Part 5 (1/2)
WHOLESOME ENTERTAINMENT The effect of entertaining stories on the ideas and ideals of readers ought not to be overlooked According to the best journalistic standards, nothing should be printed that will exert a deoes a step further when it insists that everything shall tend to be helpful and constructive This practice applies alike to news stories and to special articles
These standards do not necessarily exclude news and special feature stories that deal with crime, scandal, and similar topics; but they do deestive or offensive To portray violators of the criratify some readers' taste for thesex--all are alike foreign to the purpose of respectable journalis writer will lend the aid of his pen to such work, and no self-respecting editor will publish it
To deter persons fro si on such topics The thoughtful writer, therefore, -doers with the glamour of heroic or romantic adventure, and, by senti culprit Violations of law and of the conventions of society ought to be shown to be wrong, even when the wrong-doer is deserving of so and editorializing A , not only legal punishuilty conscience, and the disgrace to the culprit and his family
A cynical or flippant treatives many readers a false and distorted view of life Humor does not depend on ridicule or satire The fads and foibles of huood-naturedly exposed in huh htly, others denified style
The men and women whom a writer puts into his articles are not puppets, but real persons, with feelings not unlike his own To drag them and their personal affairs froive the entertainreat hu The fact that a ured in the day's news does not necessarily mean that a writer is entitled to exploit such a person's private affairs He must discriminate bethat the public is entitled to know and what an individual has a right to keep private
Innocent wives, sweethearts, or children are not necessarily legitimate material for his article because their husband, lover, or father has appeared in the news The golden rule is the best guide for a writer in such cases Lack of consideration for the rights of others is the entleman Clean, wholeso phases of life accurately, and that show due consideration for the rights of the persons portrayed, are quite as entertaining as are any others
INFORMATIVE ARTICLES Since ely to newspapers and azines, they derive most of their information and ideas from these sources Even persons who read new books rely to some extent on special articles for the latest inforh most readers look to periodicals primarily for new, tiraphical and historical material that is not directly connected with current events
Every special feature writer has a great opportunity to furnish a large circle of readers with interesting and significant infor subjects it is necessary to discrinificant and trivial facts Some topics when studied will be found to contain little of real consequence, even though a readable article ht be developed from the material Other thenificant When a writer undertakes to choose between the two, he should ask hi?” and, ”Will they furnish food for thought?” In clarifying his purpose by such tests, he will decide not only what kind of information he desires to impart, but what material he must select, and from what point of view he should present it
ARTICLES OF PRACTICAL GUIDANCE The third general purpose that a writer ive his readers sufficiently explicit information to enable them to do for themselves what has been done by others Because all persons want to kno to be ” articles with avidity All of us welcoiven, that can be applied to our own activities
Whatever any one has done successfully may be so presented that others can learn how to do it with equal success Special feature articles furnish the besta ”how-to-do-so” article, a writer needs to consider the class of readers for which it is intended A special feature story, for exaht be presented from any one of three points of view: that of the producer, that of the distributor, or that of the consumer To be practical for dairy farmers, as producers of milk, the article would have to point out possible econo milk on the farm To be helpful to milk-dealers, as distributors, it would concern itself withmilk in the city To assist housewives, as consu eneral reader ht take up all these phases of the subject, but an article intended to give practical guidance should consider the needs of only one of these three classes of persons
In uidance, the writer's purpose is so successfully concealed that it e reader By relating in detail, for example, how an actual enterprise was carried out, a writerit, all the infor When he analyzes such articles, the student should not bethat the writer did not have the definite purpose of i practical information If the sa inforuidance, it is desirable to do the latter and, if necessary, to disguise the purpose
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE In order to define his purpose clearly and to keep it constantly before him, a writer will do well to put down on paper his exact aile sentence If, for example, he desired to write a constructive article about an Aeant held in his hoht write out the statement of his aim thus: ”I desire to sho the Aed in small industrial centers of fro how the last Fourth of July Aanized and carried out in a typical Pennsylvania industrial town of 5000”
Such a state histo one point of view Without this clearly for on some phase of the subject in which he is particularly interested or on which he has the lect of other phases that are essential to the accoet his aim clearly in mind, he may jump from one aspect of the subject to another, without accoazine article leaves a confused, hazy impression on the minds of readers because the writer failed to have a definite objective
CHAPTER V
TYPES OF ARTICLES
METHODS OF TREATMENT After choosing a subject and for his purpose, a writer is ready to consider ain it is desirable to survey all the possibilities in order to choose the one method best adapted to his subject and his purpose His chief consideration should be the class of readers that he desires to reach
Some topics, he will find, may be treated with about equal success in any one of several ways, while others lend the through the various possible ways of working out his subject, he will be able to decide which meets his needs most satisfactorily
EXPOSITION BY NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION The co a special feature article is that which combines narration and description with exposition The reason for this coe person is not attracted by pure exposition He is attracted by fiction Hence the narrative and descriptive devices of fiction are eeously to supplement expository methods
Narratives and descriptions also have the advantage of being concrete and vivid The rapid reader can grasp a concrete story or a word picture He cannot so readily coeneral explanation unaccoraphic pictures of persons, places, and objects
Narration and description are used effectively for the concrete exaeneral ideas The best way, for example, to make clear the operation of a state system of health insurance is to relate how it has operated in the case of one ora new piece of machinery the writer may well describe it in operation, to enable readers to visualize it and follow its motions Since the reader's interest will be roused the ible, concrete details that he can grasp, the exaeneral explanation Soiven before the explanatory matter is offered Whole articles are often eneralizations presented alternately
To explain the effects of a new anaesthetic, for example, Mr Burton J
Hendrick in an article in _McClure's Magazine_, pictured the scene in the operating-rooiven to a patient, showed just hoas administered, and presented the results as a spectator saw the of the article on stovaine, the new anaesthetic, illustrating this o, a s theater at the Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled Children, in New York City He was one of the several thousand children of the tenereat philanthropic institution, suffering from what, to the lay mind, seems a hopelessly incurable injury or malformation This particular patient had a crippled and paralyzed leg, and to restore its usefulness, it was necessary to cut deeply into the heel, stretch the ”Achilles tendon,” and es which, without the usual anesthetic, would involve excruciating suffering
According to the attendant nurses, the child belonged to the ”noisy”
class; that is, he was extreeon, and could be examined only when forcibly held down
As the child ca-rooure--small, naked, thin, with a closely cropped head of black hair, and a face pinched and blanched with fear Surrounded by a fair-sized arallery filled with a hundred ormedical men of the metropolis, he certainly seemed a helpless speck of humanity with all the unknown forces of science and ainst him Under ordinary conditions he would have been etherized in an adjoining cha-room entirely unconscious This cripple, however, had been selected as a favorable subject for an interesting experio an extremely torturous operation in a state of full consciousness