Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-09-14
DRAMATIC COLOR IN JOURNALISM
The Modern Newspaper he American Novel; So Long
Awaited, and Every Reader Is Character in the Story
Personal journalism" in It's New Definition
By BURTON KLINE
OF the Editorial STAFF Evening Transcript

or the Editorial stan OF IN
CPEAKING Of anniversaries, it must be
~ just about fifteen years ago that some
thing new was begun in American journal
ism. The beginning was bad, but it has been
tempered and improved since then Not that
the change was sudden The new order is
the resultant of influences 80 small and it's
progress has been so gradual that even those
of us who are intimately concerned with the
making of newspapers are scarcely yet
aware of what has happened. Readily to
grasp all that the newspaper of today has
become, you have to leaf back over the files
of fifteen years ago for comparison.
Those were the days when the literary
critics were sharply watching for the great
American novel'-watching, but never find
ing. They have never yet found it, though
the great American novel has really ap-
peared-it began to appear fifteen years ago
You who read this are holding in your hands
a leaf of it now. The great American novel
is the great American newspaper
AS recently as fifteen years ago a newspa-
per was still a newspaper. AS then under
stood, the business of newspaper was to
present the news. That alone. Well, it pre-
sented the news, badly, soberly, drily, with
out notice Of the great fact that news is life
Imagine, for example, how the daily of that
Il
the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania
In the editors eye it would naturally project
as a supremely important piece of marine
intelligence" And he would let it so at that
All the immense human significance in the
sinking of the greatest ship on her maiden
voyage all the atmosphere of drama sur
rounding such an event, he would have been
sure to neglect, as being outside the province
of a newspaper All that he would have left
to the novelist The editor of today is al
most ready to condone the catastrophe that
offers him the opportunity to play the novel
list himself, the best way he can, and proudly
show it in his paper.
There are still a few newspaper readers
who cling to a preference for that detached
and impersonal presentment of the news OF
the older days. In their staid and reliable
old favorite journals they daily shocked
to discover insidious traces of this new lean
ing toward life and color. For even the
older papers begin to open their eyes TO the
real possibilities in a newspaper. At least
they have sensed what any one may see for
himself that the newspaper as it is now
would never be suffered to exist and prosper
If public taste were not overwhelmingly in
its favor.
The truth is that the newspaper OF today
has taken to itself the whole province OF lit
erature. People have not ceased TO buy and
read books or to visit libraries They buy
more books than ever. but not so many
more books as they should, according to the
rise in our population. That rise in the
number OF readers in America is reflected far
more certainly in the swelling circulatious
OF our newspapers than in the comparatively
stationary circulation lists Of the book pub
Usher We read many more books than we
did, but we read Overwhelmingly more news.
papers than we read twenty years ago.
A Daily Book
Consciously or unconsciously the publish
ers of newspapers have felt this. They and
their millions Of readers have silently agreed
that the newspaper shall be no longer
newspaper alone. The daily paper has be-
come a daily book. 1t has all the qualities
OF a novel. except one. The news, the occur
rences of the day. great and small II handles
as what they are-facts in life, that bear
some relation 10 the life Of every man who
reads II handles these facts precisely as a
novelist would handle them The reporter
to be a good reporter now. must be more
than a recorder OF facts and figures He
must be something Of critic OF life The
older reporter would have told simply and
accurately the details by which ten-year-old
Minnie Jones came TO her death. crushed
against an elevated pillar by skidding mo-
tor truck. The aim Of a good reporter OF
today is 10 make the reader feel that Minnie
Jones was a real person, whose loss means
as much TO her unknown father as the
father who reads the paper would suffer IN
the loss Of his own child
That characterizes slightly and roughly.
the newspaper Of our time II has ceased 70