The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1912-12-03
NEWSPAPERS AND CRIME.

taken to task for his severe rasping
Of the newspapers of today. He is
quoted as having denounced the papers
for playing up the names of crime in
I type an inch high, giving vicious de-
tails of court proceedings from which
courts have excluded boys and carry
ing these details into the home" IKE
is also quoted as saying "the modern
newspaper drains the sewers of civili-
zation and poisons the fountains of
morality; and you hold your nose, bur
make no protest"
The Raleigh News aid Observer IS
quoted as making the following COM
ment upon Dr. Pote4at's position:
There is really no place in this
sensible world for a newspaper 70
suppress a story of crime because
news of wrong-doing may injure pub
lie morals. The newspaper must print
the news/such as it is. 1t is no long
er a newspaper when it suppresses
what Everybody is talking about,
whether it be a lrder, suicide, an
assassination, lon or a political
address. "It is a map of busy life"
/and must be true map. The swanps
and depressions must appear as we'll
as the mountains and hills. If a paper
prints only good things, its readers
come to have an incorrect knowledge
of the world and think that sin no more
reigns. If a paper prints only stories
of vice and crime, the readers come TO
think that the world is place Of
crime and evil. The truth lies be-
tween. The paper must print the news
of the day, never appealing to the vul-
gar taste or dishing up stories of
crime to attract those with low tastes.
"Give me no expurgated newspaper %
declared Lyman Abbott at Trinity COL
lege. 81 must read in my morning
paper the happenings of the day-the
good, the bad and the indifferent-so
that I can for myself see the world as
it is. If I read only of the good deeds,
1 feel no impulse to reform. If read /
only the stories of crime, grow help
less thinking the world is all bad. The
expurgated journal has no place for
the man who is truly trying to know
exactly what the world believes in so
that he may be most helpful in his
generation
Lyman Abbott's position is more
nearly right than is President Poteat's.
if the latter is correctly quoted"
AS we see it, there is much to be
said on both sides of the question. DR..
Poteat is no doubt too sweeping in his
denunciation, but even yet in this day
it may be said with truth that the ten
dency is too much toward giving the
details of crime AS the News and
Observer says, the newspaper must
print the news. It is daily mirror
of what the world is doing, aud if only
the good things we're printed il would
not be a true mirror. But there is a
way of printing the news and another
way of printing it.
We heard gentleman only the 9TH
er day say that he always tried t. get
hold of the paper before it went into
his home because there was so often
something in it that he di3 not care
for his children to read. He may have
been over sensitive. It is probably not
best for the child to train it I'D 20 TIE
idea that there is nothing but coed in
the world, because when it cones to
rub up against the real woriG it may
receive too great shock to withstand
it. At the same time it is a fact that
too many of the newspapers dc play
up a little too much the details of hor-
rible crimes of all kinds. This can
not be for the moral uplift of the peo-
pie and impressions made on the
youthful mind are enduring aud the
more horrible the crime the more en-
during they are.
The newspaper is an educator-a
school r,ooctor opd ;f 4bo o,,b1;,o4;o,,