Seven Sins

Glenn Frank, editor of Century magazine, comparatively young, and acknowledged as able, returned from a long lecture tour, and, as a journalist, " confessed " seven sins of American journalism. He said he was speaking chiefly of weeklies and monthlies. These sins are here summarized in the order of their definiteness or concreteness:

1) American journalism underestimates the intelligence of its readers

2) It overestimates the information of its readers. " This is the outstanding sin of highbrow journalism. . . "The ideal magazine article should be written as if the men and women who were to read it had just dropped from the planet Mars."

3) It is not written in the vernacular, as it should be. Academic jargon is not vernacular; neither is cheap slang. Good ideas are kept out of circulation because they are concealed by highbrow language, whereas lowbrow journalism debauches American speech.

4) "American journalism avoids the things that people are most interested in." Or, rather, the magazine editor is trying to capture the reader's "interest," rather than to discover and discuss the reader's " interests." The editor who is concerned only with capturing the reader's interest is likely to be merely a merchant of sensations; the editor who is concerned primarily with the reader's interests may be, in the best sense of an abused word, a statesman.

5) "American journalism is too timely." Mr. Frank means by this paradox that magazines publish articles too soon after the event, and before the people have become really interested in it.

6) American magazines are, each of them, too definitely either conservative or liberal or radical. This is " the sin of a fixed policy." " The ideal magazine should have no policy except a profound reverence for facts." The ideal editor will follow the facts wherever they lead, with the result that he is likely to be conservative in January, liberal in February, radical in March.

7) "American journalism defends Americanism."