Publishing Morals

It is common to speak of the newspapers of today as purely commercial enterprises managed with an eye single to profits . . . got by avoiding all intellectual difficulties and appealing to common passions and prejudices. The facts . . . suggest that for most of the press of the U. S., this is a slander. . . . Those who make newspapers apparently still in large measure consider their craft to be that of getting and presenting news. . . .

So, last week, pontificated 66-year-old Edward Lee Thorndike, famed psychologist, emeritus professor of education at Columbia University's Teachers College. Creator of an intelligence test that bears his name. Dr. Thorndike has made studies of the "goodness of living" in U. S. cities, based on such factors as per capita value of schools, libraries, parks, percentage of home owners, infant and general death rates (TIME, May 3, 1937).

Dr. Thorndike made his own survey of the press in his survey of cities' goodness. In the Scientific Monthly last week he published his conclusions. His words were not all praise. Said he: "The newspaper of today . . . provides a conventional mixture of facts about what has happened during the past 24 hours at home and abroad, descriptions of athletic contests, statistics about prices, fiction and humor . . . notes about women's styles . . . politics, personal health and happiness. . . . The departures from this conventional mixture either upward ... or downward . . . are few and slight."

Basing his judgment on the contents of newspapers published in 28 cities ranging from highest to lowest in his general rating, Dr. Thorndike found that relatively the differences between them were small, that "the greatest difference was in the case of intelligence tests, to which the press in superior cities gave over three times as large a fraction of the space.

The next greatest difference was in the stock-exchange reports. . . . The next concerned radio programs. The next two concerned local crime and the game of bridge, to which the press in high cities gave less than two-thirds as much of the total allotment as the press in low cities did. . . ."

One of his conclusions flatly contradicted those who believe that the easy way to publishing success is to pander to low public tastes: "A newspaper is not a mirror reflecting the nature of the community where it is published. ... On the contrary, the newspaper in any of these 28 cities could probably change its content . . . without losing much circulation or causing much criticism or even having the changes noticed, if it made them slowly enough. Indeed, a sordid commercialism could find moderate support for its kind of newspaper in our 'best' cities; a competent idealism could find support for its kind of newspaper in our 'worst' cities."

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