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The fact that the crime rate may be higher among certain minority groups, argue some editors, reflects not on their race but on their living conditions; only by airing the problem can any solution be stimulated. Furthermore, they argue that the public is entitled to full information, that race is as pertinent in many cases as is the fact that a man is a lawyer, doctor or executive. Says one Seattle editor: "Some newspapers are forgetting the readers in their zeal to follow an ideology. We favor integration in the schools, but we believe that in many cases, the readers are entitled to simple descriptions of the persons involved."
Sharp Split. Often newspapers run a picture as a means of evading their rule. But this technique can sometimes be misleading. Last week Manhattan's Daily News and Daily Mirror, reporting the murder of one 15-year-old boy by another, made it plain with a photograph that the offender was a Negro. But in failing in the stories to identify the victim as a Negro, the papers left the reader to speculate whether or not the incident involved whites and reflected racial antagonism.
Sometimes it is hard for editors to de cide when they would be justified in using a racial tag. They split sharply two months ago in their handling of agency stories from Germany reporting the court-martial conviction of seven U.S. soldiers for raping a 15-year-old German girl. Wire services reported that all seven were Negroes, but many papers cut that fact from their stories. Some newsmen, such as Executive Editor Milburn P. Akers of the Chicago Sun-Times, argued last week that the omission was justified. But Denver Post Managing Editor Mort Stern said: "I felt we owed it to our readers to include that paragraph."
The New York Times edited out the reference to Negroes, but Managing Editor Turner Catledge admitted that "it was a real problem. We were wrong if the crime was brought about by racial tension. But we were never able to satisfy ourselves on that point." Catledge noted that the Times's handling may have created an unfair impression of U.S. occupation troops as a whole. He added: "A real consideration is the fact that the Germans have developed a special dislike for Negro troops because of their acts over there. We might have made the authorities here more aware of that if we had printed the race. But we decided our main duty is to please our readers, not to satisfy officials."
*On the other hand, New York's Puerto Rican minority, 6% of the population, is responsible for only a shade more than 6% of the crime.