Split Decision

How should a newspaper report the marriage of a white person and a Negro? Is the paper fomenting race prejudice if it mentions that one of them is a Negro? Is it guilty of poor news judgment if it fails to do so? Many editors find the question delicate and difficult.

Last week Manhattan newspapers reported such a marriage. The bride was Anne Mather, an heiress to a Cleveland iron-ore fortune and a descendant of New England's old Puritan Cotton Mather. The groom was Frank Curie Montero, a director of the Urban League Fund, whom she had met in social-welfare work.

The New York Herald Tribune, which does not identify Negroes (in crime or general news stories), reported the impending marriage in a conventional little society note tucked away on page 6. It did not mention the race of bride or groom.

The tabloid New York Daily News splashed big pictures of bride and family across Page One, headlined its top news spot inside: HEIRESS WEDS NEGRO SOCIAL WORKER TODAY.

The good grey New York Times waited until the marriage had taken place, then turned in a split decision. Like the Herald Trib, it buried the story (on page 72). But like the News, it headlined the story : MISS ANNE MATHER MARRIED TO NEGRO.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.