The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1925-04-16
ONE FOR THE NEWSPAPERS.

/ There is good deal of agitation today over
4 the assertion that newspapers the country
over are paying too much attention to the So
called "crime news" Every once in while
some people in nearly every community get
all excited over this question and are deter
mined that the papers are hurrying the coun-
1 try to the boW-wows without any regard for
speed laws. The report came over the wire
the other day that one Of the leading papers
in North Carolina had SO taken these criti-
csms to heart that it had decided to issue
paper for an entire week and suppress all Of
the crime news in the paper during that week.
At the end Of the week, referendum of it's
subscribers is to be taken to find out whether
! or not they desire to have the policy continued.
/ 1t will be interesting to see how that expert
ment turns out both from the standpoint of
/ the newspaper and from the standpoint OF, the
reading public. That, however, is another
story.
AS we started out to say, almost everybody
appears to the newspaper man, to have his
hammer out to decry the alleged prevalence
of "crime news, in the paper although every
newspaper writer knows that the crime stories
are usually the ones most eagerly read by the
public. In the face of this, it is rather COM
forting to the members of the fourth estate to
find a man Of prominence who has not taken
Such a man, is DR.. Lenluel Herbert Murlin,
until recently President of Boston university,
and few weeks ago called to take the chair
Of President of his alma mater, DePauw uni
versity at Greencastle, Ind. In an address
which he delivered recently at Greencastle he
touched on this very question. He told how
short time ago he had been thrown in with a
certain Monseigneur, high church official of
Boston, who seemed to be beset with the idea
! that the newspapers delighted in spreading a
crime propaganda.
Here is DR.. Murlins account of his conversa-
\ ton:
| Il inquired, How are things going with
/ you, Monseigneur? oh, very bad. The
world is going to the devil Look at the
newspapers Have you ever tried to get
any good thing newsy and bright into the
newspapers? | inquired I continued:
I have found newspaper reporters pretty
good fellows. I'm afraid in the past had
/ the same sort of attitude that you have
now, but / have changed my policy about
it in the last few years / find they are a
very good lot, and they want to help such f
fellows as you and me- / don't think the
bad headlines and stories in the news
papers are an indication of bad situa-
! ton. Rather, I think it is a hopeful indi-
cation. A man may go along quietly, take
good care of his wife and family for three
/ hundred and sixty-fve days in the year,
be a good citizen for forty years, and
nothing is said about it. Goodness is not 4
news. Some day he gets angry, unexpect-
edy Suddenly something happens. He
hits his wife over the head with poker.
He gets into the newspapers on the front
page and in the headlines for the first
time in his life of fifty years, as the re
suit of three-minute act. What does
that mean? 1t means that goodness is
not news; that badness is news It is news
| because it is unusual 1t is q pretty good
sign when the newspapers are filled with
bad stuff, because badness is SO unusual
as to be news and goodness is so usual and
ordinary that it is not news"
! While we have no particular brief for crime
news, it is evident from the above that like
everything else, it is not all bad. And most
certainly, at the present day at least, the
Doctor would have made better newspaper
man than the Monseignuer.