The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1915-07-22
YALE STUDENT'SDESCRIPTION
OF AN IDEAL NEWSPAPER
Paul Jacob Banker, Of Midd|etown, Ohio, Class Of
1915, Wins Prize Offered by New York Even
ing Post for the Best Essay on:-"The Ideal
Newspaper" Fifteen Essays Were Submitted.
Selected from the New York Evening Post.
Continued from last week.

| political adversaries in their every
move. AS it so happens that there
is very little difference in the ex-
pressed tenets of our two principal
parties, a newspaper which con-
stantly attacks the one and defends
the other is open to the very palpa-
BILE charge of placing it's party before
its country. The sphere of influence
of such a paper is limited strictly to
the members of its own political
party. The independent paper will
be in the long run" the more influ-
entail, as it has the option of cham
pioning the cause which it deems
just, rather than that which it's party
dictates.
The most beautiful typography in
the world. a staff OF the most brilliant
writers that it would be possible to
assemble, and an editorial policy
as lofty as the stars, would not av-
all to make a newspaper a wide
spread force in the community, if it
did not have wide circulation.
Without big circulation, it is i'm
possible to get advertisers, and with
out advertisers it is in convenient to
pay it's writer's and it's paper bills,
and hence hard to maintain it's in
dependence of commercial control
Here is sort of interacting, vicious
circles, everything depending on
circulation, and circulation depend
ing upon the appeal of news in the
columns. Before newspaper can
educate or form the opinions of the
public, the public must read it, and
the public will not read it unless it
finds iu its columns that which ap-
peals to it. Authority and popular
ity are the two attributes which an
ideal newspaper must have at all
costs, in order to attract and COM
mand the attention of the public
through any extended period.
At the beginning, newspapers
were compared with two other insti-
tutions which have as their object
the form of public opinion, namely,
the schools and the church. Each of
the three is important in its own
field. The schools undertake to ef-
feet men mentally. and by properly
training their intellects, to make of
them better members of society.
The Church aims at the betterment
of men spiritually, and, by impress
ing upon them religious truths, to
promote morality and brotherly
love in the world. The newspa-
pers' aim should include both of
these, as well as a third, namely. to
educate men politically and to make
them better citizens. All three, in
the last analysis, are seeking, or
should seek, to make men better
citizens. and to make it possible for
them to live together with a mini
mum of friction and incompatibility
The influence which a given
school or college exerts on a COM
munity depends altogether upon the
personality and ideals of it's teach
ers, the power of the Church in
touching mems lives depends even
more upon the example and iDspir-
ing characters of it's ministers, and
the effect which newspaper makes
upon it's public is dependent no less
upon the individuality and resource
fullness of its editor. A good editor
will make for healthy influence,
and bad editor for it's opposite.
An ideal newspaper must have
Ian idealistic editor. The mere mech