Illinois newspaper directory. History of the Illinois press association

Illinois Newspaper Directory and Historytomorrow, a leading citizen and a spokesman of leaders, a judge of what is good andwhat is bad for his community, for his county, and his state; and if the university in itscourse in journalism cannot lay the foundations for that kind of newspaper men, thenit ought not to give a course in journalism, because the man who is to have only atechnical knowledge of journalism can gain that at no expense to the state."Times change and the character and functions of the newspaper change. Thenewspaper was once but a sheet of harmless tattle and rumor. It grew into an organ ofopinion. Great editors arose, great personalities, who really led public opinion in thecommunity or in the state or in the whole country. Then came one who believed thatthe sole function of the newspaper was to tell that kind of news which would interestbut not inform the largest number of people. When many respectable citizens askedJames Gordon Bennett, Sr., to take a side in the great slavery discussion, in which ofcourse both sides thought they were right and that right ought to prevail, he repliedthat the chambermaids of New York paid him more money than all of the leading citizensof the South. So he made a newspaper for chambermaids and their lovers and all oftheir society, and he introduced the 'chambermaid 'era in American journalism. He succeededvastly and had many imitators. And we haven't recovered yet. There are stillnewspapers, some of them with huge circulations, that believe the function of journalismto be a back-stairs, sewer-scouring, pandering service. And subordinate all else, and allpeople of other tastes, to that service. There is a great deal of cleverness in such journalism,in being able to combine the service of panderers—to spread scandal and lie onone page, and hire a great preacher to write solemn thoughts on another page, and apoetess to spread a string of sentimental twaddle all the way from New York to SanFrancisco, and to print opposite the lies and the scandal, emotional platitudinous editorialsthat have a thin veneer of morality. And then there is the amanuensis type ofjournalism, perfectly clean, perfectly insipid, watery, or mushy or pasty, that indicatesno function and no intelligence beyond the writing down, without selection or purposeor point, the little records of daily life. We are not trying to train newspaper men ofeither of these types."There is a current of reaction already flowing strong. Clean journalism andintelligent journalism is in vogue again. It is seen in the metropolitan papers and it isseen no less in the small dailies and in the country weeklies. After a period of uncertaintyof various kinds, that has affected many of them but by no means all of them,they are surely finding themselves, and gaining in strength and usefulness and dignity."Now if university courses in journalism cannot help that tendency toward moreuseful, more intelligent, and more dignified journalism, then there is no reason why theuniversity should be giving courses in journalism. This implies no Pharisaical attitude."There are many useful and valuable things in the world which it is not the businessof the university to teach, and there are no doubt kinds of journalism which it is notthe business of the university to teach or which it is unable to teach. On the other handwe believe there are kinds that we ought to teach, and we have to make up our mindswhat those kinds are, and then we wish to appeal to the people who want to prepare forthe kinds that we can prepare them for."It is harder today to be a good citizen than it ever was before. Never were somany questions of our social well-being in so lively a state of review, reconsiderationand readjustment. We are examining our churches to see whether they are doing for uswhat they ought to have done. We are examining our school systems and trying manyexperiments with them. We are examining our form of municipal government, institutingradical reforms therein. We are examining our state government and many detailsof national government. We have recently done what it was said could not be done, by198