Page:Oregon Exchanges volume 5.pdf/359

OREGON EXCHANGES broader understanding and a greater en joyment of life. It was not so long ago that anything scientific was regarded as “highbrow” stuff beyond the interest of the so-called “man in the street.” Newspapers then stayed outside the whole field of science.

Oregon Exchanges Publihed by the School of Journalism, Unlverlib 0f

O31195

lllued monthly. Entered al second-clale matter at the poatotfice at Eugene, Oregon. Contributions of articlq and items of interut to editors, publishers and printer! of the lhte are welcomed. Free

to

Oregon

Newapapermen; 81.00 a year.

to

all

It is not without significance that the

Pulitzer prize of $1,000 for the best bit

others,

of reporting done in 1922 went to a man,

a reporter on the New York Times, who

Gnome S. Tuar4auu., Editor.

saw the flood of “good stuff” in the con

vention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and reduced it to absorbingly interesting popular

HO FOR HOOD RIVER It is customary at this season of the year for ORnooN Excrumoas to issue a

terms for the average reader. contribut

general appeal to its readers to attend

the convention of the Oregon Editorial Association. This year we’re not going to do that.

Instead, we are merely going to

refer the reader to the articles elsewhere in this edition dealing with the convention.

Then we’re going to ask the reader how he can afford to miss an affair like that. How can he? we ask. Furthermore, this is not one of the years in which, like some

ing to a healthy curiosity about several sciences, including astronomy, chemistry, botany, physics, geology. There is more romance, more drama,

more human interest in the field of science than there is in all the sloppy “human triangles.” What better field for re porting than to bring out this “human in

terest” in the things of value? iVhy should not reporters, in increasing numbers, fit

other editors, the writer of these lines

themselves by reading and study to be

urges everyone else to go, and then fails

that the great majority of the newspapers

come the connecting link between the man of science and learning and the great pub lic—often too harshly called the ignorant public—which does not get his message?

of Oregon will be represented there—be cause he feels that he cannot afford to stay away. We'r“just naturally” going on the supposition that we’ll all be there

The newspapcrman is not without re sponsibility for the state of public intelli gence. He is. and should be, one of the great forces in raising it to a higher level.

if it is “humanly possible.”

This is not done by shooting over the heads of the readers with abstruse mater ial but in taking pains to find the simplest way to tell the complex facts, and then

to turn up himself.

The writer expects

to he at Hood River, for the same reason

A NEWSPAPER FUNCTION

trusting the awakened interest of the read The newspaper is not merely a recorder but an interpreter of the life of its (.'0lll munity at least. and often of a much wider field, to its readers. One of the

er to carry him farther along the way of greater

and

greater

comprehension of

what science is accomplishing

and

a

fuller and deeper sympathy with it all.

functions of the newspaper writer is to reduce to a common denominator of un derstandable popular terms, facts other wise beyond the grasp of the average reader. In this way the newspaper can

widen the interest of the reader in the world about him and help lift him to a

Om-:oo.' Ex<'u..'rn~:s aims to he of ser vice to all the newspapermen of the state.

Make it the medium of your ideas for the advancement of the profession and of

your requests for information.

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