Evening star., 1939-04-21

The American Society of News
paper Editors, holding a three-day
convention here, turned its atten-
ton to the ladies this morning.
Members of the society heard
three crack woman newspaper re-
porters deliver lively lectures on the
problems related to attracting 1e-
male interest to the news. This ses-
sion followed a shop talk break
fast at the Willard Hotel, during
which the newspapermen engaged in
a frank. but off the record, discus
sion of the criticism leveled at the
United States press in recent months
Dorothy Dix. for many years one
of Americas most famed newspaper
women and whose column of ao-
vice appears regularly in The Star,
led off "the women's hour" in the
Press Club auditorium. She de-
clared:
The modern woman is an avid
newspaper reader, and. without
doubt, the increase in divorce is
largely to be attributed to the break
fast table scraps over who shall grab
the newspaper.
Women are the great distributors
of wealth. Most that hard working
fathers and husbands and brothers
and sons earn goes into the snappy
handbags on the wrists of their
wives and daughters and sisters, and
it is simply pitiful to think that
these women would never know how
many things they want and need if
they don't read about them in the
papers
There is the feminine intelli-
gentsia which is strong for having
editorials and Walter Lippmann and
simply eats up foreign and political
information and is so crammed with
current events and facts and figures
that it is fearsome thing to en-
counter at dinner party.
Advertisements Are Adventure.
AND there are others whose daily
diet is the society column and the
birth and death notices and who
cannot begin the day until they
know which cinema star is getting q
divorce and why.
But almost all women are avid
readers of anything that has human
interest any of the events that
touch real life and that they can
| visualize happening to themselves
or the people they know.
And the advertisements are her
daily. and especially her Sunday, ad-
venture"
Mrs. Inez Robb, Internationa,
News service reporter, declared that
women read about the same things
in newspapers as do men, even tn
the editorial pages.
! MY most earnest advice" she
said, would be for you editors 70
encourage reporters to stop writing
English and write American. We
have a vigorous, colorful language
in this country but outside of the
sports pages, our own language is
not used by newspapers.
Interpretation Is Urged.
Doris Fleeson, Washington cor.
respondent for the New York News
concurred in the opinion that women
were interested in much the same
type OF news as men. She suggested
that the most valuable function a
newspaper could perform for its
woman readers would be to interpret
the important news about Wash
lngton and the foreign situation
Tell them what it actually means
to them"
Participating in the shop talk
breakfast presided over by Tom
Wallace of the Louisville Times were
Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby of the Hous.
ton Post, Edison K. Bixby of the
Springfield (Mo0 News-Leader, Pau
Scott Mowrer of the Chicago Daily
News, w. S. Gilmore, Detroit News
Palmer Hoyt, Portland Oregonian
Basil Walters, Minneapolis Star;
Nathaniel r. Howard, Cleveland
News, and D. J. Sterling, Oregon
Journal.
The editors gathered for lunch
con at noon at which Maj. Gen
Harry H. Arnold, chief of the Army
Air Corps, was scheduled to make
an off f-the-record talk on the worlds
military aviation. Later in the day
clinic on the handling of foreign
news was scheduled.
Last night. the editors went to
the White House for a talk with
President Roosevelt, which also was
off the record.
More Open-Mindedness Asked.
Following their conference with
the President, the editors returned to
the National Press Club, where their
meeting is being held, for recep-
ton. Members of Congress and of
the Press Club greeted them.
Mr.. White sounded the keynote
of the annual meeting at the open
ing session yesterday afternoon,
pointing out that much criticism
was being directed at newspapers
He advised the editors to be more
Open.mindAd VhAn cnnsidArin1