These standards do not necessarily exclude news and special feature stories that deal with crime, scandal, and similar topics; but they do demand that the treatment of such subjects shall not be suggestive or offensive.  To portray violators of the criminal or moral codes as heroes worthy of emulation; to gratify some readers’ taste for the morbid; to satisfy other readers by exploiting sex—­all are alike foreign to the purpose of respectable journalism.  No self-respecting writer will lend the aid of his pen to such work, and no self-respecting editor will publish it.

To deter persons from committing similar crimes and follies should be the only purpose in writing on such topics.  The thoughtful writer, therefore, must guard against the temptation to surround wrong-doers with the glamour of heroic or romantic adventure, and, by sentimental treatment, to create sympathy for the undeserving culprit.  Violations of law and of the conventions of society ought to be shown to be wrong, even when the wrong-doer is deserving of some sympathy.  This need not be done by moralizing and editorializing.  A much better way is to emphasize, as the results of wrong-doing, not only legal punishment and social ostracism, but the pangs of a guilty conscience, and the disgrace to the culprit and his family.

A cynical or flippant treatment of serious subjects gives many readers a false and distorted view of life.  Humor does not depend on ridicule or satire.  The fads and foibles of humanity can be good-naturedly exposed in humorous articles that have no sting.  Although many topics may very properly be treated lightly, others demand a serious, dignified style.

The men and women whom a writer puts into his articles are not puppets, but real persons, with feelings not unlike his own.  To drag them and their personal affairs from the privacy to which they are entitled, and to give them undesired and needless publicity, for the sake of affording entertainment to others, often subjects them to great humiliation and suffering.  The fact that a man, woman, or child has figured in the day’s news does not necessarily mean that a writer is entitled to exploit such a person’s private affairs.  He must discriminate between what the public is entitled to know and what an individual has a right to keep private.  Innocent wives, sweethearts, or children are not necessarily legitimate material for his article because their husband, lover, or father has appeared in the news.  The golden rule is the best guide for a writer in such cases.  Lack of consideration for the rights of others is the mark neither of a good writer nor of a true gentleman.  Clean, wholesome special feature stories that present interesting phases of life accurately, and that show due consideration for the rights of the persons portrayed, are quite as entertaining as are any others.