Whatever other aims a newspaper may have, its primary purpose must be to give adequate reports of the day’s news. Although various inducements other than news may be employed to attract some persons to newspapers who would not otherwise read them regularly, nevertheless these features must not be so prominent or attractive that readers with limited time at their disposal will neglect the day’s news for entertainment.

To assist the public to grasp the significance of the news by means of editorial interpretation and discussion, to render articulate the best public sentiment, and to persuade citizens to act in accordance with their opinions, constitute an important secondary function of the newspaper. Even though the editorial may seem to exert a less direct influence upon the opinions and political action of the average citizen than it did in the period of great editorial leadership, nevertheless the interpretation and discussion of timely topics in the editorial columns of the daily press are a force in democratic government that cannot be disregarded.

Newspapers by their editorials can perform two peculiarly important services to the public. First, they can show the relation of state, national, and international questions to the home and business interests of their readers. Only as the great issues of the day are brought home to the average reader is he likely to become keenly interested in their solution. Second, newspapers in their editorials can point out the connection between local questions and state-wide, nation-wide, or world-wide movements. Only as questions at issue in a community are shown in their relation to larger tendencies will the average reader see them in a perspective that will enable him to think and act most intelligently.

In addition to fulfilling these two functions, the newspaper may supply its readers with practical advice and useful information, as well as with entertaining reading matter and illustrations. There is more justification for wholesome advice and entertainment in newspapers that circulate largely among classes whose only reading matter is the daily paper than there is in papers whose readers obtain these features from other periodicals. In view of the numberless cheap, popular magazines in this country, the extent to which daily newspapers should devote space and money to advice and entertainment deserves careful consideration. That without such consideration these features may encroach unjustifiably on news and editorials seems evident.

III

Since the primary function of the newspaper is to give the day’s news, the question arises, What is news? If from the point of view of successful democracy the value of news is determined by the extent to which it furnishes food for thought on current topics, we are at once given an important criterion for defining news and measuring news-values. Thus, news is anything timely which is significant to newspaper readers in their relation to the community, the state, and the nation.

This conception of news is not essentially at variance with the commonly accepted definition of it as anything timely that interests a number of readers, the best news being that which has greatest interest for the greatest number. The most vital matters for both men and women are their home and their business interests, their success and their happiness. Anything in the day’s news that touches directly or indirectly these things that are nearest and dearest to them, they will read with eagerness. As they may not always be able to see at once the relation of current events and issues to their home, business, and community interests, it is the duty of the newspaper to present news in such a way that its significance to the average reader will be clear. Every newspaper man knows the value of “playing up” the “local ends” of events that take place outside of the community in which his paper is published, but this method of bringing home to readers the significance to them of important news has not been as fully worked out as it will be. On this basis the best news is that which can be shown to be most closely related to the interests of the largest number of readers.

“But newspapers must publish entertaining news stories as well as significant ones,” insists the advocate of things as they are. This may be conceded, but only with three important limitations. First, stories for mere entertainment that deal with events of little or no news-value must not be allowed to crowd out significant news. Second, such entertaining news-matter must not be given so much space and prominence, or be made so attractive, that the average reader with but limited time in which to read his paper will neglect news of value. Third, events of importance must not be so treated as to furnish entertainment primarily, to the subordination of their true significance. To substitute the hors d’œuvres, relishes, and dessert of the day’s happenings for nourishing “food of opinion” is to serve an unbalanced, unwholesome mental diet. The relish should heighten, not destroy, a taste for good food.

IV

In order to furnish the average citizen with material from which to form opinions on all current issues, so that he may vote intelligently on men and measures, newspapers must supply significant news in as complete and as accurate a form as possible. The only important limitations to completeness are those imposed by the commonly accepted ideas of decency embodied in the phrase, “All the news that’s fit to print,” and by the rights of privacy. Carefully edited newspapers discriminate between what the public is entitled to know and what an individual has a right to keep private.