THE DAILY NEWSPAPER

Evening Star, Issue 19697, 26 October 1927, Page 8

THE DAILY NEWSPAPER

THE geSERN TENDENCY “READING 'WITHOUT TEARS.” ‘•'in the rivalry, the competition, the internecine struggle in which the popular Press is ceaselessly engaged, it is apparent that the reading public, for whose favors the battle rages, is universally regarded as a spoilt or tired child who must bo constantly amused, (\r excited, hut never exerted,” writes ‘“The Old Stager” in the ‘English KevhUy.’ “Every new ‘stunt’ or concession tn catch the popular fancy is in the direction of reducing the exercise of the mind—or cutting the cackle and doubling the pretty pictures. “The shortest report of an event is too long for the public—it must be extracted lo head linos and summarised under headings. Newspaper staffs are constantly devising . new lay-outs and now type to make the business ol glancing through a. newspaper easier: at all cost the public must he spared exertion. An important speech is boiled dov n lo two lines containing sonic homely or humorous simile irrelevant to the context. If trouble breaks out iu Palestine a view of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives is as inucn as the public must see of it. A photograph of his wife's boudoir is regarded jis an adequate .substitute in ibe public menu for the declared policy ol a groat statesman. “ Always the tendency is in the direction of reading without tears, ol pretty pictures, of saving exertion, of killing time.”