'A Vast Sea of Mediocrity':

...It would be impossible today, economically, to print and distribute successfully the four, five or six separate daily newspapers which existed in most medium-sized American cities half a century ago...

...The tremendous success of the Wall Street...

...In between there is a vast sea of mediocrity...

...Their news coverage is considerably better than it used to be, all things considered: They cover political conflicts, such as presidential elections, more impartially than ever before...

...Perhaps the current wave of criticism, plus the somewhat competitive challenge of nationally edited dailies, will stimulate improvement in American newspapers...

...These critics substantially agree that, as increasing financial costs reduce the number and variety of daily newspapers, the necessity of serving mass audiences has brought much of our press to a dead level of popularization...

...Frankly, however, what is happening to American newspapers is much like what is happening in other sectors of American life: a kind of selfsatisfaction, the rewards and taints of mass markets, the penalties of partial fulfilment of social goals...

...The problem of making today's newspapers more effective and responsible is complex...

...In his book, Lindstrom expresses these criticisms with a rather angry sense of frustration, and a tendency toward overstatement...

...I do not believe he really means it when he says that "the printing press is on the way to obsolescence...

...In a number of smaller cities there are excellent dailies, with color, vigor and civic sense...

...and Louis M. Lyons, of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University...

...Their editorials contained much eloquent and sometimes hysterical violence, but their local, national and international news coverage was grossly inadequate...

...For a decade or more, there has been a good deal of internal criticism and gradual change in American journalism...

...The New York Times, after pioneering with teletypeset operation in Paris, is now investigating simultaneous publication in other parts of the United States...

...The fact that some newspapers do a more effective and conscientious job than others, and still manage to retain their economic vitality, proves that the lowest common denominator does not always have to be plumbed...

...The typical American daily cannot escape the responsibility of satisfying a highly disparate audience...

...They report labor disputes more fairly and fully than in the past...

...its Sunday edition already has a wide appeal...

...But in the case of newspapers there really has not yet been an active response to legitimate criticism...

...The so-called golden age of American newspapers, in fact, never existed...

...It is worth recalling, too, that the intensely partisan newspapers of 1900 were not particularly good...

...But journalistic enterprises must be headed by publishers and editors who have some sense of the duty and potential service of a newspaper to its community...

...Most American newspapers have sacrificed much of their potential quality to a bland porridge of features...

...But certainly the printed word, as embodied in the daily American newspaper, must be used with greater skill, judgment, acuteness and diversity if the American newspaper is to survive...

...But we have only a few really good large newspapers...

...Journal shows that a nationally edited and regionally printed newspaper can be a sound operation, even if it addresses itself to a special audience...

...Harry Ashmore, of the Little Rock, Arkansas, Gazette...

...The rising costs of newspaper manufacture, the difficulties of distribution, the reliance on advertising for a major part of support, all make such press fragmentization as unfeasible in the present American economy as a multiplicity of national automobile manufacturers...

...The Christian Science Monitor has also achieved national circulation...

...They must satisfy an audience which ranges over the whole gamut of the community...

...Rigorous internal and external challenge can do us a lot of good in many areas...

...But their editorials have greatly weakened, partly for the very reason that they are designed to be read by the entire community, not just by faithful Democrats or Republicans...

...They include Carl Lindstrom, author of the present book, who was editor of the Hartford Times and an officer of the American Society of Newspaper Editors...

...Herbert Brucker, of the Hartford Courant...

...They also believe that newspapers are far behind the times in technological and editorial improvement and that competition with the electronic media has not only cut into advertising budgets, thus putting a rough economic squeeze on most newspapers, but has failed to evoke a sufficiently imaginative response...

...The American Press Institute at Columbia University, which brings together experienced newspapermen for fortnight-long clinics in the various tasks of newspapering, illustrates practical self-improvement...

...Reviewed by Erwin D. Canham Editor, "Christian Science Monitor" American daily newspapers are beginning to feel the lash of criticism from a number of highly respected editors or former editors...

...Such newspapers do not replace the local daily, but supplement the popularized community paper...