Morgan County Democrat

Sound Like Brain Storms

After reading the account of the Malta robbery last week, as reported in some of the city daily papers, and the many misleading statements made in connection, one is led to wonder if their report of this robbery is a "sample" of accuracy of such papers in reporting similar happenings elsewhere. If so, then the crime wave of the country, as they report it, should be discounted about one-half, and conditions are not so bad after all as we may read. If this occurrence referred to was to be treated as semi-fiction, and the readers so understood it, it was all right, but if the readers preferred the plain facts in the case, it was lacking in that respect.

This paper may be wrong, but we feel that the most of our readers want the facts, and not something covered in a maze of words; and that is what our aim is at all times. It is an easy matter to play up the sensational side of such things, but in so doing oftentimes the real facts are badly warped. It is, as all know, almost an impossible thing to get the absolute facts, since two perfectly reliable witnesses will not see, or tell, things in exactly the same way. But when papers apparently fix accounts to suit their particular style of sensationalism, it is a different matter. Such style may help the newsboys on the streets to sell a greater number of their papers, but they do not give what the readers think they are getting.

We may be too conservative, but we prefer, and our aim at all times is, to give facts, which we endeavor to write in a plain, clear style, so that their meaning will be understood; and we do not try to cover up the real value with sensational or unnecessary words, in order to make a "better story."