Imperial Valley press., 1939-03-10
THE READERS
CHOICE
Collier $ MagaZine)

ANoliACA > NAe4StNNLlANI
Messrs. H. L. Ickes and Thurman Ar
mold have lately revived the old Ameri-
can sport of heckling the newspapers.
Mr.. Ickes peddles the familiar line of
goods about how the papers are slaves
to their advertisers, diStOrt or suppress
news. and so on. Mr.. Arnold has new
one. TO our best knowledge. He has been
pouting prettily because advertising eN-
lists and newspapers and magazines pub
lish Though he hasn't offered, at the
time of going to press, a substitute
means of passing around word as to
what goods are to be had where.
Just for the record, we'll stick our
cents worth into this seemingly endless
debate about the merits and dement's
of the press in the United States
It is true that successful American
newspapers don't habitually insult their
advertisers No more do MeSsrS. lckeS
and Arnold habtually insult President
Roosevelt. by whose good pleasure they
draw their not ungenerouS salaries,
which all of us help to pay. Nor do any
of the rest of us who go on eating regu-
iarly make it a rule to be mean to our
friends and overly kind to our enemies
But it is also true that newspapers
IQdl SIldlu6leSSlN lOoOlN ~ ob'Si SANNA1
quickly win the contempt of advertisers
who have any brains-just as the rest
of US come to despise clumsy flatterers.
And it is also true that there have been
frequent cases of newspapers tossing
out advertisers who tried to control
their editorial policies.
What the papers all really truckle to
is their assorted reading public's assort-
fAih | 20 nt
businesses. the papers have to please
their customers to sell their product.
Yet we've never known a newspaper
heckler to ask the public to change its
nature as a means of getting better
newspapers in this country.
It is true that many a papers owner
or editor has some pet abomination that
can't get fair break in the sheets col
umns The Kansas City Star, for eX-
ample. will not mention or picture
snakes-surely a refusal of freedom of
the press to the humble, hardworking,
underprivileged snakes in and around
Kansas City. Other papers va.riously
dislike and discriminate against John l..
Lewis, Mr.. Ickes, Mr.. Arnold, Earl
Browder, Congressman Dies, President
Roosevelt, Bruce Barton and many other
public figures.
But so do 990. Of us normally duck
down side streets or into convenient
doorways to dodge persons who give US
a pain in the neck. And there are COM
ing to be more and more papers that
lean over backward to be fair to people
or trends they hate, even as Americans
in general are becoming more and more
fairminded.
Indeed American press services ano
newspapers in general purvey a kind of
reporting that we believe to be unique
in the world of today. We mean objec
tive, factual, straight news reporting
with the reporters prejudices and boss
politics ruled out SO far as is humanity
possible The New York Times begal
this reform some forty years ago ano
it is an American press habit today.
But what really matters, we believe
is that American newspapers are tht
most nearly free papers in the world
The alternative is newspaper pres
run by the government, and hence dead
" dull and loaded with lies.
We think the thing for Americans Il
do about their newspapers is to let th'
heckers spiel on. but not to take thC
hecklers seriously until and unless they
propose more informative and more in
teresting than the 1902 human hodge