There
are conventions. Take two newspapers published in the same city on the
same morning. The headline of one reads: "Britain pledges aid to
Berlin against French aggression; France openly backs Poles." The
headline of the second is "Mrs. Stillman's Other Love." Which you
prefer is a matter of taste, but not entirely a matter of the editor's
taste. It is a matter of his judgment as to what will absorb the half
hour's attention a certain set of readers will give to his newspaper.
Now the problem of securing attention is by no means equivalent to
displaying the news in the perspective laid down by religious teaching
or by some form of ethical culture. It is a problem of provoking
feeling in the reader, of inducing him to feel a sense of personal
identification with the stories he is reading. News which does not
offer this opportunity to introduce oneself into the struggle which it
depicts cannot appeal to a wide audience. The audience must
participate in the news, much as it participates in the drama, by
personal identification. Just as everyone holds his breath when the
heroine is in danger, as he helps Babe Ruth swing his bat, so in
subtler form the reader enters into the news. In order that he shall
enter he must find a familiar foothold in the story, and this is
supplied to him by the use of stereotypes. They tell him that if an
association of plumbers is called a "combine" it is appropriate to
develop his hostility; if it is called a "group of leading business
men" the cue is for a favorable reaction.
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