Image 4 of The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser (Pascagoula, Miss.), October 12, 1945, (SECTION ONE)
1 To Keep A Free Press Free Recently the newspapers of tins country made annual observance of Newspaper Week and once again we looked on with interest and mixed feelings as one great journal after another and many a small one treated its readership to an editorial diet of sanctity and selfpraise We are proud of the free American press and would rather be a part of this business than any other But we cannot help regretting a maudling element in our business which seeps into the editorial pages oi ine nation on such occasions as News paper Week To get down to details one theme we do not like to see spread across these pages is the theme of selfcongratulation because wethe newspaper industry honestly report the news It is a newspapers implicit duty honestly to report the news No newspaper in America ex ists without its own slants and opinions and spe cial axes to grind whether these be on behalf of some ideal or on behalf of some very special and selfish interest But the tradition of a free press demands that the newspaper leave these slants and opinions to the editorial pages and that its newscolumns