What's News?

What "eye-terns" should be passed along from the 20th Century well of information?

TIME'S unwritten and unwritable definition of news is more inclusive than some. In the U.S. newspapers of 1923, religious news, for instance, consisted mainly of short quotations from the sermons of the worthier divines, drowned out by the noisier fulminations of their more sensational competitors. Said TIME'S prospectus:

"As any religious leader will agree, the daily press does not present a coherent account of religious activity in this country and throughout the world. ... At this moment throughout the state universities there is being established a system of religious education unparalleled in the history of progressive religion. . . . These currents, more important perhaps than farm blocs or youthful novelists, are lost sight of by the reader of the daily press.

"TIME will at least make an attempt to follow them. . . . But TIME'S religious page has [another] . . . fundamental function --to follow religious thought. Just as political philosophy does, in the end, control politics, so religious thought determines the course of churches."

On TIME'S cover this week is Reinhold Niebuhr (see RELIGION). Many editors would not consider him news. In the headline sense, he says nothing "sensational." Yet Niebuhr is conducting an inquiry that may turn out to be more important to the 20th Century than the United Nations Assembly or any investigation by the Senate. For decades large segments of the Christian churches shied away from theology; God was "a lurking luminosity, a cozy thought." Against the current of his day, Niebuhr pursues a quest into the nature of God, of man, of sin. What Niebuhr thinks has a profound connection with the business of establishing and maintaining a democratic civilization. Niebuhr is not easy to understand (TIME'S editors, at least, do not find him easy); but it is TIME'S job to make Niebuhr's thought clear to those of its readers who are not adept at the language of theological discussion.

Just 25 years ago, TIME'S first cover subject was "Uncle Joe" Cannon, Speaker of the House of Representatives, symbol of a kind of bossism that was dying. Uncle Joe's retirement was a good if obvious choice of a cover subject. By TIME'S standards, Niebuhr is just as truly news as Uncle Joe. That Niebuhr's significance is less obvious does not make him less important.

What's news about traffic jams? Only that they are getting worse, that no remedy is in sight, and that millions of Americans are delayed and annoyed by them every day, without exactly realizing that the nuisance is, quite possibly, permanent. TIME'S Paul O'Neil wrote "The Last Traffic Jam" (Dec. 15, 1947) which, by obvious exaggeration, got over a point that was, in a way, news to nobody. The story's details were not fantasy. Researcher Marianna Albert rode in taxis for a whole day to get the kind of specifics that made the story. Out of the day she got one quote, well worth the trouble. Said a Manhattan cabbie: "We're beat. We got expressions just like the people in Europe. It used to be you could get into a fight, but now even truck drivers take the attitude: 'If you wanna hit me, hit me.'" The bulk of TIME'S news subjects, however, are not in the same category with the Niebuhr story or "The Last Traffic Jam." They are precisely the same as those that confront all editors: Congress, the presidential campaign, the national defense, the European Recovery Program, international conferences, upheavals abroad, the United Nations, Peron's policy, China's war, the state of U.S. business, major crime and what Hollywoodette is engaged to "marry" whose husband.

Some facts can be told a second after the event just as well as they will ever be told. If the reader wants to know who won the third race at Pimlico and what he paid, TIME can't help him. (It might be of use to a reader who wants to know how the race was run and why the winner paid so much, or so little.)

Decidedly not a horse race, but reported like one in some dailies was the San Francisco Conference to write the United Nations Charter. Most of the reporters present knew that Russia, bent on expansion, would not agree to a charter that would hamper her "freedom of action." The dailies, however, by the very nature of their operation, were pushed toward overdramatizing the news.

TIME got the sense of that assumption into its report of the conference--but in so doing it missed a lot of excitement. Most of the dailies panted through new crises with every edition. If Molotov frowned, peace was doomed. If he conceded a minor point, Russian basic policy seemed to have undergone a complete transformation. Radio listeners could almost hear the thud of hooves in the background of the conference bulletins. "Now Molotov's ahead. But he looks tired. Stettinius called a press conference. . . ." All this nonsense was so vastly confusing (and so essentially false) that many readers got bored with the whole subject and haven't read a line about U.N. since.

That TIME'S editors (along with many others) had a pretty good idea where the conference was coming out did not deter them from covering it. The TIME-LIFE Bureau at San Francisco, under Washington Bureau Chief Robert Elson, numbered about 15, one of the largest groups of reporters TIME Inc. had ever sent to one place. Their job was not to add to the din, but to place each week's report in a perspective that fitted the facts, and to report the kind of detail that got over to the reader the real character of the conference.

On the afternoon of April 30, 1945, most of the Russian delegation, sore over the admission of Argentina, left the meeting. Much of the press went into a tailspin. It was a bad day, but not nearly so bad as the headlines suggested. As the delegates left the hall, TIME'S Anatole Visson got through the crush to one of the calmest men in San Francisco. "What do you think?" asked Visson. Lord Halifax bent down with a tired smile. "I don't think this is the end of the world," he said. This quotation ended TIME'S story, which may not have been the best one from San Francisco that week, but was surely the quietest.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.