Monday, Jun. 14, 1954

Potshots at Santa Claus

There was a young lady of Kent

Who said that she knew what it meant

When men asked her to dine,

Gave her cocktails and wine:

She knew what it meant--but she went.

The limerick's lady of Kent, according to Louisville Times Managing Editor Norman Isaacs, 46, is not very different from many a newsman. Writing in the current issue of Quill, monthly magazine of the professional journalism fraternity, Sigma Delta Chi. Editor Isaacs charged that more and more newsmen are succumbing to the compromising blandishments of pressagents, promoters, politicians and others whose objective with newsmen is always the same: to influence what is printed. Asked Isaacs: "How can we claim integrity when newspapers employ men whose services are for sale to outsiders?"

Unpretty Pictures. Isaacs is not so much concerned with reporters who are entertained at parties and on press junkets as he is with those who hold down part-time jobs as pressagents themselves. In New York, he pointed out. a "sportswriter . . . was dismissed on charges of pressagentry for one of the tracks [TIME. Oct. 19] . . . Other sportswriters [appeared] on a television show sponsored by the tracks.'' One Texas editor, said Isaacs, "in a letter to me, said that one of the best names in the oil industry has several reporters on each paper in a certain town on his enterprises' payroll." In Houston three reporters were employed by the scandal-ridden housing authority and paid $75 a month each to write press releases. When Isaacs was managing editor of the late St. Louis Star-Times, he put a stop to the practice of letting news photographers take wedding pictures for a fee. "The idea got around that you had to employ Mr. So-and-So to take your picture or you didn't stand much chance of getting into the paper."

Isaacs blames newspaper editors more than reporters for the evil because "they refuse to take this seriously [or] fail to see any corrupting influences. One editor said, 'Let's preserve some of the niceties of this rugged life. Too many people have been taking potshots at Santa Claus.' "

30-Day Amnesty. Editor Isaacs was joined last week by Editor & Publisher. Looking over the Providence Journal-Bulletin's expose of newsmen working part-time for the state and for New England race tracks (TIME, April 6 et seq.), E. & P. said: "We suggest that every editor and publisher declare a period of amnesty for their employees for 30 days, during which they be requested to voluntarily and confidentially reveal any outside employment. There would be no punishment or retaliation for past indiscretions. And if management found that such work in no way conflicted with the reporter's duties, it might be continued by agreement."

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