Editors and Editorials

By L.K. Cramb First Published June 27, 1957Earl M, Marvin, esteemed editor of The Beatrice Sun, says in his editorial column recently that a leading Nebraska newspaper is attempting to find the answer to the question: Is an editorial writer essential, or is he a nuisance, tolerated because he has occupied the chair for so many years? Editor Marvin goes on to comment: “Within my recollection, the editor was a violent partisan. If he had an opponent in the journalistic field, and that was the usual situation, the community would have as entertainment a newspaper fight. He dipped his pen in the vitriol and excoriated his “vile contemporary,” the green-eyed monster, of the other paper. Editors, in the old days, were something like lawyers. To hear opposing lawyers try a case one would think they were about to engage in a fist fight, but when out of court they were like two buddies. This was usually the case with editors who were fighting each other in editorials.The story is told of two Indiana editors who were very bitter in their editorials regarding each other. One took sick and his competitor came to his rescue writing editorials for both papers, and he did a fine job giving himself hell in the opposing paper. Marvin mentions the decline of editorials, and that they have less influence than formerly. One reason is fewer good editorial writers, and the use of “canned” editorials, that is, editorials written by a service which supplies editorials to hundreds of newspapers. These editorials may be factual, but they are innocuous, and never take a stand on any subject. One of the leading weekly papers in this state uses this service, and another, while taking the service, rewrites most of the editorials. This last paper has its short squibs, written by the service, quoted frequently. Regardless of the quality of my own editorials, or whether or not they have any influence, yet they are my own, I have never used a canned editorial, or stolen one from some other paper.

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