SOME PERTINENT EXPRESSIONS ON ETHICS OF NEWSPAPERS
[Since the publication of the recently adopted Oregon Code of Ethics for Journalism, renewed attention has been given to the whole question of the attitude of the newspaper toward its readers and its advertisers. Three timely comments are here given. One is an expression by I. V. McAdoo, editor of the Scio Tribune, of his opinion that newspapers are onerplaying the dark side of humanity with the result that the sincerity of their ethics may be doubted. The other side of that question is given at considerable length by the Baker Herald, which says, in greater local detail, what was once said by the great Charles A. Dana, “What God Almighty allows to happen I am not too proud to print in my paper.” The third article, which is here printed first, is a firm and courageous statement by the Astoria Budget that advertisers are not allowed to dictate what shall or shall not be printed in the Budget. The stand of the Herald and the Budget alike is characterized by fearlessness in the face of loss of patronage, threatened or actual. As newspapers they are determined to print the news.]
(Astoria Budget)
WHAT is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
What is a newspaper profited, if it shall gain a great patronage at the sacrifice of its principles and its conscience?
The answer to the first question may be found in the Bible, from whence the question is drawn. The answer to the last question we shall leave to our readers except to venture the assertion that a patronage gained at such a price will have in it none of the elements of permanency and sooner or later will shrink and shrivel.
The above is written because of an experience of the week, an experience not at all uncommon in the life of a newspaper. Complaints were filed by state officials in a local court against 15 or more Clatsop county business men charging them with violation—the violation in most cases being technical—of the state food laws. In pursuance of an inflexible policy of this paper, the Budget published in its news columns the fact that the com plaints were filed, confining the item to a brief statement of the matter without any attempt to sensationalize or scandalize. It did, however, mention the names of the defendants.
The next day four of the business men cancelled their subscriptions to the Budget and one served notice that no further advertising would be given to this paper. The others—be it said to their credit—did not challenge a policy that makes no exceptions for reasons of friendship or business expediency.
The Budget was the only Astoria news paper that did publish the news of these court cases, a fact of which we were reminded but for which we have no apology to make, either for ourselves or for the papers which suppressed the news. We are answering only for our own acts, just as we have fixed our own standards and our own policies without regard to whether or not they conform to the practices of our contemporaries.
We are not mentioning this incident because it has any unusual degree of interest. We do not want to magnify its importance, only to use it as a reason for restating a fixed and practiced policy of this newspaper-to the end that the pub he may know Just what to expect of it and what not to expect.
There are many cases filed in the justice and circuit courts. Many of them are just causes and many undoubtedly are unjust. All of them are, however, of pub-
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