The Snoop 10.10.2013
Oct. 6-12 is National Newspaper Week. This year’s theme: “Your Community, Your Newspaper, Your Life”, is a pledge to our readers – we put the community first, before our individual or personal interests.
During National Newspaper Week, we believe it is fitting and proper that we should publish “The Journalist’s Creed”, written by Walter Williams, first dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, in 1914.
The creed, a personal affirmation of journalism ethics, has been published in more than 100 languages, and a bronze plaque of The Journalist’s Creed hangs at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The Journalist’s Creed
I believe in the profession of Journalism.
I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of lesser service than the public service is a betrayal of this trust.
I believe that clear thinking, clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism.
I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true. I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible.
I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one’s own pocket book is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another’s instructions or another’s dividends.
I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.
I believe that the journalism which succeeds the best – and best deserves success – fears God and honors man; is stoutly independent; unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power; constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of the privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance, and as far as law, an honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship, is a journalism of humanity, of and for today’s world.
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Father and His Paper
My father says the paper he reads ain’t put up right.
He finds a lot of fault, he does, perusin’ it all night.
He says there ain’t a single thing in it worth while to read,
And that it doesn’t print the kind of stuff the people need.
He tosses it aside and says it’s strictly on the bum
But you ought to hear him holler when the paper doesn’t come.
He reads about the weddin’s and he snorts like all get out,
He reads the social doin’s with a most derisive shout,
He says they make the paper for the women folks alone,
He’ll read about the parties and he’ll fume and fret and groan;
He says of information it doesn’t have a crumb,
But you ought to hear him holler when the paper doesn’t come.
He’s always first to grab it and he reads it plumb clean through,
He doesn’t miss an item or a want ad – this is true.
He says they don’t know what we want, the durn newspaper guys.
He’s going to take a day sometime an’ go and put ’em wise.
Sometimes it seems as though they must be blind and deaf and dumb
But you ought to hear him holler when the paper doesn’t come.
(This poem was published in May 1922 in the Presspatch, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch employee newsletter of the period. It also appeared in the Jan. 15, 1921, issue of Mixer & Server, the newsletter of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers International Alliance and Bartenders International League of America. The author is unknown, but it could have been written by some people we know.)
