a certain amount of space to fill. I know how Thursday night comes, after one has been working on advertising and other things far removed from editorial, and the brain is squeezed dry and yet we have to fill a column. Have the column flexible according to the amount of advertising and explanatory material you have to give the readers. Don’t smear the editorial over a large amount of space, but always have something.
3. I am against canned editorials. You can get ’em. Like the rolled cigarette, they are too easy to get, and they can never make a specific appeal.
4. Names are of value in editorial as in news.
5. Most editorial writers are writing to
est to draw in the readers who do not
ordinarily read the editorial column. 7. Don’t boast in the editorial column. I don’t believe there is any more in a
paper’s boasting of being first in the field or faster in news than in individuals’ doing the same sort of thing. The paper gains no more than the individual in this wav. 8. Keep out of local politics. I know .vou will disagree there. But I do know that this idea that the small paper must
tell its readers how to vote has been the cause of much unsuccess in the country
field.
9. Don’t accept loans from anybody
but your bankers.
a blank world out there. They never stop to analyze the community they are writing
Washington there has been a 60 per cent switch from party to independent papers
for.
in four years. Today is the day of the independent paper politically. There is no more reason for a newspaper’s being tied to a party than for an educational
[Dean Spencer cited a case of an
editor who actually analyzed his field,
finding out precisely to whom he was writing]
6. Don’t be afraid of being provincial. The strength of your paper de pends on being provincial. Great papers are provincial in no small measure,breath ing the very life of their community. . . . An ideal editorial page would have an editorial on local, state, sectional and
national topics, and one on human inter
10. Be independent
in
politics.
In
institution to be thus tied. 11. Don’t ever let your paper be any
thing but patriotic to your country and your town.
.
.
.
12. Keep out of your editorial and news columns as well, anything that cre ates dissension between the country and the city.
MR. PlPE’.R'S VIEW OF EDITORIAL PAGE I)I§.~N §l’I".i'('ER’S paper was fol lowed b-v discussion. liditor Elbert
Piper. editor
of
the
Oregonian,
rose
slowly to his feet and entered the discus
llcdc of the ('otta.'re Grove .'c.~1tim*l in quired if .Ir. Spencer favorerl entering into re]i-'_-'ions cmitroversy in the columns
sion with obvious reluctance. Once launched on his subject, however, he made
of the paper. “No.” replied the 'a-h
torial provincc of the newspaper.
inj_'to11 dean. “I believe in reli-;:ious non sectarianisni in the papers. . . . On
statement of the decline of the editorial
the Montesano Vidcfte we will suppress any news that will tend to destroy the community. If news is likely to create
for better understanding,” he said. “It is my view of the development of the
faction in your community, my advice
much declined as other departments of
would be to leave it out.” Asked by President Drake to “en lighten us” along this line. Edgar B.
the newspaper have received greater em phasis. “In the early days newspaper work
a clear statement of his views of the edi
page needs a little
“The
further elaboration
editorial that the editorial has not so
[20]
