Page:Oregon Exchanges volume 7.djvu/4

 these three departments, but such is required if permanent success and actual leadership are to be his.

Few journalists are without an ambition, more or less perfectly defined, to be leaders in their community. Such is the advantage given the printed word in these days of universal reading that al most every journalist is a leading force in his community. The question then is, leading toward what? On the answer to this will depend the value and extent of his leadership. It is axiomatic that it takes a good follower to become a good leader. In the case of the journalist the effective leader is he who can judge accurately the spirit of his community, following it and encouraging it wherever it seems to be right and diverging when it appears to him to be wrong. If the community is usually on the other side from the publisher, this can be taken to mean that the field is not one for the particular talents of this particular publisher. The fault may lie on the side of either.

Where some newspapermen appear to be at fault is in their attitude toward their subscribers. The fact that the publisher has superior knowledge of the technique of newspaper-making to that of the general body of his subscribers is not to be taken to mean that therefore he has exclusive knowledge of just what matter they ought to have fed to them day after day and week after week. Occasional rebellions against press leader ship in matters of public interest are due, it would seem, to the adoption of the so-called Vanderbilt theory of the right of the public. So the mere training in technique of reporting and editorial writing and the other branches of newspaper work does not give the publisher the right to as sume that he is usually right and his readers usually wrong in their ideas of what the paper should emphasize in its news and editorial columns. There must be also a tolerant attitude toward the ideas of subscribers, based on a riper knowledge of history and the humanities. Your calm student will find fewer things to be strongly partisan about, but he will stand even more firmly for those few essentials. Is it not likely that in this he will find the great intelligent body of his readers standing with him? It is therefore urged that it is vital, and becoming more so, that the news paperman’s so -called practical training be based upon, or at least accompanied by, a broad and broadening general edu cation which will serve to mellow his attitude toward those of opposing views— will make him a safer champion of re form and make him the sort of leader who really leads toward things that are worth reaching. It is further noted that the wise news paperman keeps his ear to the ground and learns what his people are thinking and saying; that he knows he can’t afford to shut himself up in an impervious mental shell, learning nothing and for getting nothing; that he must mix and talk with his subscribers; that he must welcome the letters from Pro Bono Pub lico and Constant Reader; that when his mind does not seem to walk with that of the mass of his readers it still may not be a case of “all out of step but Jim. ” Journalism and the journalist must keep pace with the changing world. Editor Thomas Nelson of the Junction City Times admits that he did not special ly distinguish himself loading gravel dur ing Junctio11’s community day. But he squared it all up with a good story about the occasion in his paper later. With a view to making the otfice and shop of the Port Umpqua Courier one of the cleanest, if not the cleanest printing shop—neat in appearance——the policy of having receptacles for waste paper, scraps and other dirt, placed in con venient places about the rooms, has been put into practice. Instead of throwing matches on the floors, the stafi uses cuspidors provided for that purpose. I41