The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-05-22
TO SANER JOURNALISM,

| JoSephus Daniels, Secretary of the
Navy, and owner and publisher of the
Raleigh IN. CO. News-Observer, at
the recent annual dinner of the New
York Press Club, brought out one fact
which cannot be too forcibly impressed
upon the newspaper reporters and edi-
tors of the country-and that is the
Importance of bringing out the good
as well as the evil, when writing up
news stories.
| In part, Mr.. Daniels said: IF I had
been publishing a great newspaper in a
| great centre in this country and had
made millions of dollars, as. they tell
me some of our brethren have made, I
tell you how / would use it. I would
not stop to. endow colleges, valuable
as that investment is, but would take
that money, I would call around me the
best talent in Journalism and I would
say to the young men who know how
to write: Go up and down this city and
ferret out to the world the good deeds
that shine, and lay them before the
people who read the papers,
There is more news in the noble
deeds going on in this city and every
city in America every day than there
is in the gaudiness of the White Way,
AASSSsS
shall dig out those stories, present
them to the people in clear and in
teresting way-but, boys, you have got
to dig for them. The trouble with
too many of us is that we are writing
what is on the surface, and men and
women who are giving their lives to
brighten homes and lift up our fellows
are not doing it with a brass band.
THE day ought never to come, and,
please God, it will never come until we
cease being Americans, when any pub
lie official can lay his hands upon a
free and untrammeled press. 1t is the
safeguard of our liberties, and public
men who do not take kindly to criti-
cism and speak harshly of papers that
criticise public acts have a mistaken
view. am authority only on one
thing on the earth, and that is criti-
cism of public officials. I devoted
most of my life to roasting them, and
some of my life to being roasted, but
Mr.. Jefferson was right when he said,
az the choice were given him between
a free government and free press, he
would choose the free press, because
no nation that has free press will
long be without a free government.
I'VE must print all the news, I say.
But in a time like this, when many
men have not recovered their mental
shock, and when so many people have
been gassed, one way or the other, the
duty of the Journalists of America is
to print that America in it's crops, in
it's mines, in it's factories, is teeming
with industry and prosperity, and
though here and there we find it nec-
essary to deport anarchists-and we
will deport every one that comes here
and abuses the confidence of our gov
eminent and punish those who are not
aliens who are equally guilty-we new
ertheless remember and have daily
proof that the American people as a
whole are not only sound to the core
in their Americanism but they have the
courage to keep this old Ship of State
on an even kell; and it will sail into
the port carrying this nation to greater
glory if we will only have the faith in
it and let the people know the truth
that America is sound, true to the old
principles, and will preserve them in
the future as it has in the past
The Importance and value of this
opinion coming from Mr.. Daniels, can
not be estimated in the influence which
it is bound to exert upon the young
iIcii WHO ASdIu uAlu anu upon diI VINO
are sensing the danger Of an exaggera-
ton of evil and suppression of the
good in the newspapers of certain
type.
In his talk to the newspaper men,
Mr.. Daniels particularly stressed the
Importance of not over-emphasizing
headlines, declaring: Let me write
your headlines and I care not who
writes your editorials" Recently, in
an interview in the Fourth Estate.
Mr.. Daniels did not minimize the inn
portance of the editorial page; he
stressed its great value declaring it
to be the very heart and soul Of any