" He wished to avoid an
epidemic of that hysteria--the mad rush for sensation and novelty; the
strife of opposing ambitions; the plotting and counter-plotting of rival
heads of departments; the chaos out of which the craziest ideas often
emerged triumphant, making the pages of the paper look like a series of
disordered dreams.
He was indifferent to the semblance of authority, to the shadows for which
small men are forever struggling. What he wanted, all he wanted,
was--results.
The first opposition came from the night editor, who for twenty-six years,
his weekly "night off" and his two weeks' vacation in summer excepted, had
"made up" the paper--that is to say, had defined, with the advice and
consent of the managing editor, the position and order of the various news
items. This night editor, Mr. Vroom, was a strenuous conservative. He
believed that an editor's duty was done when he had intelligently arranged
his paper so that the news was placed before the reader in the order of its
importance. Big headlines, attempts at effect with varying sizes of large
type and varying column-widths he held to be crowd-catching devices, vulgar
and debasing. He had no sympathy with Howard's theory that the first object
of a newspaper published in a democratic republic is to catch the crowd, to
interest it, to compel it to read, and so to lead it to think.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165