old magazine in New
England who wrote to the editor Civ
! ing a description of himself in which
| he said: 81 have been an invalid for
| forty years. I have been a subscriber
| to your paper during all that time and
| a constant reader. I have been great
me-" 1t would take more than grace
| to sustain some people If they sub
scribed to some of these papers and
read them, especially if the reading in
| cluded the advertisement columns.
2. Another weak point in the mod
Tern newspaper is its unwarranted IN
vasion of private affairs.
If should learn one day that one
| of my neighbors was having quarrel
with his wife and that the quarrel had
reached the point where they had de-
cided to separate, 1 might go over to
| his house, knock at the door and go
in to make a call. Suppose I should
say my wife and I have just heard
that you are having troubles here in
your family circle. We are very much
interested in your affairs and We would
| like to know the details. When did
| this quarrel begin? When do you eX-
! pect to be separated? What DISPOSE
ton will be made of the property? Do
either of you anticipate being mar
ried again, and if so. to whom? My
wife and I would like to have the pho
tographs of all the parties interested
with a full account of your family
troubles from the time they began to-
gether with the sequel so far as you
| can now furnish it.
If I should do a thing like that with
my neighbor it seems to me it would
give him a reasonable excuse to en-
terrain at least the idea that he might
possibly kick me out of the house; but
a good many modern newspapers do
not hesitate literally to invade a fam
| lily under just such circumstances, get
all the details and all the rumors and
print page or two, especially If the
| people are we'll known socially. In
other words, what is not permitted an
individual and what would be consid-
cred most insulting and impossible
thing on the part of an individual, the
modern press does not hesitate to do.
Discreditable Reporting.
| Representative of eastern newspa
pers have without any hesitation prac
tically forced their way into my study
of this church and practically de-
manded an interview or subject matter
| for publication in their papers cover
| ing work some of which was to my
mind of 2. private and personal char
acter with which the public had no
business: and when these representa-
tives were told respectfully that it was.
none of their business and the public
| had no possible right to the matter in
question they have replied that they
had been sent to get a story and would
get one anyway. So it made no diff
| ference to them except some possible
! in dalaV " q T
would submit to their demands or not.
| If one person should hold up another
at the point of a gun and demand his
money it would in most civilized coun-
tries be regarded as at least open to
criticism. But certain types of news
papers in this country, especially in the
great centers of population in the east
| do not consider it to be ANYTHING out