"Never underestimate the intelligence of your readers/viewers,
but never overestimate their knowledge” is a popular media
maxim. Readers/viewers are smart, but they might not have all
the facts. It’s the job of the news media to provide them with
the facts. Glenn Frank (1887-1940) wrote in The Century magazine
in 1923, “The ideal magazine will overestimate the intelligence
and underestimate the information of its readers.” Raymond
Clapper (1892-1944), a popular newspaper columnist, is often
credited with “Never overestimate the people’s knowledge nor
underestimate their intelligence.” Clapper died in World War II
and Time magazine wrote in 1944, as it had written in a
columnist profile in 1942, of “Ray Clapper’s guiding maxim:
‘Never overestimate the people’s knowledge, nor underestimate
their intelligence.’” Olive Ewing Clapper, his wife, wrote in
1961 that the saying was “actually coined by Glenn Frank.”
Frank, Glenn, 1887-1940, American editor and educator, b. Queen
City, Mo., grad. Northwestern Univ., 191