strongest and best. A man of little education can understand it, while the man of higher education, usually reading a paper in the evening after a day's work, will read it with relish. There is never any need of using big words to show off one's learning. The object of a story or an editorial is to inform or convince; but it is hard to do either if the reader has to study over a big word or an involved sentence. Use plain English all the time. A few readers may understand and appreciate a Latin or French quotation, or one from some other foreign language, but the big mass of our readers are the plain people, and such a quotation would be lost on the majority.

Be fair. Don't let the libel laws be your measure in printing of a story, but let fairness be your measure. If you are fair, you need not worry about libel laws.

Always give the other fellow a hearing. He may be in the wrong, but even that may be a matter of degree. It wouldn't be fair to picture him as all black when there may be mitigating circumstances.

It is not necessary to tell the people that we are honest, or bright, or alert, or that a story appeared exclusively in our paper. If true, the public will find it out. An honest man does not need to advertise his honesty.

Time heals all things but a woman's damaged reputation. Be careful and cautious and fair and decent in dealing with any man's reputation, but be doubly so—and then some—when a woman's name is at stake. Do not by direct statement, jest or careless reference raise a question mark after any woman's name if it can be avoided—and it usually can be. Even if a woman slips, be generous; it may be a crisis in her life. Printing the story may drive her to despair; kindly treatment may leave her with hope. No story is worth ruining a woman's life—or a man's, either.

Keep the paper clean in language and thought. Profane or suggestive words are not necessary. When in doubt, think of a 13-year-old girl reading what you are writing.

Do not look on newspaper work as a "game," of pitilessly printing that on which you are only half informed, for the mere sake of beating some other paper; but take it rather as a serious, constructive work in which you are to use all your energy and diligence to get all the worth-while information for your readers at the earliest possible moment.

INSTRUCTIONS TO REPORTERS

When you go after a story, make sure that you get all of it.

Drill yourself into searching for facts; almost anybody can write a story—it takes real brains and resourcefulness to get one.

You are urged to call the city editor for instructions whenever in doubt, and it is a good idea to call as often as possible to keep the office informed and also to get any information on your story that may have come in from other sources.

Before you write or telephone your story, make sure that you have all your facts marshaled in your own mind. A good reporter usually plans his story, lead and details in his head on his way to the office.

NEVER GUESS.

KNOW WHAT YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT.

When you turn in a story KNOW that everything in that story is true—and if you feel there is a statement you can not prove, call your city editor's attention to it.

To color or fake a story is not newspaper work—it is prostitution of the profession of journalism.

Be sure of your sources of information. Never take anything for granted—find out for yourself. You will discover that many persons talk convincingly about things although they have no actual knowledge of the subject under discussion.

Remember always that a newspaper has to prove what it says—and any decent newspaper is eager to.

If you don't know, tell the city editor you don't know. To guess is criminal because nobody can guess with any consistent degree of accuracy. And accuracy should be your guide.

Reporters should study their stories after they are printed, with the realization that any changes made in them were made to better them. Ask why your stories have been changed so your next story will be better through avoidance of the same mistake.

Never be afraid to ask anybody anything.

The mainspring of a good newspaper man is a wholesome curiosity.

The essentials of newspaper writing are accuracy and simplicity. The newspaper is no place for fine writing. Simplicity means directness and conciseness in telling the story as well as an avoidance of hifalutin phrases, obsolete words and involved sentences.

Walt Whitman wrote: "The art of arts, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity—nothing can make up for excess or the lack of definiteness."

Every worker on a newspaper knows the value of accuracy. Accuracy is the god before whom all newspaper men bow. If one could analyze the effort put forth in one day in this office, one might discover that perhaps a third of that effort was in an attempt to obtain accuracy. The city directory is the newspaper man's Bible because accuracy is his deity.

The hardest lesson the journalist must learn is the development of the impersonal viewpoint. He must learn to write what he sees and hears, clearly and accurately, with never a tinge of bias. His own views, his personal feelings and his friendships should have nothing to do with what he writes in a story.

The ideal reporter would be a man who could give the public facts about his bitterest enemy even though such facts would make the man he personally hated a hero before the public.

In journalism more than in any other profession does the advice hold good: "Beware of your friends; your enemies will take care of themselves." By this is meant: Learn well the code of ethics which governs your profession, and when any man in the guise of friendship asks you to violate that code, you may say to him, "If you were truly my friend, you would not ask me to do this any more than you would ask a physician as a matter of friendship to perform an illegal operation, or a lawyer to stoop to shyster practices."

Supplying his editors with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, is the only mission of the reporter, and any man who asks the reporter to deviate from that principle asks that which is dishonest.

BE TRUE

Thomas Carlyle: To every writer we might say: Be true, if you would be believed. Let a man but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, the emotion, the actual condition of his own heart; and other men, so strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sympathy, must and will give heed to him. In culture, in extent of view, we may stand above the speaker, or below him; but in either case, his words, if they are earnest and sincere, will find some response within us; for in spite of all casual varieties in outward rank or inward, as face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man.

INSTRUCTIONS TO COPY READERS

The copy reader's position carries with it larger responsibilities than the position of any other member of the staff. He can mar or ruin a good story; he can redeem the poor story; he can save the reporter from errors of commission or omission in the matter of his story or in the manner of its writing. No matter how accomplished a writer a reporter may be, the copy reader who handles his story can destroy his product. Then, too, it is the function of the copy reader, if he believes that a better story can be written with the same facts as a basis, to suggest to the city editor