You can teach the missionary boards and secretaries a little
sense as to the news value of missionary items. I know these
missionary boards and officials; they are altogether respectable
and useful members of society, but they do regard a reporter of
the secular press as a nuisance. Of course many of them do not;
there are a few here. But they usually say, “No, we have no news
to-day.” I have been in the office when a representative of a
newspaper came in. “Anything new?” “No.” And I knew that there
was the best sort of a newspaper story right there; but it went
into the drawer and stayed there three weeks until the whole
matter was sent down to the monthly paper of the Church and
buried. Anything that is of human interest is news. A man said
to me, “I am going to quit _The Globe_ because it is giving
out all this slush of the Torrey-Alexander meetings.” We gave
from two to five columns a day to those meetings, and that man
objected. I said to him, “Put up any sort of a meeting in that
hall, and if you will fill that hall, afternoon and evening,
I will give you from three to five columns.” Those things
that have human interest the people want and need.--J. A.
MACDONALD, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
(2198)
=Next Thing All Important=--See DEFEAT.
=Night Activities=--See LIGHT.