| Show NEWSPAPER TERROR there ia a feeling abroad in the land with respect to the daily press to which no other term can be applied than that of absolute terror in some cases this terror is of a wholesome kind acting as a deterrent upon evil minded and de men every great newspaper is a detective agency and a police force all in one it employs a corps of experts shrewd keen eyed sharp scented and quick witted men whose business it is to scour the country for crimes and misdeeds for tha secret and hidden things that it may proclaim them upon the housetops rogues who lead double lives vill lains here and saints there the and hydes of the social and business world are made to tremble when they think that the sleuth hounds of the press may at any time be set upon their tracks scenting out all their evil past and may drag them down at last to shame and ignominy it is doubtless true that som good is effected in soma minds by the exposure of vice and crime in the columns of ahe newspapers but there remains the larger and more serious question of the harm that is effected in other minds by such exposure it is not reasonable to expect that largo results for good will follow from a course of action prompted mainly by selfish and mercenary motives the good that comes from the exposure of vile and wicked deeds in the newspapers is merely an incidental good so far as the real object of the publication is concerned the object is simply to catch public patronage by a display of sensational news to be enterprising according to the newspaper idea of enterprise ter prise the moral effect of such displays upon the public mind does not en ter into the case at all the determining question is not what good or what evil will it do but does it pay the newspapers devote more attention to rogues than the do to honest men simply because the former are of more service to the newspaper As a news maker according to tho prevailing standard a prize fighter or an ordinary street ruffian is of greater worth than a whole battalion of college professors and doctors of divinity A story of crime or a choice bit of scandal in the newspaper market is worth more than whole volumes of such trifling occurrences as the discovery of a new star the announcement of a new principle in science or the triumph of some great moral reform the greater tho rascal the larger the space which he commands in the columns of the daily press the ruffian who dies in the street at the hand of a fellow has his dark and bloody deeds recounted by the column while the man who has simply been a public benefactor is dismissed with a few lines |
