Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/484



papers are far more conservative than the English : not a single American newspaper begins to print with such fullness of detail the accounts of certain crimes and divorce trials as are found in the great London papers. Mr. Strachey commended very highly in his address the motto of The New York Times, " All the news that's fit to print."

Contrary to the generally accepted opinion, newspapers, even the most sensational, suppress much more than they print in the matter of criminal news. If suppression would serve the people as a whole better, the story of crime is omitted. One illustration, taken from an address by the city editor of a great metropolitan daily before a state city editors' association, will show how con- scientious is the city editor worthy of that title:

Since I have been in 1 there was a minister in one of the larger

churches there, a high-salaried man, looked up to by his congregation and the city at large and regarded as one of the brightest men in his denomination in the world. It was brought to the ears of a certain city editor not myself that this man had been guilty of immoral practices, and men were put to work to run the stories to earth. Those stories were proved, and if they had been printed they would have been the sensation of the nation for a few days. But they never got beyond the city editor, and for this reason he knew that to print them would disrupt that church, break up several families, and bring sorrow to hundreds of homes. So this is what he did. The minister in question was called in: the facts were shown him and a typewritten agreement handed him. This agreement provided that he was to resign his pulpit, quit the ministry and the city forever, and never again write or speak a word in public. The minister did all that. There was no publicity, and the church was saved, although shocked by the minister's sudden re- tirement. To-day he is living on a farm, a quiet, studious man.

Had this city editor suppressed the news, without the in- fliction of the penalty given, he would have been false to his trust. On several occasions where irregularities of conduct in priest and rabbi have been simply suppressed, offenders have gone to other parishes only to disgrace the cloth again. Had full publicity been given in the first instance, results would have been different and certain newspapers could have had a clearer con- science.

1 I have suppressed the name of the city for the same reason the city edi- tor suppressed the story. J. M. L.