way stories which do not come in the run of general news, or they furnish stories of peculiar value to the paper served but
the facts. He went through the camp and saw everything. There were no luxuries and there was discomfort, but, as the rep resentative said:
“ I was raised in the west and on my hunting and camping trips I voluntarily sulfered far greater hardships, much more
not of such general value as to warrant their being carried in the regular agency reports.
BIAS IS REQUIUI
exposure, than I found at Camp Mills.”
Correspondents who parallel the bureaus are engaged in the interest of prejudice and propaganda.
On his return to Washington the congressman was interviewed by a correspondent who regularly served the leading newspaper of the western state interested,
I know many editors will deny this and say the correspondents furnish better written stories and give the paper individuality and variety.
and also was interviewed by another cor respondent, one of those unfortunate fel
In some cases this is true, but I insist that the most common purpose of the correspondents is to provide stories with the
lows who hunt in the twilight zone of the news field and call themselves free lances.
bias or prejudice of the employing paper. A year or two ago, important conferences were on at Washington. A daily
FEARFUL SUFFERING Tom)
A few days later the representative re ceived his paper from home and what was
paper which I read with much pleasure
his astonishment and mortification to read,
carried each day two stories of the developments. On the inside, on page 3, 4, or
prominently displayed, an interview from him in which he told of the fearful suffering. the neglect and barbarous treatment of soldiers he had seen at the camp.
5, was the news agency story, replete with detail, efiectively arranged and a master of newspaper composition. It was as free
The representative went at once to the
from prejudice as humanly possible and anybody could read it and get a compre
regular correspondent and demanded to
hensive view of the events described.. But, meanwhile, on the first page of the
see the story he had filed west the night of the interview. It was shown him and proved to be a sane and truthful report of the talk. Then the congressman real
paper appeared daily, a story from a special correspondent, who sought to inter pret the events, to read into them the
meaning he wished to give. The agency story was news; the special correspon
ized what had happened. Two stories had reached the western pa
propaganda, nothing
per that day; one from the regular cor respondent and one from the free lance.
ONE Ixsmscn Crrsn
In the fall of 1920 I had a long visit
The editor had thrown away the regular correspondent’s story, which he had every reason to believe was the truth, and had
dent’s else.
story
was
with a western congressman. You will remember the harrowing tales told of con ditions at Camp Mills, on -Long Island, in the early stages of America’s participation in the world war. It was said the
soldiers were not properly housed or clothed, that they sufiered from cold, from exposure to rain and snow and were insufiiciently fed. The nation was shock
ed by the tales of sulfering and neglect. Many western boys were at the camp,
and the congressman said he went there, in the interest of his constituents, to learn
printed the coyote’s story, which he had every reason to believe was a lie. It was more sensational and suited the prejudice of that editor.
Second, I will speak of superficiality in news writing. The editor and the re porter handle an almost infinite variety of stories in the course of a year. The reporter is in‘signed to a fire one day, to
a political meeting the next, then to a flood, a street accident, a scientific discovery by a physician, an investigation
[4]
(Continued on page 18)
