PERSONAL GLIMPSES VI
From Reader's Digest

In his book On Press, journalist Tom Wicker describes an important lesson he learned at age 23:

   As a correspondent for the Sandhill Citizen in Aberdeen, N.C., I covered a divorce case that involved one party who had futilely chased the other with an ax. It was the human comedy at its most ribald, and the courtroom rocked with laughter. I wrote a humorous account for page one.
   The next day I had a visitor: a worn-out woman whose haggard eyes were blazing. "Mr. Wicker," she said, "why did you think you had the right to make fun of me in your paper?"
   I have never forgotten that question. My story had exploited someone's unhappiness for the amusement of others. I had made the woman something less than what she was - a human being. Seeing that, I saw, too, that I had not only done her an injury, but had missed the story I should have written.