Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/373

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journalism." All that has been said of the importance of giving readers complete and accurate news reports, and of the evils growing out of suppressing or distorting the news, applies quite as much to editors and copy-readers as it does to reporters and correspondents.

The Newspaper Worker's Problem. A vital question for every one engaged in newspaper writing or editing is whether or not he will obey the orders of his superiors when these orders do not square with his own standards of truth and right. The reporter must decide the question when the city editor gives him his instructions; the city editor must decide when the managing editor directs him in his work; the managing editor must decide when the owners announce to him their policy for the paper. Then it is that every newspaper worker is brought face to face with the problems of present-day newspaper making. Then it is that these problems cease to be general questions for discussion and become a personal matter that each newspaper worker must decide for himself. When it becomes a personal question to him, its solution does not always seem so easy as when it is a general problem, because to disobey the orders of his superiors usually means to lose his position.

This question, however, is not peculiar to the newspaper profession. The problem is not unlike that which confronts men engaged in every kind of business or professional work. Every business man, every lawyer, every physician finds himself called upon again and again to settle for himself the same ethical question. Competition in business not infrequently leads to questionable practices for getting the better of business rivals, employees, or customers; and it is repeatedly necessary for men in positions of all grades to deter-