Evening star., 1927-04-02
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

protect them in publishing biased and
incorrect accounts of the amount of
crime. We may yet be
forced to the conclusion that news
paper censorship. although undesir-
able, is not the worst of evils.
AS if newspaper censorship-by a
discriminating public of readers-did
not already exist.
The remedy of ignorance of true
conditions is not the act of the ostrich
in hiding facts, but greater and more
"pitiless publicity" provided the aim
of the publication is pro bono
publicO."
At a meeting of circulation man
ayers held in Chicago last month the
experts discussed the question OF sex
| serial stories as builders OF circula'
ton. and one speaker stated
"We used samples in small towns
last Summer, just before q new serlai
story started in our paper We played
the story we'll and ran off a supple
ment of three or four chapters TO dls-
tribute to rural fon-subscribefs. A
day or two later we solicited subscrlp-
tions in the various small towns wnefe
the samples were left, put 1aiied 10
receive enough new subscribers to
X \ \
The Editor and Publisher March
27, contained a report of case in
court in which the New Bedford
(Mass) Standard was accused of at
tempting to influence a jury by pub
fishing court proceedings in triai OF
rum runners. The Standard, which
had published five or six columns a
day about the case. was excoriated by
the defense attorney, who, in his hnai
appeal to the jury. said
1.-THE newspapers of this city, by
studied and continued efforts. by the
use of scare headlines. by stories by
sob artists, have filled the minds Of
newspaper readers within the last
three weeks. That Is the one
thing / fear in this case--the attempt
that has been made to poison your
minds against the defendants"
The jury listened then to the charge
of the Superior Court justice, which
said:
There is no real freedom in those
countries where there is no freedom
of the press. Rather, there is less
freedom, as we see in Soviet Russia
and in Italy under Mussolini. You
can trust the court to care for any
instances of abuse of the freedom of
There has been no such instance in
the trial of this case.
THE press is obligated to the pub.
lie to tell the people, the public, what
we are doing here. We are the serv-
ants of the people and they have the
right to know what the district attor
ney, the jurors and the judge are
doing here, whether we are perform
| ing our duty"
In an address before the Academy
of Political Science. last week, the
eminent journalist, Edward Price Bell,
delivered this summing up of his
views on the mistakes of modern pub
| fishers:
II give 1t you as my conviction that
many editorial chairs creak under
their load of misunderstanding of the
public. Occupants of these chairs
| think the public is shallow. 1t is deep.
| They think the public wants trash. 1t
| wants the best that is known and
! thought in the world Movies are all
| right in their way. Jazz is all right
| in it's way. Comic strips are all right
| in their way. In moments of eXcep-
| tional penetration, even | can see the
| fun in them. But l say to you that
| all these are light diet. ! say to you
that we cannot build up great and
| safe democracy on movies and jazz
and comic strips. Give us these by
| all means-for we do not want to
draw faces overlong-but give us also
| more of the sentiment and the phi
! losophy and the facts that are preg-
nant with the fate of human society"
| Copyright. 1927 by Paul V. Coilins.)