COLLEGES IN THE NEWS
SOME ONE has been at pains lately to make a survey of the amount of college news, direct and indirect, that is printed in the American newspapers, with the result of proving, so far as unverified statistics ever prove anything, that the colleges get a greater amount of attention from news editors than some people realize. According to a Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges, the issues of 100 representative daily papers were surveyed for a month, every item pertaining to the colleges being clipped and filed. As a result a strip of paper about four miles long could have been made if the clippings and pictures could have been pasted end to end. For the country as a whole, it is stated that college items furnished about three per cent of the reading matter published in these newspapers—and in New England the percentage ran as high as four.
Naturally the greater part of the news matter published related to sports—39 per cent of the total. Pictures showing campus activities added another 12 per cent. Adding to their several other classes of news, it appears that of all the college matter printed, fully two-thirds related to the non-academic side of such institutions—which is natural and probably not open to criticism. Awards of scholastic honors account for 5.4 per cent and alumni items to 4.7 per cent. A percentage of 2.6 was devoted to fraternity and society news, and a slightly greater fraction—2.7—to reports of scientific research and other work by faculties. It is somewhat reassuring to be told that only 2.4 per cent of the news matter related to scandals, bootlegging, and the escapades of flaming youth. The smallest item of all was the space devoted to financial campaigns—a meagre fraction of one per cent.
The greater preponderance of such items in the news columns of the papers of New England is due, of course, to the fact that there is such an unusual number of colleges in that area compared with other areas. "One Boston newspaper," presumably the Transcript, devoted no less than 7.5 per cent of its news columns to college items. Recognition should be made of the interest of the New York Times, and a few other papers of similar high character and attainments, in educational news. Even for those in this select group, and certainly for the majority of the press, the emphasis must, however, be placed on a plea from the colleges for more space, rather than on compliments for service already rendered. Education has been termed America's "greatest passion." The power of newspapers through news and editorial columns to arouse and quicken public support of an intelligent and active sort might well be more often, much more often, used to further the high purposes of schools and colleges.
