Judge, 1912-02-10 · page 5 of 24
Judge — February 10, 1912 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from Judge magazine satirizes yellow journalism practices. The top cartoon shows a man and woman leaping across a chasm toward each other—illustrating the maxim "A straight line is the shortest distance between two points." This appears to mock sensationalist reporters who fabricate or distort stories for headlines. The article "Confessions of a Yellow Journalist" describes how the author's newspaper falsely reported that a man named Mr. Johnson beat his wife. When confronted, they printed a denial but maintained their "skeptical" stance. The piece criticizes how newspapers manufacture scandals, then exploit the resulting controversy with follow-up stories about wife-beating as entertainment. The bottom illustration labeled "Wisdom Born of Experience" shows men discussing marriage expenses, satirizing how journalists exploited domestic discord as content.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A STRAIGHT LINE IS THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS. Confessions of a Yellow Journalist. ‘00 MANY newspaper men fail be- cause they wait for things to hap- pen. This is a great mistake in this busy age. News that happens is very apt to be the poorest kind of news. News that happens is very rarely the kind of news that the public wants—and, of course, we must think of the public first. There are two points along this line, therefore, which I would emphasize and which should govern every success- ful journalist: If there is no news, make news; and, having made news, make the most of it. On one oceasion, I remember, it was a very dull day. Not a single scandal in sight. Nothing but the deadly routine of police courts and Wall Street. I called in my star reporter and gave him explicit instruc- tions. It happened that there was a man in the community who had been prominent and well to do financially, but just at the time of which I speak the postal authorities were investigating him. As this news had been duly published and as he seemed to be in no posi- tion to retaliate, we con- sidered him an easy mark or—shall I say?—legiti- mate prey. My star reporter went to this man, whose name was William Johnson, and said, ‘‘We have a re- port, Mr. Johnson, that you beat your wife. Have you anything to say?”” “Ah, Jack, old fellow! How goes matrimony ?"” "* Very well, thanks; but, Jove, it's expensive comfort. The dressmakers alone ! If I had only known ""—— “You would have remained single, eh ?"’ “* No, no—but I would have married the dressmaker.’” By ELLIS 0. JONES. Of course Mr. Johnson was very angry, but he could do nothing more than deny the report. This was just what we wanted. Within an hour after the in- terview we had issued an extra, with the principal headline, ‘‘Mr. William Johnson Denies That He Beats His Wife.” Now, while many modern editors would look upon this as a good stroke of journalism, few of them would have fol- lowed it up properly. That’s where I showed myself head and shoulders above them, and, as a result, that scoop be- came the basis of an extended journal- WISDOM BORN OF EXPERIENCE, Haven't seen you since your wedding two years ago. istic feat which few New Yorkers for- get. On the following day we sent a re- porter to interview Mrs. Johnson, to see if she cared to confirm her husband's denial. She also denied the report, and this we printed, taking care, however, to indicate that we were still skeptical. With the story we printed a photograph of Mrs. Johnson, which our able art de- partment had duly doctored to show a black eye, a broken nese, and cross patches on the cheek. Next we had one of our able writers get up a story on the history of wife beating. Then we visited all the penal institutions and interviewedconfessed wife beaters as to the causes leading up to their respective deeds. We in- terviewed their wives on how it feels to be wife- beaten. Then we had the Sporting cartoonists draw a series of rough, humor- ous cartoons showing that wife beating was one of the new sports. I had another of our artists ar- range a humorous series depicting the adventures of ‘Jingo, the Wife Beat- er.’’ I had our minister preach a scathing sermon consigning to the very lowest limbo the wretch who was so inhuman as to beat his wife. We inter- viewed prominent busi- ness men on the connec- tion between wife beat- ing and business. We had our editorial writer comicbooks.com