"Goodness Isn't News": The Sheldon Edition and the National Conversation Defining Journalism’s Responsibility to Society.

This article explores the national discussion in 1900 about press responsibility, which was sparked by the Rev. Charles Sheldon, a pastor of a Congregationalist church, serving a week-long stint as editor of the Topeka (Kansas) Daily Capital. Afterward, the general consensus of the reams of commentary, from both the press and the pastorate, was that editing a daily paper from a "Christian point of view" was a failure. Nevertheless, the debate revealed the pulpit's acknowledgment of its conferral of the role of agent of education and moral uplift upon the press, making it the new arbiter of public opinion. However, it also showed the pulpit challenging the notion of journalistic objectivity as it struggled to redefine news as interpretive and advocative in order to comport with a journalistic ideal grounded in the gospel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]