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Show The Country Newspaper: Symbol of Democracy AN EDITORIAL Reprinted from The Saturday Evening Poet By Special Permission A distinctively American institution is pictured in the paintings and sketches by Norman Rockwell n this issue of the Saturday Evening Post. The country weekly newspaper is about the best symbol of democracy that we have. It has been said, and not derogatively, that "only on its columns do the ordinary event and the ordinary individual attain the stature of news." In according them this prominence, the country newspaper is simply living up to its responsibility, which is , to print the most interesting news in the sphere of the small town and , surrounding countryside. As a result, everybody in the community enjoys the privilege of frequently seeing his name in print. In fact, from the time it reports his birth, the hometown paper takes a watchful and benevolent interest in the progrs and destiny o feach member of its community. And, in printing its own kind of news, the country newspaper becomes one of the most faithful mirrors of American life. Yet, for all its devotion to community affairs, the country newspaper news-paper is among the least standardized of all our products. It is usually a one-man proposition, so far as ownership or direction goes. This allows a lot of opportunity for the editor to be himself and to make his newspaper an expression of his own personality and ideas. Of course we have heard of country editors who play strictly for the county advertising and never leave the shelter of the political machine, ma-chine, but it is to the credit of country editors that so many of them use their opportunity for the good oftheir communities. The record of the editor pictured in Norman Rockwell's paintings is fairly typical. The country editor's readers know him personally, which can be an advantage or otherwise. It is a situation that works inexorably against self-seeking, hypocrisy and spinelessness, and gives an influence to the country newspaper that has an editor with character and the right purposes. For the editor and his newspaper become more or less identical in the view of its readers. This synonymy serves more than ono use, as a country editor, Granville Barrere, of the Hillsboro, Ohio, News-Herald, illustrated in explaining the rise of the columnists in the big city newspapers. "The great metropolitan editors, whose newspapers were identified with themselves, have mostly passed," he pointed out. " Somebody with a personal viewpoint had to take their place, and that was where the columnists came in. People wanted someone to quote or to cuss. The readers of the News-Herald and other good country papers never feel that lack." The editorial pages of the country press reflect this individuality. Some of the best paragraphers in the country are found among the ranks of country editors, and there is an occasional one who can haul off and write an editorial that will take the varnish off the courthouse dome But there is a particular quality that lends pungency to their writing. In the rather intimate life of the small town a smart country editor gets to know human nature pretty well. He recognizes that it mills about the same grade in the halls of the mighty as it does in his own community. The precarious days have passed for most of the country weekly press. The editor who exchanges subscriptions fo ra load of cordwood or of spareribs exists now only in jest. Nor does the country editor feel under any compulsion to write something nice about the county commissioners and their families in order to get the county printing. Mergers have reduced the number of newspapers to the carrying capacity of most communities. The local businesses have learned the value of advertising, and the country newspaper itself has become one of the leading enterprises from a financial standpoint. Something "of picturesqueness may have been lost with the passing of the newspaper wars that marked the old days of instability. But these only divided the community, while the modern country newspaper news-paper knits it together. The new attitude is well exprssed in a recent issue of the Webster, South Dakota, Reporter, and Farmer, which had just bought the other paper in town. Telling its readers that it had invited the once rival editor to continue his column on its own editorial page, it said: "We have done so because we feel that the Democrat viewpoint should be represented on our editorial page. Whether you agree or disagree with his opinions is for you to decide, just as we accord you the same privilege concerning the views in our editorial column. If occasionally there are varying thoughts expressed in adjoining columns, just remember that this is America." |