John Smith, Negro

Almost daily, U.S. newspapers are confronted by a nettlesome problem for which they have found no final answer. The problem: Should Negroes be identified as such in news stories? Many newspapers follow the New York Times's practice, use the racial tag "only when there is a legitimate purpose to be served" or it is "a matter of pride to all of us," i.e., when a Negro is honored. But many other Northern newspapers, and almost all Southern dailies, label Negroes as such whenever they appear in the news. Last week, the Chicago Tribune was smack up against the problem. It is the only daily paper in Chicago that still labels Negroes in almost all news stories, and Chicago's potent, civic-minded City Club wanted to know why.

The club, whose members include such bigwigs as Meatpacker Harold Swift, Educator Robert Hutchins, Senator Paul Douglas and Democratic Boss Jake Arvey, put the question in a polite letter to the Trib's Managing Editor J. Loy Maloney. Replied Maloney: "Our readers deserve every scrap of information concerning the principal in a story--whether it be a crime story or a story which is complimentary to the persons mentioned or merely noncommittal on that point. We merely report the facts . . ."

Leaders of Thought. The City Club, which thinks that the Negro tag helps "to set Negroes apart" and thus adds to racial tensions in a city which has some 450,000 Negroes, was not satisfied. Last week, after seven months and more letters, the club took its case to Trib readers and the "leaders of thought in 'Chicagoland' " by mailing out 2,000 copies of an eight-page pamphlet "John Smith, Negro." In it, the City Club made its case against use of the racial label, arguing that "in a paper that emphasizes crimes of violence as the Tribune does, there are inevitably many news stories connecting Negroes with such crimes. The inference is drawn by readers that Negroes have an inherent biological tendency toward crime [which] no reputable . . . scientist will support." Where the Negro crime rate is high, said the City Club, it is due to slum conditions, poverty, etc., a sociological point the Trib does not bother to make.

Furthermore, "selection of the Negro group for this treatment is arbitrary." It is not used against Jews, Mexicans, Poles or other groups, but is "selectively used against the poor and friendless [Negroes]. Ralph Bunche ... is not usually labeled." (But when Bunche won the Nobel Prize a fortnight ago, the Trib noted the newsworthy fact that he is a Negro as did other U.S. newspapers and wire services.)

Not All Black. The paper's record, the pamphlet pointed out, is "not all black." The Trib had run a "praiseworthy" editorial against Southern university discrimination, an "excellent series of signed articles on Negro problems," and had banned race tags in its ads.

The pamphlet also admitted that there are "borderline" cases where race-labeling might be "relevant." But even there, it warned that its use added to the "pounding effect" of constant repetition of the label. The City Club called upon pamphlet readers to bring pressure on the Trib "through any channels of influence" to get it to change its policy, use Negro only when it is relevant in a story.

At week's end, the Trib gave no sign that it would do so. The City Club thereupon stepped up its campaign, was prepared to print 10,000 pamphlets.

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