Newspaper Sensations

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 16, 16 April 1903, Page 18

Newspaper Sensations

Tho tendency to sensationalism is not so pronounced in the daily papers of Australia and New Zealand as in those" of the United States Daily journalism there is, as a rule, not so much a means of catering for legitimate information regarding current events, as of tickling tho blase appetite of readers with highly seasoned accounts of common happenings and spasms and jumps of tho thrilling and the sensational. Somebody has remarked that tho secret of the success of the daily paper is the fact that everybody is interested in what everybody else is doing that is wrong. That is why long accounts of murders, suicides, and divorces form, on occasions, such a feature even in our relatively staid and respectable newspapers in these colonies. The effect of this class of sensationalism upon weak and morbid minds is so well known to the medical profession, and to legislators as well in some countries, that in most of the Geiman States no newspaper is permitted by law to give more than the baie announcement of such happenings A similar law would be a public benefit in Australia and New Zealand

The rampant sensationalism of the more shrieky American daily paper leaches its culminating point m the newspaper detective-rcpoi tor and in the screaming headlines that announce the results of his woik ' Nowadays,' sa>s 'Mr Dooley,' ' laiceny is discovoied be a newspaper. Th' lead pipe is dug up in ye'er back \ard be a raypoither -who knew it was there because he helped ye bury it A man knocks at ye'er dure airly wan mornin' an' je answer in ye'er nighty. "In the name iv th' law, I arrest ye," says the man, sei/,in' ye be the throat. "Who are ye?" ye cry. "I'm a rayporther

f'r the Daily Sleuth," says he. " Photygrafter, do ye'er jooty ! " Ye're hauled off in th' circylation wagon to th' newspaper office, where a confession is ready f'r ye to sign ; ye're thried be a jury iv th' staff, sentenced be th' edithor-in-chief, an' at tin o'clock Friday the fatal thrap is sprung be th' fatal thrapper iv th' fam'ly journal.'

A project of legislation against newspaper sensationalism is at present before the State legislature in Minnesota. The Pittsburg ' Observer ' hits the following remarks upon the subject in a recent issue :

'The baleful sensationalism on which so large a portion ofi the secular daily press of this country thrives is threatened with a set-back in Minnesota. A member of the Senate of that State has announced his intention to introduce a Bill, under which a fine of 100 dollars will be imposed on any newspaper which publishes more than a bare announcement of any murder, suicide, manslaughter, or other felony. The only statement to be published of such events will be the mere mention of names, places, and dates. The details of the crime must be omitted. The statement must not be printed in type larger than the ordinary type of the paper, and must contain no headlines, sketches, or pictures.'