How to Handle McCarthy

"Are you weary of 'McCarthy' stories?" asked the Manhattan (Kans.) Mercury-Chronicle (circ. 6,157). The paper, one of seven dailies owned by the family of Assistant Secretary of Defense Frederick A. Seaton, decided that most of its readers were. The Mercury-Chronicle announced that it would experiment with running McCarthy stories on page 3 instead of Page One because the paper's editors felt "there has been something of a tendency everywhere to overplay 'McCarthy' stories." Last week the Louisville Courier-Journal (circ. 201,212) strongly disagreed and read a sharp lecture to the Mercury-Chronicle editors and other working newsmen who feel it their responsibility to "play down" McCarthy. Said a Courier-Journal editorial:

"Banishing McCarthy to the inside of the paper . . . suspends the one rule on which a newspaper can be run. That is the pure act of news judgment. Men handling the news have to make the delicate decision each day as to which stories are important, which stories will be of paramount interest to their readers . . . When the man who runs a newspaper decides to 'play down' the news of any individual, he is fooling with the fiercest sort of fire ... In his news columns ... he must observe the single standard: Is it news? McCarthy is news, all over America, and almost every day. Publicity did not create him . . . Publicity will not save him, if the public grows weary of him and stops reading about his activities."

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