Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1881 — THE NEWSPAPER. [ARTICLE]

THE NEWSPAPER.

Hezekiah Jone*, Editor of the Flapdoodle, Draw* a Few Sketches from Nature. (From tbe Steubenville Herald.] The editor of the Evening Flapdoodle sat in his sanctum the other morning, just before beginning his day’s work, and thought he had brought his paper about as near perfection as possible for an ordi-nary-sized town close to a half dozen big cities, and he was wondering how he might further improve it, when his cogitations were interrupted by an acquaintance coming in. “Hello, Sir. Scissors,” he facetiously said, “writing up editorials with the shears, eh?” The editor tried to smile at the old joke, and the visitor went on. “I tell you what it is, Jones, you have a pretty good paper, but what do you want in a town like this with long editorials ? Give us short ones. You can’t mold public sentiment, you must simply echo it.” Then he left, and Jones told his associate not to write any long editorials that day, as he proposed, for once, to make the Flapdoodle just to suit every subscriber who wanted a change. In a half hour along came a wicked fellow who talked newspaper a long while, and then said he didn’t see any use of Sunday reading, nor any other religious matter in a paper, and if it was his he would bounce it all. The editor said nothing, but when the man went away he told his Sunday editor not to send any matter for that day. Then Jones rested and thought for a few minutes, and a pious old party dropped in. As he knew a good deal about the business in its moral aspect, he talked along, and at last said that no newspaper could be decent which admitted to its columns any sensational matter, any advertisements other than the most high-toned, any slangy squibs, or anything which could not be read without a blush by the most capriciously fastidious. Jones was silent, but later he went and ordered all that matter set aside. So far, Jones thought he was getting things to suit pretty well, and then another man came in, and like the others, knew all about the business of editing a paper. He was a city politician, and said, “Mr. Jones, you don’t have enough politics. Why don’t you throw out these farm notes, and kitchen receipts, and odds and ends of old news, and telegraphic brevities which we get in the other papers and give us politics? That’s what the children cry for. ” Again was Jones silent and later gave orders for the expulsion of all this objectionable matter and waited for the next one. He came pretty soon, and he had a coffin for a coat and a shroud for a handkerchief, and he smelt like the dust which blows off of a skeleton. Said he, “Jones, I like your paper, but what do you run that funny business in it for? J t’s silly, stale, and flatter than last year’s ale with the bottle left open. What does a man want to laugh for anyhow? This is a vale of tears and we should always remember that in the uncertainty of life death may cut us off with an idle laugh upon our lips.” “That’s so,” groaned Jones. “I’ll cut every line of fun right out,” and off he hurried and out went all the funny business. As he went home at noon he met a lady" who said she didn’t see what they wanted to fill a paper full of politics for, because nobody read that. “Don’t they?” said Jones, “then out she goes,” and when he got back it all went out. “I’m bound to please ’em all” said the editor, “If I have to buy anew office. ” Right after dinner a man of business proclivities came in and said he didn’t see any use of “these silly little personals and them short local items that didn’t amount to anything anyway. ” If itjwas his paper he would have something of a higher nature or let the place go bare. Jones listened and told the foreman to whack out all that sort of stuff at once. Then he felt easier, till a lot of pretty girls came in, and, after making a purchase, asked him what a newspaper was filled full of advertisements for; nobody ever read them, and one said she was going to stop taking tire paper if he was going to fill it up that way. Jones told the young lady he would have a paper to suit every one, or rather made after the suggestions of every one, and he hoped she would not find fault. Then he went and ordered out every ‘ad.’ and smack and smooth, and waited for the next man. He came along pretty soon, and said he could stand anything but poetry, and that was his abomination in a newspaper, and it never ought to encounter the columns of a local journal, because it was meant for magazines, and that sort of papers. Jones took it in, and went out and ordered all his fine poetry knocked down. Then he waited again, and a woman came in, and said the fashion notes were no good, because the magazines had them all in greater quantity, and another thing she didn’t like, was the markets. “What good was them!” she said. “ I don’t know,” he replied, “so I’ll throw ’em out.” “ I hope you will, ” she answered, and went away. In ten minutes the markets and fashions were on the standing galley. Jones began to look around, and as he was studying, a small boy said to him that “marriage and death notices was mighty thin readin’,” and Jones slung them clear out into the corner. After this change he went over into the counting room, and an old man was there waiting to pay his subscription. “It’s a good paper, Jones, but in this place you only want to take notice of local affairs, and let all the miscellaneous and geneial business go,” and—then Jones gave the old fellow a receipt and rushed back and took out all the miscellaneous and general matter that was left, and as he took out the last handful a friend came through the office and critically examining his surroundings, said, “ The Flapdoodle is a good paper, Jones, but I do think you have the ugliest head on it I ever saw. Why don’t you change it? I’m certain I never would let such a head appear on a paper of mine.” “All right,” said Jones, and off came the head. “Now, Mr. Foreman,” he continued, “lockup the forms and send them down to the press room.” The forms were duly locked and went down, and the paper came out and was distributed as usual. The next morning, the politician, and the solemn man, the friend, the school girl, the woman, the small boy, and all the rest of them were standing around the Flapdoodle office with blank sheets of paper in their hands; not a line, not a word, not a sign of anything on it but column r ules, with nothing between. “How is this?” said each to tbe other, “and where’s that fool editor, to impose on us in this wav'?” While they were thus talking, devil pame ia with a letter

from the editor, which the old man read to the crowd. It ran as follows : “Dear friends, you all think you know how to run a newspaper, and when you oome to me with your suggestions I hate to tell you differently, so I have followed your advice and you see what you have as the result. If you will be kind enough to mind your own business half as well as I do mine, and try to think I know a little something, while you don’t know it all, I will give you a good newspaper, and whenever I don’t give you your money’s worth, then come and tell me so, but don’t come telling me how I should do my work, when I have devoted years to it, and you have never given it an hour’s study. . “I am yours truly, “Hezekiah Jones, “Editor Flapdoodle." Then these good people looked at their blank paper and their blank faces, and not one said a word except the profane man, who remarked, “Damme, the editor is right; let’s go and mind our own business,” and Jones crept out from behind the counter, and that evening issued a tip-top paper, chuck full of all sorts of personal and local items, and news, and -everything, and there was peace in that town for the space of a long time.