The Demoralizing Effect of Crime News
Hon. John D. Works, United States senator from California, has introduced a bill in Congress to make it unlawful to publish the details of crimes and accidents in the District of Columbia. Mr. Works made a strong speech in the Senate, in favor of his bill. He showed that the constant publication of crimes and vices in all of their gruesome and sickening details has a very demoralizing effect upon the people who receive and read the papers. He called attention to a single issue of a paper picked up at random from which he selected some fifty-one headings that told of crimes, running all through the calendar, from matricide to ordinary petty thievery. He also spoke against the custom, which has become so general among newspapers, of allowing reporters to originate stories that are almost pure fiction, and publish them as fact, merely to create a sensation. There is no question but that great reforms are needed in these lines, not merely in the District of Columbia, but throughout the country. The class of matter printed in many of the papers is unconsciously, and often unwittingly, producing a baleful effect.