DANA'S EIGHT RULES
Charles A. Dana's eight rules for the guidance of a newspaper man are:
1. Get the news, all the news, and nothing but the news.
2. Copy nothing from another publication without giving perfect credit.
3. Never print an interview without the knowledge and consent of the party interviewed.
4. Never print a paid advertisement as news matter. Let every advertisement appear as an advertisement; no sailing under false colors.
5. Never attack the weak and defenseless, either by argument, by invective, or by ridicule, unless there is some absolute public necessity for so doing.
6. Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth or the only truth.
7. Support your party, if you have one; but do not think that all the good men are in it or all the bad ones outside.
8. Above all, believe that humanity is advancing, that there is progress in human affairs, and that as sure as God lives the future will be better than the past or present.
. . . PROMOTER OF CIVIC WELFARE AND CIVIC PRIDE . . . BOND OF CIVIC UNITY . . . PROTECTOR OF CIVIC RIGHTS.
THE CANNERY
Dean Alford says: "Be simple, be unaffected, be honest in your speaking and writing. Call a spade a spade, not a well known oblong instrument of manual husbandry. Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us, but simplicity and straightforwardness are."
Many pages would be required to list all the so-called bromides that have been worn threadbare by constant use and abuse in newspapers. Often these phrases are used to avoid what the writer believes to be annoying repetition. It is better to use the word fire many times in a paragraph than to use the word conflagration once.
So many phrases have become hackneyed in newspapers that the comic magazines make jokes about them. This is from Puck: