Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

The executive editor of the Knight Newspapers, long noted for his innovations in typography and photography, urges that journalists be oriented in both fields so that they may select the medium by which each story can be told most effectively.

The executive editor of Look magazine and co-author of The Technique of the Picture Story traces the development of the newspaper illustration into a means of communicating a complete account of an event with a minimum of words.

The brevity of this bibliography can be blamed, not on its compiler's unwillingness to search the photography and journalism publications or the book shelves of numerous libraries and supply shops, but upon the editor's explicit instructions and the scarcity of material.

Professor Arpan's specific orders were: “The bibliography should contain references to photo-journalism only and should skip photography in general.” Precisely that was done, although “photo-journalism” was interpreted broadly. It meant that a few general books of special help should be included; it meant, also, a little attention to television and the news reel.

Having prepared a bibliography in the field of general journalism, the compiler knew that little had been written on photo-journalism. He was not prepared, however, for the realization that most writing on the subject is either badly out-of-date or superficial. Articles in such journals as Camera, American Photographer, Editor and Publisher, and Popular Photography usually are topical and timely but therefore highly perishable. So many technological changes have occurred in the past few years that whole books have become mere curiosities. Popular taste has affected photo-journalism also, stimulated by the growth of the picture magazine.

Photo-journalism, like newspaper circulation, radio news writing, and country journalism, is wide open for up-to-date and thorough treatment by textbook authors. At this writing there is no single book, dated later than 1939, which is intended as a basic text in a photo-journalism course or at least suitable for such use.

The compiler wishes to thank James Fosdick, assistant professor of photography, Kent State University, and C. Wesley Brewster, instructor in graphic arts, Syracuse University, for their suggestions.

Newsprint shortages constituted the biggest trade news in American journalism in this quarter, as a Congressional inquiry and grand jury investigations carried the search as far as Canada and Alaska. In the field of radio there was some prospect of a general revision of the Communications Act by Congress, with both radio broadcasters and the FCC arguing against certain proposed changes. The so-called Hut chins report on press freedom continued to stir controversy, and spectacular developments in mechanical production of newspapers eliminating some of the standard procedures of the present were under serious study as American journalism still sought to stabilize its postwar economic position– W. F. S.

The world-wide emphasis upon socialized ownership of the agencies of communication is continued this quarter in proceedings of the International Organization of Journalists and other international conferences.

News for inclusion in this section … activities of schools and departments of journalism, staff appointments andchanges, curricular developments and the like … must reach Professor Miller, Division of Journalism, Stanford University, California, by the first of the month preceding publication, News for the December issue must reach him by November 1.