Petty Personalities in Local Newspaper Reporting
A NEEDED crusade in journalism is against the recording of such petty personalities as the following, all clipped from local exchanges, many of which give from one to two columns weekly to this kind of mental pabulum: “Our friend Jones is building a hennery.” “Mrs. B. has just completed a crazy-quilt of 676 pieces.” “The minister went to Boston last Wednesday.” “Mrs. E. P. B. has been absent in New Hampshire a week, visiting friends.” “Some fine puppies were recently shipped from this port.” “A sudden death in this office, last week, caused much sorrow among the compositors. Thomas, a favorite cat, shuffled off his mortal coil.” Even worse is the chronicling of children’s doings. Little Sadie Smith is vain enough now, doubtless, without feeding her vanity by reading in the public print that she “gave a lawn party on her sixth birthday, and wore a lovely dress of pink silk and white muslin.” Master Jones and little Miss Brown, also, are not likely to have their reverence for God’s house and for sacred things very strongly developed when the report of a Sunday-school concert elevates their personality in the proceedings above the moral lessons embodied in the exercises. Next to the demoralizing influence of really vicious literature, we doubt if there is any kind of reading more belittling, for the youthful mind particularly, than the sort herein indicated.—Congregationalist.