TOWARDS A NEW JOURNALISM

Significantly, journal editors throughout the country have raised interested eyebrows, expressed enthusiasm over a new pictorial, which appearing today has already an American demand in excess of 800,000 copies, and 500,000 in European nations. The new magazine, titled "Rising Tide," conveys the message of modern Christianity, as exemplified in the Oxford Group, to men and women in this country and abroad. The Group here attempts to popularize and demonstrate, apparently with success, Christian doctrines for the solution of current industrial and national problems.

Though it is a recognized fact that there happen as many good deeds in the world as bad, the press, headed by pictorial sections, has displayed increasingly of late a tendency to feature the spectacular, the sordid, and the base in American life. Any justification of this course rests on the fundamental premise that most people secretly admire the man who dares to sin.

In "Rising Tide" and its million and a half copies may be seen not only a 1937 application of the Gospel, but also the acknowledgement by newspaper men of the demand for a primarily clean tabloid. From below and above a move may thus be now in motion to halt the vicious circle which degrades the journal as a source of reliable information, as a force on public opinion, and as a vehicle of education.