Newspaper Enterprise Association

“ A few editors and publishers have simply regarded newspaper making as an enterprise in no wise different from business and politics, and have accepted the less commendable standards that have resulted from competition in business and rivalry in politics. ”

“ The recognition of the fact that the newspaper is a private and purely business enterprise will help to define the mutual relations of the editor and the public. His claim upon the public is exactly that of any manufacturer or dealer. It is that of the man who makes cloth, or the grocer who opens a shop—neither has a right to complain if the public does not buy of him. If the buyer does not like a cloth half shoddy, or coffee half-chicory, he will go elsewhere. If the subscriber does not like one newspaper, he takes another, or none. ”

“ With this came, in the first quarter of the last century, the extension of private announcements, which have now attained, through the so-called advertising bureaus, some such organization as political news-collecting possesses in the correspondence bureaus.
The modern newspaper is a capitalistic enterprise, a sort of news-factory in which a great number of people (correspondents, editors, typesetters, correctors, machine-tenders, collectors of advertisements, office clerks, messengers, etc.) are employed on wage, under a single administration, at very specialized work. ”

“ Now they can be counted up into the hundreds, and a well-established and successful newspaper is rated as one of the most profitable of business ventures. This advance in financial value has accompanied, and for the most part is due to, the improvement in the character of the publications, which has been going on steadily year by year. There has been a constant increase of enterprise in all directions, especially in that of gathering news, and with this has come the exercise of greater care and better taste in presenting the intelligence collected to the reading public. ”

“ With the increasing expenses of modern newspapers under the stress of competition the necessity of swelling the advertising revenue of a paper becomes of paramount importance. So the courting of prominent advertisers is every day more and more the preoccupation of a newspaper manager and he is apt to listen too favourably to any representations made by strong monied interests and himself to exercise a corresponding pressure on the editorial side of the enterprise. ”

“ From being a comparatively simple undertaking, newspaper publishing has become a big, complex, highly organized enterprise. In 1835 it was possible for one man, James Gordon Bennett, Sr., to start the New York Herald with a cash capital of $500, and to perform the greater part of the work connected with its publication, for the owner-editor’s duties ranged from editorial writing to keeping books, from gathering police news to making out bills, and from commenting on conditions in Wall Street to writing advertisements. ”

“ The counting-room desires to conciliate the advertisers; the editor looks to making a paper satisfactory to his readers. Between this see-saw of the necessary subscriber and the necessary advertiser, a good many newspapers go down. This difficulty would be measurably removed by the admission of the truth that the newspaper is a strictly business enterprise, depending for success upon a 'quid pro quo' between all parties connected with it, and upon integrity in its management. ”

“ There were in the meantime many attempts made to establish a cheaper form of journalism, but they were inadequately supported by working capital; they were usually conducted by men of small capacity; they had no traditions of good will behind them, and above all, they could not get Associated Press franchises. For the benefit of readers who are not familiar with the facts, I explain that the Associated Press is an organization for news-gathering, formed by the great newspapers by way of securing news that no newspaper could afford to secure for itself. ”

“ What the popular teachers did for Athens in the period of Socrates and Plato the press has done in modern times for the common man.
The modern newspaper has been accused of being a business enterprise. "Yes," say the newspaper men "and the commodity it sells is news." It is the truth shop. (The editor is the philosopher turned merchant.) By making information about our common life accessible to every individual at less than the price of a telephone call we are to regain, it is urged—even in the complicated life of what Graham Wallas calls the "Great Society"—some sort of working democracy. ”

“ The newspaper not endowed with an Associated Press franchise must wait for twenty-four hours or more for its copy of the document.
Hardly less important is the fact that in every city, town, and village in the country, the Associated Press has its agent—the local editor or the telegraph operator, or some one else—who is commissioned to report to it [303] every news happening that may arise within his bailiwick. Often these reports are interesting; sometimes they are of importance, and in either case the newspaper not allied with a press association must miss them. ”

“ As personal ownership of newspapers has been superseded by corporate ownership, the place of the editor becomes more and more conventional; as the personal owner continues to be the editor, he tends to consider more than formerly the commercial interests of his paper. These changes seem to create the impression, even among newspaper men themselves, that the editorial is declining in importance. "A newspaper is divided into three parts," says a recent novel dealing with the press. "News is the merchandise which it has to sell. Advertising is the by-product that pays the bills. ”

“ Such a system of local news gathering makes possible a staff of reporters relatively small as compared with the size of the city. Reporters employed by the city news association work under conditions practically the same as those in a newspaper office. Inasmuch as the stories that a news association reporter writes are edited in at least half a dozen newspaper offices by different editors and copy-readers, the reporter has the advantage of seeing how various papers treat the same news story. ”

“ The commodity in which the publishers of daily newspapers deal is news, i.e. information respecting recent events in which the public take an interest, or in which an interest can be excited.
Newspapers, therefore, rank according to their excellence as newspapers; and no other kind of excellence can make up for any deficiency in the one thing for which they exist.
Consequently, the art of editorship consists in forming, handling, and inspiring a corps of reporters; for inevitably that newspaper becomes the chief and favorite journal which has the best corps of reporters, and uses them best. ”

“ It is only fair to the would-be reporter, therefore, to tell him that at times in his journalistic career he may be permitted to see snow only through a motorist's yellow goggles. The modern newspaper is a business organization run for the profit or power of the owners, with the additional motive in the background of possible social uplift,—social uplift as the owners see it. ”

“ While not inclined to argue this point, it is my humble judgment that the newspaper begins its existence the moment the managing editor opens his desk for the day’s work. He is its main-spring! Whatever of distinctive character it possesses in methods of handling the news of the day it owes to him, and it is these very features that render one journal better or worse than others. He it is, as a rule, who establishes the chivalry of the press toward the public. It is he who decides the line of attack or defense when the vast interests which he represents are assailed. ”

“ The truth of this proposition becomes evident, from the close connection that exists between the press and the public, from the action and reaction, the efflux and reflux, from the true corporate unity which brings into the press the life-blood of the country. We depend upon the newspaper for distributing knowledge, as well as creating it; it is an instrument by which the opinions and feelings of the people may be guided and developed, as well as communicated and ascertained. It is in fact an essential element in the peculiar spirit and tendency which characterizes our modern civilization. ”

“ Newspapers can succeed only when they are newspapers and nothing else ; that is to say , when they print the news fully and fairly on the one hand, and on the other, comment on it, having only the public interest at heart. No purse would be equal to the strain of owning a newspaper as a personal or political organ to promote the fortunes of its owner. Nor could such a paper ever appeal to the public in a way broad enough to form a base on which to build real newspaper success! ”

“ I am convinced that the ownership or editorship of a newspaper is incompatible with political ambition. The people will not tolerate the idea of a man's pushing himself through his own paper, and they are right about that. The publisher who would produce a newspaper which has lasting character and influence must have an absolutely free hand. ”

“ The provincial newspapers were led by necessity to organize a substitute for the old and inefficient common telegraph news services, which they did by founding in 1868 the Press Association under the lead of the late John Edward Taylor of the Manchester Guardian.
The Press Association in this country is almost as dominant as the Associated Press in America, but it does not include the London papers. It has for the provinces the same partnership with Reuter, as its cousin in America. The term P.A. is as much in the mouths of newspaper men on the one side as the A.P. is on the other. ”

“ The stronger a newspaper grows because of the size and the character of its circulation, and because of the money value of the good will thus acquired, the more independent it becomes of the external influences that may seek to modify its news and editorial policy. Unless such papers are maintained to represent special business or political interests, well-established papers with adequate capital behind them are not likely to be affected by the demands of advertisers or other outside forces. ”

“ It requires a high conception of the objects and pur poses of a newspaper, a clear insight into
minds of old and young, often through
the needs and possibilities of a given locality, to establish a standard for a publication which will be creditable and
at the same time can be made to yield a profit. Back of every newspaper which is a
credit to the community in which it is published, is an editor who is devoted to his work. Combined in the same indi vidual or associated with him must be a publisher and business manager with his upper story full of business sense. ”

“ The true newspaper, that earns its support in a legitimate way, whose business is conducted for its own sake alone, that never hires itself out to anybody for any purpose, accepts no subsidies, gratuities or bribes, but holds fast at all times to the principles and practices of honorable journalism, can alone command confidence. ”

“ I TAKE it that the person who assigned this subject to me had in mind advertising that would come in direct competition with the business men of the community where the newspaper is published, and does not apply to foreign advertising, legal advertising, or specialty advertising, or the advertising of the lines of business not represented in home community. As a rule the proprietor of a newspaper is in business for what he can get out of it in a financial way, although some editors claim to be in business for the uplift of humanity and for the betterment of mankind. ”

“ The public generally are not aware that the newspaper Press is everywhere thus subsidized and suborned, and therefore are easily deceived, It is supposed that there are about three thousand newspapers in the United States, and most of them advertise more or less nostrums; and I think we may safely say, that such advertisements are the chief support of at least one-half of the whole number of papers. The gross amount paid annually for such advertisements almost exceeds belief. ”

“ It is out of the same commodity, supplied under different conditions for purposes of business, that the newspaper acquires the magnificent revenues from which it can defray the enormous expenses required by a modern fully-equipped organization for the collection and presentation of news.
Advertising is the newspaper’s backbone. The world is only beginning to realize how vitally necessary it is to business. Probably from £40,000,000 to £50,000,000 a year is spent on advertising with various journals and periodicals in this country alone. ”

“ So, young ladies, as I said in the beginning, from a literary standpoint, from a social standpoint, from a business standpoint, and from the standpoint of philanthropic and Christian usefulness, your future position and success in life depend upon the company you keep. Under the great principle of the freedom of the press, the newspaper has become a universal institution in America,—omnipresent, and almost omnipotent. ”

“ The Bill will receive the Royal Assent this day, and on Monday, the Price of the Morning Post, in common with that of other Newspapers, will be Sixpence Halfpenny.”
Then, as now, the backbone of a Newspaper was its advertisements, and then also, did each Newspaper laud itself as being the best advertising medium, owing to its superior circulation. ”

“ Here we see where the power of one man or editor comes in, and worse yet, a nation which acquires this "newspaper habit," this having some one to think for it by machinery, as it were, will lose its mental power, its facility in analysis. I made bold to suggest this to a prominent man, but he merely laughed. As a whole, the American newspapers are valuable; they are the real educators of the people, and have a vast influence. ”