Page:The Ethics of the Professions and of Business, with a supplement - Modern China and Her Present Day Problems.djvu/209

Rh their fields to furnish facts upon which advertising can be intelligently placed. They further supply accurate circulation statistics, classified in accordance with the needs of individual advertisers, so that the latter can visualize their prospective audiences. The necessity for doing this is epitomized in the seventh rule of the "Standards." The remaining three "Standards" have to do with the large questions of competition and cooperation. They are evidence of the consciousness on the part of the publisher that he does not live to himself, and his subscribers and advertisers alone; that he is a part of industry and of society. They set for him a high standard in stating that he is "to determine what is the highest and largest function of the field which he serves, and then to strive in every legitimate way to promote that function."

All of the foregoing relates to the code of ethics of the publisher, who of course determines all of the policies of the paper, both editorial and commercial. The editors of business papers, in addition, are finding it desirable to prepare codes of their own. This movement is quite recent, dating back only to last summer when the Editorial Conference of the New York Business Publishers' Association adopted such a code, with the title "Standards of Editorial Practice." This is an elaboration of the editorial parts of the publishers' code, and makes more specific certain of its featm-es which are only suggested therein.

This editors' code contains only seven "Standards" of which the first four are substantially like those of the publishers' code. The two following relate to the taking of a position of editorial leadership in the industry served, with a view to bringing it to higher levels of achievement, and to the support in the paper of such worthy measures of public interest as their importance justifies. These principles are in line with the strong convictions of leading editors that their papers must be positive forces in industry and not merely recorders of what has taken place. They are an expression of the realization that the occupancy of a vantage point from which the industrial developments can be viewed in perspective, places on the shoulders of the editors a weight of responsibility for telling their readers what they see. The fact that they reach large numbers of readers who place implicit confidence in what they say gives these editors an influence which they should use in the correction of wrong tendencies and the development of correct ones.

In these "Standards" of the editorial code there is the implication that a paper which is to succeed in this field must be one which takes the initiative, and it is a fact that some of the good things that have been done in recent years in industry can be credited in large part to the efforts of the industrial press editors.

The last "Standard" in the New York editors' code has to do with the editorial interrelations of business papers. It simply illustrates the principle of the square deal as applied to this department, by insisting that borrowed articles shall be credited to the original source and that unfair competition shall be avoided.

The brevity and simplicity of this New York code are in marked contrast to the excellent but elaborate code adopted a few weeks ago by the Oregon State Editorial Association, which is said to have hit what is probably the highest note that has been sounded in American journalism.