The Press: Reader Beware

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How should a newspaper handle an irresponsible charge made by a public figure? Most newspapers, clinging to the old-fashioned fetish of "objectivity," print the charge as straight news, leave it to the reader to interpret. Even when the paper follows up its story with a denial from the person maligned, the denial seldom catches up with the charge. For this reason, more and more editors feel that the old rules for handling such stories are not good enough (TIME, May 4).

Last week, when Indiana's Republican Senator William E. Jenner charged that Fair Dealers "shamefully" sent American troops to Korea where "they were supposed to be defeated" by the Communists (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), the pro-Eisenhower New York World-Telegram and Sun tried a different way of handling the story. The Telly thought Jenner's charge was Page One news, but in a rare editorial note preceding the news story, it also warned its readers to beware: " [We print] the following dispatch because it is a statement by a United States Senator. It should be pointed out, however, that Sen. William E. Jenner offered no facts to substantiate his irresponsible charge."

The Associated Press also thought it time to sound a "note of warning on political reporting." Said A.P. in its weekly official Log: "Politics are rough and will get rougher before November—so we take this opportunity to warn against misuse of verbs and adjectives. Remember: There never was a verb better than 'said' . . . We've had phrases like 'stinging attack,' 'stinging rebuke' and the verb 'noted,' which connotes truth. The prize of them all (not A.P.) was this lead: 'Canton, Ohio— Senator McCarthy disclosed today the Democratic Party was the "party of treason."'* Which re-emphasizes: There never was a verb better than 'said.'"