Arizona republican., 1917-06-22
Our Veracious Newspapers

Replying to the severe criticism of newspapers, Deems Taylor, in the July Century, also explains the cause of it. People take the papers too seriously. They are either in state of adoration condemna tion. They do realize that the element papers is chiefly human and therefore half time of the American citizen is consumed in praising his newspaper, the other half in ordering his sub. scripton stopped
 As to the veracity of the newspapers Taylor says:
 Newspapers rarely print statements that are at least poor relations of the first place. competition among the newspapers is keen. Facts themselves are explosive enough, and plenty or libel suits in their wake as it is, without papers deliberately hunting for trouble by printing Usually, when an absolute msstatement has appeared in newspaper the papers chief offense is in having believed an untrustworthy source contingency diff fcult to guard against, since any paper more less at the mercy of it's out-of town correspondents and news agencies. Any correspondent fool any newspaper but it is to the credit editors an imaginative correspondent rarely gets ond chance to exercise his talents. After all the principal reason why press does not print lies is that newspaper men class honest conscien- tous beyond the average and according their code strictly honorable. Certain things may be permit ted by that code that may strike the layman as peculiar but deliberate mendacity one of them
 common criticism of newspapers is that too much space is given to matters essentially unim- portant That is, the critic thinks is because it is unimportant to him. But the news editor to whom it would be unimportant if he were not a news editor
 knows that the average reader will regard il as in- teresting. Says MT. Taylor:
 News is not merely the unFonwn or the unusual; 1t is the unusual in which the average person is likely be interested. This average person is the cause of much distortion of values. A great manythings in the world that are important ana deserving of record but in which the average is not interested all. So the newspaper real lzng the importance of these things the hand and knowing the restricted interests the average reader the other contrves make it's accounts of such happenings interesting by laying all the em- phasis upon what few dramatic features they may possess The result is utterly false picture albeit lively one Thus in covering meeting some sclentlflc body a reporter will devote much ms story to the announcement of revolutionary cOvery in analytical chemistry than to the account of squabble the presidency the organization Few people passiOnately interested in chemistry but everybody likes row
 Another apparent distortion of news values is thus explained, possibly for edfcation of those who contemplate dying and would like to die to the best advantage:
 The very typographical layout of a newspaper tends to produce false impression of the relative value of events in that frequently entails giving certain items prominence than they deserve There must always be many front page stories under heads Of appropriate inappropriate size every day. regardless of the of the news mar ket So many activities suspended on Sunday that on normal times Monday is poor day for news Nevertheless, there must be big" stories to go under Mondays front page headlines. the result being that unimportant often blazoned forth with an emphasis grotesquely disproportonate to real significance By dying Sunday afternoon many a worthy citizen has achieved front page euogy and portrait whereas if he had waited nntll "Wednesday he might have had trouble squeezing into the oDltuary column on page eleven