Research On Henry R. Luce’s Newspaper Practice&Thought

A glance back at media in twentieth century, Henry Luce is “familiar butstrange” with Chinese. On the one hand, he is well-known as “the King of news” andTIME started by him acquires the world’s reputation. On another hand, he is sostrange as a controversial political media member of “Americanize China” as daysgoes by and history records. For the people who wants to know him nowadays, he isforgot and strange for Chinese. In fact, his contributions and significance is importantin world media circle. But the current status on Luce not only reflects him but alsomakes some mistakes even distorts the facts.To get rid of strangeness needs adequate historical data and the spirit of critique.With the influence of his parents whose works are missionary, Luce was interestedand displayed talents in news when he was in childhood. Church school and theschool’s newspaper run by Hotchkiss became a stage for him. A joint with Harden inYale, Luce decided to devote himself to journalism. However, the experiences ofediting the school newspaper didn’t make him successful but unrecognized. When heunited with Harden and started TIME with opportunity, Luce became mature. Theexperiences also play an important role in his journalism life.From Luce’s editing ideas which originated from practice and guidedjournalism effectively, his ideas always referred to religion and age. His ideas onjournalism always put editor-in-chief as a core position and form a structure whichassistant editor is response for editor while editor is response for editor-in-chief, likethe structure of church or state. This structure of editing and editing news togetherrepresent Luce’s values and personal will that the editor-in-chief is core. His editingcreativity updated the history of traditional journalism. The creativity that observe andgrasp the psychology of consumers, use vivid languages and attractive pictures, createnew published form of explanatory news, try for best in editing and pursue specifics,produces lots of news full of the style of Henry Luce. These works influence theworld outlook of America’s society and politics with the appeal of public opinion. Thesuccess of journalism satisfied Luce’s desire on wealth. But Luce was also feared bypoliticians and forgot by history because his control desire on overriding journalismjustice. Therefore whether restore Luce’s ideas and status, or absorb Luce’sexperiences on editing, the study on Henry Luce’s practice and editing of journalism has universal historical values and realistic significance.