Life, 1908-10-22 · page 16 of 24
Life — October 22, 1908 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes major New York newspapers through verse caricatures. Each numbered section skewers a different publication: 1. **The Evening Post**: portrayed as a self-righteous "common scold" 2. **The Sun**: described as frisky, contradictory, mixing cleverness with bad grammar 3. **The Journal**: accused of twisting truth and spreading sensationalism 4. **The World**: presented as Jekyll-and-Hyde—wise editorials paired with tabloid trash 5. **The Tribune**: once a champion of truth, now reduced to serving an ambassador's ambitions 6. **The Times**: chasing circulation through society gossip instead of serious journalism 7. **The Firefly** (unclear publication): criticized as vain and original only in its shamelessness The accompanying sketches show character types representing these papers' editorial philosophies. The satire targets late-19th-century journalism's descent into sensationalism, partisan politics, and commercial self-interest over truth.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
442 “LIFE: New York Newspaper Directory, Revised a NFAILING mentor every afternoon, With damns enough for all and praise for none, Who'd warn the night against the treach’rous 11 And bid the day distrust the plotting sun— Its fancied duty and its real delight To point the wicked to the path of right, Its occupation one perpetual roast, The Nation’s common scold—the A frisky youth for all its seventy years, An adept at the unexpected flop- A monument of argument it rears, To turn it twelve months later on the top; Sometimes a clever story that’s a hit, Often facctiousness served up as wit, A mixture of cocksureness, slang and fun, With some bad grammar,—and you have the Sun. si The common people's champion every time, (This, understand, is what it calls itself), Its stock in trade calamity and crime— Fire, famine, murder, piracy and pelf; It may be true its news is never late, "T is likewise true it's almost never straight; Of all false freakish chronicles diur In twisting truth none can approach the Journal, 4 A dual personality is this, 1 yellow dog, part patriot and sage When ‘t comes to fact the rule je none can beat its editorial Wise counsel here, wild yarns the other side, Page six its Jekyll and page one its Hyde: At the same time conservative and rash, The World supplies us good advice and trash is hit or miss, 5 1 reminder of a glorious youth, n of the G. O. P., One time a mighty champion of the truth, Now the appurtenance of an embassy: Nursing for years its editor’s ambition, Accomplishing at last his hopes’ fruition, * My policies,” court, at least, while Mr, Reid's at Will have the grateful Tribunc’s fond support 6. Quick’ning its speed to keep the modern pace, Won to the worship of the calf of gold, lis stories dry, its preachings commonplace, A timid shadow of the knight of old— Of all its fellows foremost in the rush To soil white paper with society slust Newcomer in the field of cheap sensation, The Times, these days, is after circulation. A Content, well-nourished, colorless and vain, ‘The only great original I AM, Its boasts as ample as minute its brain, Made up of dullness, shallowness and sham ; The Firefly: owe Me a guanter, PARD, OK I'LL MANG AROUND TERE WITHE MY LIGHT UNTIL EVERYBODY IN TOWN 18 onto vou “THIS 1S HER BIRTHDAY. 1 RECKON I'LL TAKE WER TEN CENTS’ WUTIL 0" THEM ROSES "” When Gabriel appears on Judgment Morn He'll find the Herald with a louder horn, And ere the rest of us are out the sod The Herald will be patronizing God F YOU DON’T SEE WHAT YOU WANT, ASK ror it”