[Ads-l] "Try to Please Everybody"

[Peter Reitan]

"Of Herbert B. Swope, executive editor of The World, it is written that 'he thinks the reporter is the most important cog in the great newspaper machine and considers human nature the thing most necessary to understand in dealing with news. * * *  He believes in encouraging individualism, just as he believes a really good newspaper must necessarily contain an element of discontent.  The most successful way of being an unsuccessful journalist, he asserts, is to try to please every one."


The Decatur Herald(Decatur, Illinois), 17 Mar 1928, Page 8.   Newspapers.com.


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Monday, May 8, 2017 10:49:17 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "Try to Please Everybody"

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Subject:      "Try to Please Everybody"
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A Treasury of Business Quotations has "I cannot give you the formula for su=
ccess, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please =
everybody," citing it to an address by Herbert B. Swope, Dec. 20, 1950.  Ca=
n anyone point me to any earlier occurrences of this or similar (maybe "eve=
ryone" instead of "everybody") quotations?


Fred Shapiro




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