"Take a Pencil ..."

"There is great goodness in the world," Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen told an Associated Press interviewer, "but it is unsung and unheralded. To get into the papers these days, all you have to do is break one of the Ten Commandments."

Like many another churchman, Msgr. Sheen was convinced that the press gives a false picture of U.S. life by overplaying crime, lust and violence, "prints mainly the bad, seldom the good." Said he: "Take a pencil and go through the papers. On virtually every article you can put a number . . . [to] represent a broken Commandment, the breaking of which has made news . . ."

When the Sheen story came in over the wire last week, Editor John G. Green of the Portsmouth (Ohio) Times (circ. 25,176) did as suggested; he took out his pencil and went through his previous day's paper. In the 1,430 inches of news, headlines and pictures, he found only 149 inches devoted to crime or violence. Even this included stories (e.g., the Korean war, the Kefauver investigation) which Editor Green thought "might be considered by many readers as being moral, rather than immoral." In the non-crime news, he counted stories about penicillin, a union convention, a parent-teachers' radio forum, a district-school music contest, new city sidewalks.

Next day, the Kansas City Star (circ. 364,315), which also ran the Sheen interview, did a similar job of checking up. It counted 1,535 inches of news, found only 157 inches devoted to crime and violence.

Commented the Times: "We agree with Msgr. Sheen's statement that 'there is great goodness in the world,' but the record seems to refute his assertion that it is 'unsung and unheralded.' "

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