The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-31
How 10 Read The Age-Herald
By RALPH R. SILVER

The art of reading a newspaper must be acquired. To the average daily labor ing man, the perusal of half dozen pages of Shakespeare would be forced and very arduous and distasteful task. How surprised is the young high school student as the professor in English reveals the beauty and hidden mean ings and peculiar construction found in the great classics of English litera- ture and which the student had never suspected existed as he read the same words while preparing his lesson Not that there are hidden meanings and subtle beauty of construction tucked away in the columns of the daily news paper, but fhat as the student learns to appreciate the masters of literature so must the average man and woman learn to read and love to read tho American newspaper, is the object here in comparing the two.
 Eliminating, of course all consider ation of the alleged stories which are printed for graft and for an advertise ment of the man with a pull,' every story printed in a newspaper is pub lshed because the editor who handled it. a human being who is very much in touch with the passions and vices and weaknesses and good points of the paper readers, believed that a lot of people would read it. be interested in 1t, discuss 1t while at work and watch the next morning for any further de- velopments always liable to follow. Every story In every paper has some particular reason, and a good reason, for being there; for it was chosen out of many others, which had to be thrown away on account of lack of space, as being the story of the largest interest to the papers readers. Every story concerns some man or woman or some child or some event In human life which has a direct and strong appeal to the interest and curiosity of the person who picks up the paper to read it.
 Aud yet how often has the expression been heard:
 paper this morningl Wonder how it's possible to print so much stuff every day and not line that anybody ever cares to readY
 That sounds like something wrong. Two opinions which decidedly conflict. Was the editor who used that story q blocxhead who did not know what the
  who tried to read it Just "out of tune" and didn't know himself what he want ed to read?
 The editor was a man who makes 1t his business to know what is story" that is. what the people want to read. That's what he draws his salary for.
 The reader who said there was noth- ing in the paper has been acquainted with himself for some time. probably a good deal longer than the editor, and therefore Is surely able to know what he wants to read. When he said there was nothing In the paper, he meant that there was nothing there which interested him. Some of those stories there might .interest his neigh bor or his governor or his mayor or his banker, but he didn't care anything about them
 For the sake of argument, suppose that what this particular reader says Is true. In all the whole earth with her l,522, 700,00o humans of all creeds, all colors, all shapes, all ambitions and all stages of civilization. didn't one thing happen in .4 hours to inter est that reader? Of course there did Then if it happened. didn't any of the hundreds of newspaper reporters in the world hear about it and put it on to the telegraph wires which would spread it everywhere? There is chance that such might have happened but out of the hundreds of stories that it is con fessed happened some place, isn't 1t only fair to estimate that part of them and In most cases nearly all of them, were discovered by some newspaper reporter and written up and placed on the tel egraph wires and few minutes later were In the editorial rooms of news paper offices in all four corners of the globe?
 Therefore. as the geometry professor says, stories which would be of interest to this newspaper reader occurred were discovered and written up and sent and arrived in the offices of the newspaper not very long after the actual event took place. The matter then sifts down to point of issue between the editor and the reader as to which of the two knew what the latter wanted to read.
 Somebody reads the paper and likes to read it, or the publisher would fail.' Where there are no subscribers and no circulation there is no newspaper This Asaders himself has confessed that thara