The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-01-29
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1882
Lurid News Stories

We wonder if the ealbfe of news stories
INDUCED in during the past week. to the tune
of two-ineh black headlines. and any other
week for that matter, Is not beginning to
pall upon the finer sensibilities of some few
readers in Waterbury who peruse their
newspapers for general enlightenment, decent
entertainment and now and then advance
ment. 1t is. indeed. sad commentary upon
long esteemed profession, if depravity in all
its emasculations has come to be the yard
stick by which good newspaper work is
measured. That it apparently rings the
easf, register more often must be admitted,
if we are to take its present fanfare as any
criterion.
However, the Democrat likes to believe
that there are those left yet who continue to
deplore the offending of the deeencies even
If Mammon believes that life-in-the-raw
should be served up daily to churn out few
more yellow editions so that this advertiser
and that advertiser may be induced to part
with additional sheekles for the increased
circulation. If this sort of here-to-day and
gone to- morrow reader. forever looking tor
the lurid in life. be any asset to the adver-
tser, then we miss our guess. 1t is the
even -plodding ordinary reader of news
paper, who has seen his own and his friends
lives depicted from the cradle to the grave
down through the span of years. that counts
and guarantees the advertiser stability in elf
culation.
Yet we witness such instances as occurred
this week, stories of depravity. ineorigible-
ness and unbalanced mentality treated as if
the most desperate eut-throat of all times
was at large and the police and citizenry
powerless to interfere. Some few. the more
tin,id women and children at least. had rea-
son to be frightened over the sensational
accounts. Lurid, again we say as in the
case of series of juvenile burglaries last
summer which the same newspapers famed
to Public Enemy No. l notoriety. Both
outbreaks by unbalanced youths were num-
erous and doubly SO owing to the obstacles.
az this weeks culprt himself admitted, put
in the way of quicker and better police
work by too much newspaper publicity.
There is enough of the lurid today in
everything without creating Frankensteln
or Machiavelli out of every would-be
youthful aspirant to crime that comes along.
Youth today is too susceptible to this sort of
thing and the newspaper or person who gorl-
flies in spreading such warped facts unduy
can gamble every time that they are response
bic for starting some other less well-balanced
individual on the downward path. 1t may
be good newspaper work-the c. E. knows
his underworld - but it is not all the news
that's fit to print. the Outstanding prinei-
pie of one of the eountry's leading news
papers not only journalistically speaking.
but commercially as well. We refer those
who are not acquainted with the slogan
quoted above to any days issue of the New
York Times. not the tabloids. the latter of
which too many newspapermen think are
the latest fashion in what a good newspaper
ought to be in these days when most news
papers are apparently edited with cash
register. Extra! EXTRA SlX-GUN
SMITH SHOOTS UP SIXTEEN POLICE
MEN--just little after-supper reading
diversion, another bedtime story for the
children.