New Britain herald., 1925-02-07
AT YOUR LIBRARY

I the success books 1t means that one Is due for great career as an in- yentor. but In practical life that one investigates the only good alarm clock in the house and has at least six wheels left over! But in spite. of such deterring experiences one can't help getting excited over books which reveal the apparent simplicity of doing complicated things. Max ing furniture or tin can toys or fondant sounds so easy that one looks with a superior and specula- tive eye on the most artistic pro-, duets of craftsmen-until one tries it. u
 Now, for instance look at this newspaper you are reading. You have some hay notion that some- one telegraphed some news to some- one else and that by some unknown process 1t miraculously appeared on your back porch, obviously through the agency of small boy, but &C., tually through the work of hun dreds of people.
 Can you put the paper down and without looking, tell what kind of type is used in the headlines, how they arc arranged on each page and how much information you get from each? The chances arc that you can't. It is so well done that you are perfectly unaware of the tech- nique. And yet we have whole book on just that subject, News paper Makeup and Headlines by Radder. It also includes very ex- cellent advice on copy reading and the law of libel.
 And of course you read the edi- torial with even less thought of how 1t was done, You either agreed with the editor or thought he was all wrong and wondered about telling him so. And yet that too has very definite technique and object. In Editorial Writing by Spencer there is a most stimulating discussion of the ethics, policy and practice of writing different types of editorials. such as the human interest kind, or ones on politics or local problems Besides telling one just how to do 1t and what to avoid, it gives very interesting examples of editorials that went and those that didn't and why.
 And then there are the special feature articles which make Sunday papers such good reading. They ray be about some famous person or anew invention or just an or dinary person who has an extraor- dinary experience. Bleyer in his Special Feature Articles discusses ways of making these popular by choosing a subject everybody is in- tcrested in and putting on a clever catchy title and writing 1t in a live ly suitable style. One gets so in- terested in the examples at the end of the book that the principles sink in automatically.
 Why doesn't one skim the paper +and skip the advertisements espe- cially when one is too financially stricken to be interested in buying? It's simply because they are 50 ar- ranged that when your eye lights on them you read without any very conscious intention. This making an advertisement pop Is almost as much due to the. printer as to the man who writes it. In Making Type Work by Benjamin sherbow shows how prosperous, dignif1ed, but ut terly dull looking paragraph can be made irresistibly readable by using variety of type, plenty of white space, and proper balance.
 It would be fun to see if one could do 1t wouldn't it? Well, the logical place to begin is the school paper. Journalism in High School by Charles Dillon is an excellent guide book for the making of a poppy but worthwhile publication. It tells about getting it supported by the students, about editing, copy read ing, making headlines, editorial writ ing and closes with a chapter on what you may expect if you take up journalism as a career. The chap ter on words to be avoided Is par ticularly good. Of course 1t Is high ly improbable that any of your fav- orite expressions will be included in the forbidden "journalese" but it is entertaining to see what some peo- pie do.
 After you have whetted your ap- petite with that you will want to read the really standard all around book on journalism which is News paper Writing and Editing by Bleyer. It tells how the news is gathered and coordinated, the headlines made, the arrangement of the page planned and the whole finally put into type. Particularly interesting is the description of an emergency and its handling. As an example he tells how the news of the Titanic disaster came in just five minutes before the l "dS u SO AO piCoS anu tii' way they got the edition out almost on time.
 The Young Man and Journalism by Lord also gives a fair all around picture of the business with its tribu- lations as well as Its satisfactions. A Handbook for Newspaper Workers by Hyde is particularly good for its discussion of newspaper English The chapters on proof reading and handling pictures and cuts are also excellent.
 ' Opportunities in the Newspaper Business by Lee contains short lec- lures on the kind of work done by the country press, the small town paper and the big metropolitan daily. The Community Newspaper Its Problems and Development by Haines and Horpe gives sensible ad- vice on making a small town news paper both sound business project I