New Britain herald., 1924-10-29

pIl"' HSIt'
 Wen answer that question: If there had been worlds champion ship hcavyweieht prize fight to be reported in the same issue it would have clbowcd inc prince story for room on. the first pages of the Bos- ion papers, and would have obtained a wider reading among cultured and uncuIturcd Bostonians.
 Which brings us to the point of asking, what constitutes news values? We have listened to many discussions of this topic, by men of affairs and by persons in the professions, And invariably they give the impression that if they were running newspaper" the emphasis on some kinds of news would disappear altogether, while other kinds of news, of the so- called constructive" variety, would receive the emphasis.
 One speaker recently said the papers were filled with trtvialitles. We enjoyed hearing the statement and to be frank, we knew perfectly well that in view of ineXperience in judging news values, the speaker was lacking in the ability of news discernment. What he meant to say was that the, papers were filled with what he personally regarded { as trivial, which is very different i thing.
 1 Newspapers are not printed i primarily for judges, lawyers, doc- tors, preachers. newspaper men or men of any particular profession l The papers are not professional or i trade journals. A judge will not find anything in them as interesting ! 10 him as the details of decisions of the supreme courts or other courts; a lawyer will not find any thing as interesting to him as court i decisions annotated and com piled by the legal journals, although he will get summary of most ot them in the newspapers first; a doc tor fails to get the mental nourish-
 ment out of them that he gets out
 of some medical journals and medl-
 cal books, a preacher finds in them
 less of the uplift than he gets out
 of religious periodicals or thcologi'
 cal books; a newspaper man looks
 the whole paper over with, criti'
 cal professional eye and appraises
 a newspaper from professional
 standard. None of them constitute the dNtIdSt IS"NNi'
 And 1t is the average reader Wht
 buys the papers, enjoys what is II
 them and pays the freight
 A newspaper which attempted t'
 be so constructive as to please
 judges, lawyers, doctors preacher
 or newspaper men would soqn fint
 the bulk of the average reader
 turning elsewhere for their news 1nnumerable editors have discov
 cred to their cost that the publi
 may lack a high technical appraisa
 of what it ought to read as news
 but somehow it knows what 1 wants and insists on getting it. What is trivial to one man a highly interesting news item t another, and what friend husoan regards as trivialities may appea the best news in the paper to frien . wife And as the modern compre bensive family newspaper is req by all members of the family wha 5 friend husband and friend wife ma regard as worth while reading th
 growing generation may discard . fo,.o- of something else in tn
 paper.
 The man who isn't interested l football begrudgos the space dc
 voted to that sport just now; tn Il same holds true of the man Wh n is not interested in golf, who think y golf is trivialtty. On the oth' c hand, those interested in followin y both sports think that particul' 5 type of news is the most importaI
 in the newspapers.
 iS Edward Box, for years editor Il the Ladies Home Journal w j. once asked if his remarkable SUI .e cess was predicated upon a know Il edge of what women wanted read. Box answered in the neg '' tive. saying he didn't know but d .h the best he could to please 'N classes of women.
 Cyrus Curtis, owner of the satu
 day Evening Post, once was visit
 by a friend who told him he hi
 enjoyed every article in the Pc ,n the previous week and soug a- highly to commend Curtis for ha E ing an editar who could produ l. such an interesting publicatio of When the friend had left Cur ty called in his editor, told him sbo -. .4. fs-.z5r. ,s5rf4 and fine "h,