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A Newspaper Recipe
“Here is the recipe for making a ‘great daily’; let them who have stomachs for such work apply themselves: a scandal-in-high-life, first-page, double-leaded, screamer head; two or three columns of rocking chair speculation on matters political, Washington datelines; a few bogus or garbled interviews with prominent politicians; a suicide; a scandal-in-low-life; a thrilling account of an impossible accident in Timbuctoo; report that a million Chinese have been drowned by an overflow of the Hwang-Ho; full and circumstantial report of a sensational divorce trial—not intended for Sunday-school reading; two-column account of a prize fight; a hanging, with all the ghastly details ‘worked up’; two columns of esoteric baseball lingo in which the doughty deeds of ‘Fatty,’ ‘Shorty,’ ‘Squatty,’ ‘Bow-Legged Bill’ and ‘Short-Stop Sam’ are painted in wonderful chiar-oscuro; account of the elopement of a society belle with a negro coachman; heavy editorial on the ‘Power of the Press’; more editorial inanity and offensive self-glorification; a pimping ‘personal’ column’ two columns of murdered men and English language; more toothsome scandal; market reports to mislead the country merchant; budget of foreign news—manufactured in New York; interesting case of ministerial crim. con.; advertisements of quack doctors, lost manhood restorers, syphilitic nostrums, preventative pills, and other things calculated to set the cheek of modesty aflame; local miscellany; police court reports and taffy in solid slugs. Jam to a mux and serve hot. Price, 5 cents. Now is the time to subscribe.”
—William Cowper Brann (1855-1898), the “American Carlyle,” editor of The Iconoclast, briefly the country’s most controversial magazine, with a national circulation
of a quarter-million. An enraged reader shot and, er, “edited” Brann
on the streets of Waco, Texas, on April Fool’s Day, 1898.
of a quarter-million. An enraged reader shot and, er, “edited” Brann
on the streets of Waco, Texas, on April Fool’s Day, 1898.
Editorial Note: I suppose just a letter to the editor was out of the question?
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That's the same formula newspapers still use now, 111 years later! Does that tell us something about a) society, or b) deep-rutted news "judgment" in this country????
ReplyDeleteBrann was particularly antagonistic to the Baptists who made up the greater part of Waco's population (Baylor University, which for many years called itself the largest Baptist school in the world, is there).
ReplyDeleteHistorians agree that the surprising thing is that no one shot him earlier.
Joseph
He had to be a ball to have whiskey with. Most likely he penned a lot of stuff in a bar.
ReplyDeleteGood ol' frontier justice.
Kelly