The Daily Sketch, following, I fancy, on an American model,
now proclaims itself as containing "All the News and Pictures Fit to Print." It is a laudable limitation. But one that may surely be taken for granted in a British newspaper, you add ? Is it ? I have before me the last issue of a Sunday paper which contains both news and pictures. There is no nonsense there about fit to print. All, evidently, that matters is, fit to sell. I shall neither name it nor describe it. But if suggestiveness, vulgar sensationalism and exploitation of semi-nudity are to be regarded as an outrage on decent journalism then a paper which sticks to the news and pictures fit to print is something to be profoundly thankful for. A clear line can in fact be drawn between papers in this country which prefer to maintain such standards and papers which, presumably, find it profitable to ignore them. It is the public which determines in the long run whether decency in journalism pays ; if defiance of decency pays better, it is the public, even more than the offending papers, that stands condemned.
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