Comment

Comment is not a good-looking magazine as student publications go, nor, sorry to say, is it very well-written. But it has a noble sense of purpose, and that entitles it to sympathetic consideration.

Comment's nobility is of the classical American liberal variety. Its editors seek to promote intelligent political discussion; its publishers believe in "political participation"; and its contributors are committed to informing the public. All of which makes it appropriate that this year's first issue is devoted largely to "The Press."

The October Comment attempts to "go some way toward particularizing the blanket charges of the glib critics who delight in vilifying 'the press.'" It fails in this attempt, mainly because its contributors are unable or unwilling to take firm hold of the issues implicit in their own material.

Charles L. Whipple of the Boston Globe, for example, neatly avoids the question to which he addresses himself: "Reporting the Scandals: Has the Boston Press Fulfilled Its Responsibilities?" Instead, he contents himself mainly with praising the Globe at the expense of the Herald-Traveler.

James Laue 3G makes a different kind of mistake. Instead of ignoring an issue, he fabricates one. Thus, in an otherwise informative article on the Black Muslim movement, he blames the "mass media" for white indifference to the plight of the American Negro. As the editors of Comment suggest, it is just "glib" to scream at the press for the ills of society.

Yet Mr. Laue is not the only glib man in the magazine. Thomas J. Babe, Jr. '63 inconclusively uses the mass media as whipping boy for the bomb shelter fad. But he has a word of comfort: "an all-out attack, precipitated perhaps by the certitude of survival, will destroy many printing presses."

In A. J. Liebling's book, the same theme occurs: If only more people read the New York Times, how much better a world this would be. But at least the reviewer, Arthur D. Hellman '63, has the good sense to dissent. "Does the American public want good newspapers." Hellman asks. His question is not very profound, but it is the only recognition in Comment of the fact that the press works in a social context.

The reporting in Comment is better than the analysis. David B. Brownell '63 does a good job surveying the experiences of Nieman Fellows who covered integration in the South. Bernard Weintraub of the New York Times has contributed an eminently readable piece on the army in Korea.

But on the whole, Comment is sloppy. Too often does it substitute opinion for thought. And too frequently does it confront the reader with bad writing. Such faults are not the more excusable because of Comment's high principles; rather, they are the more tragic. It is a pity to see a magazine like Comment's handicapped by soft-hearted editing.