Old Acquaintance

When Stanley Walker, sometime of the New York Herald Tribune, retired to his native Texas ten years ago, he had a place as Manhattan's most celebrated city editor since the New York Evening World's hard-boiled Charles E. Chapin* and one of the few city editors in newspaper history who could write a decent paragraph. Last week, a successful rancher and freelancer at 57, Walker turned up in Dallas, 140 miles from his ranch, at the Southwest Journalism Forum. In a rattle of pronouncements on the state of U.S. journalism, he proved as tart as ever. P:On "objectivity" in newswriting: "It produces something like a symmetrical pile of clam shells with all the succulent goodness carefully removed."

P:On the new generation of reporters: "Too many young people are entering newspaper work merely as a steppingstone to something else--usually a good pressagent's job. Newspaper work needs people with affection for it, who feel it offers no other steppingstone than to better newspaper work."

P:On the editorial page: "The editorial pages of New York papers, except possibly that of the New York Times, have hit the lowest ebb in all history." He thought that the Chicago Tribune and St. Louis Post-Dispatch were still going strong, but noted a slump in the Baltimore Sun's editorial vigor.

P:On freedom of the press: "Newspapers have the legal right to make fools of themselves, but the newspaper's critics and readers also have the right to attack it for making a fool of itself."

*Who fired 108 men, and died in Sing Sing in 1930 on a life stretch for the murder of his wife.

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