The Unread Press

The New York Times is virtuous, and conscious of its virtue. It doesn't worry about its low place on the newsstands (third among Manhattan's four morning papers), but it occasionally deplores the low state of culture that causes that fact. Last week one of the Times's editors preached a little sermon on why four out of five New Yorkers prefer the tabloids at breakfast.

Opening a Times lecture course for New York City public-school teachers, Sunday Editor Lester Markel denied that Americans are a well-informed people. Judging by the way people answer public opinion polls, he said, "20% of the population belongs in the definitely moronic class; another 20% is ignorant and unwilling to learn; another 40% is ignorant but willing to learn, provided that the lessons are made simple. . . . Informed public opinion in the U.S. depends on a group that consists Of 20 tO 25%. . . ."

The line "between good-grey press and yellow or purple press," said Markel, divides editors who stress important news from those who stress interesting news. Once in 1922, he recalled, he had asked the late Publisher Adolph S. Ochs: "How does it happen that the Times, which publishes only the news that's fit to print, carries columns upon columns of the Hall-Mills [lovers' lane murder] story?"

"Well, Mr. Markel," said Ochs, "if a tabloid prints it, it is smut; if the Times prints it, it is sociology."

Blab Brothers. Editor Markel then went after the panderers to "national ignorance and apathy"--the "radio rattlers," "newspaper know-it-alls," "sob sisters" and "blab brothers." Said he: "There is a great gullibility . . . about a prevalent radio and newspaper type--the Keyhole Kommentator. Even though his specialties are trivia and truffles, he does not hesitate to deal with tremendous things. . . . The formula is an ingenious one. Our commentator will report (A) that Gladys Gorgeous is going to be divorced next week, and (B) that Yugoslavia will attack us in six months. Comes next week and Gladys . . . gets her divorce. (A) proves to be true; consequently (B) must be true--Gladys is unhitched, therefore war is inevitable.

"There is a ... vast disinclination on the part of the newspaper reader and the radio listener to think for himself. Obviously it is much easier to have opinions than to grasp a fact."

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