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OREGON EXCHANGES way stories which do not come in the run of general news, or they furnish stories of peculiar value to the paper served but

the facts. He went through the camp and saw everything. There were no luxuries and there was discomfort, but, as the rep resentative said:

“ I was raised in the west and on my hunting and camping trips I voluntarily sulfered far greater hardships, much more

not of such general value as to warrant their being carried in the regular agency reports.

BIAS IS REQUIUI

exposure, than I found at Camp Mills.”

Correspondents who parallel the bureaus are engaged in the interest of prejudice and propaganda.

On his return to Washington the congressman was interviewed by a correspondent who regularly served the leading newspaper of the western state interested,

I know many editors will deny this and say the correspondents furnish better written stories and give the paper individuality and variety.

and also was interviewed by another cor respondent, one of those unfortunate fel

In some cases this is true, but I insist that the most common purpose of the correspondents is to provide stories with the

lows who hunt in the twilight zone of the news ﬁeld and call themselves free lances.

bias or prejudice of the employing paper. A year or two ago, important conferences were on at Washington. A daily

FEARFUL SUFFERING Tom)

A few days later the representative re ceived his paper from home and what was

paper which I read with much pleasure

his astonishment and mortiﬁcation to read,

carried each day two stories of the developments. On the inside, on page 3, 4, or

prominently displayed, an interview from him in which he told of the fearful suffering. the neglect and barbarous treatment of soldiers he had seen at the camp.

5, was the news agency story, replete with detail, eﬁectively arranged and a master of newspaper composition. It was as free

The representative went at once to the

from prejudice as humanly possible and anybody could read it and get a compre

regular correspondent and demanded to

hensive view of the events described.. But, meanwhile, on the ﬁrst page of the

see the story he had ﬁled west the night of the interview. It was shown him and proved to be a sane and truthful report of the talk. Then the congressman real

paper appeared daily, a story from a special correspondent, who sought to inter pret the events, to read into them the

meaning he wished to give. The agency story was news; the special correspon

ized what had happened. Two stories had reached the western pa

propaganda, nothing

per that day; one from the regular cor respondent and one from the free lance.

ONE Ixsmscn Crrsn

In the fall of 1920 I had a long visit

The editor had thrown away the regular correspondent’s story, which he had every reason to believe was the truth, and had

dent’s else.

story

was

with a western congressman. You will remember the harrowing tales told of con ditions at Camp Mills, on -Long Island, in the early stages of America’s participation in the world war. It was said the

soldiers were not properly housed or clothed, that they suﬁered from cold, from exposure to rain and snow and were insuﬁiciently fed. The nation was shock

ed by the tales of sulfering and neglect. Many western boys were at the camp,

and the congressman said he went there, in the interest of his constituents, to learn

printed the coyote’s story, which he had every reason to believe was a lie. It was more sensational and suited the prejudice of that editor.

Second, I will speak of superﬁciality in news writing. The editor and the re porter handle an almost inﬁnite variety of stories in the course of a year. The reporter is in‘signed to a ﬁre one day, to

a political meeting the next, then to a ﬂood, a street accident, a scientiﬁc discovery by a physician, an investigation

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