Newsdealer

“ The organization of the newsboys for selling his paper is his duty,—and it is marvelous how the good-will of the newsboys, even when they handle all rival publications, can boost the sales of some particular circulation manager's papers. The advertising of the paper's past and forthcoming news features, such as stories by special writers, exclusive dispatches, etc., are the brunt of his work, because in so far as he makes people believe in the superiority of his news, they will buy the papers. ”

“ A complete roster of the news-dealers is being made and every effort will be put forth to increase news-stand sales. The tens of thousands of booksellers and news-dealers throughout the United States, supplied by the American News Company and its branches, constitute an army of distribution which has taken many years and an immense sum of money to raise and equip. We want to make use of that army to the best advantage of our patrons, the dealers and ourselves. Probably more than one-half of the reading public buys regularly of news-dealers, and a much larger percentage buys occasionally. ”

“ As personal ownership of newspapers has been superseded by corporate ownership, the place of the editor becomes more and more conventional; as the personal owner continues to be the editor, he tends to consider more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. ”

“ While The Evening Post admitted that subscriptions in amount had quad- rupled, it asserted that they were not sufficient to support a newspaper establishment, and frequently confessed that it was the advertisers who provided the paper for the subscribers, and went so far as to say that without a very extensive advertising support, a publisher of a newspaper received less reward for his labor than the humblest mechanic. While the subscription rates were scheduled for a raise, those of advertising remained the same as before. ”

“ Trained newspapermen are in active demand as publicity and general aids by big corporations. The salaries paid are larger than is paid by newspapers. These men usually oversee the advertising; likewise they write pamphlets, collect information for the use of the corporation, frequently prepare speeches for delivery by the officers, make out reports, read many publications for any information bearing on the business. The work requires fine editorial ability and thorough knowledge of the business. It is far above the press agent work done to advertise theaters, moving pictures, or hotels. ”

“ The readers of higher class circles are apt to be thoroughly bored with reiterated details on a subject, which soon becomes stale, while yet there is no other method than this by which the newspaper can secure a suitable return for its enterprise and heavy expenditure.
One of the vexed questions for the publisher of periodicals is properly to assess the relative value of a large or small circulation. Some small circulations especially of a technical kind have a far higher value for advertisers than a large one of poorer quality. ”

“ Linked to sensationalism, the commodity form of news destroyed the old profession of journalism and replaced it with pure business. The individual honest reporter or correspondent, however pure his intent, is sunk from the start. The form of news he is taught to seek and permitted to send is hostile to the nature of truth. Not only the reporter, but the newspaper owner himself is alienated from the process of gathering reliable information and printing it. He is a merchant bound up with the problems of purchase and sale of goods, circulation, advertising and the like. ”

“ The object of every publisher is, therefore, to turn his circulation from a medley of catch-as-catch-can news stand buyers into a devoted band of constant readers. A newspaper that can really depend upon the loyalty of its readers is as independent as a newspaper can be, given the economics of modern journalism. ”

“ It's the pulling power of the newspaper as well as the horse that proves its value, and if advertisers were as level headed as they should be, they would take the trouble to put every daily in which they advertise on trial for at least a month and advertise a different department or article in each, carefully tabulating the returns. If this were done, fifty per cent of the advertising now carried in weaker newspapers would be withdrawn and the patronage of the stronger sheets would advance in that proportion. ”

“ It is simply the records of the American News Company. We had, I think, 425,000 circulation, and we broke all records for the same length of time. No other magazine ever succeeded with an investment as small as ours. When they took the magazine away from me I think we had nearly thirty thousand dollars a month advertising.
But it is a peculiarity of magazines that when they grow too fast they lose money for a time. You have contracted for a year to publish advertisements, based on a circulation of a hundred thousand copies. ”

“ An examination into the process of collecting shows what sort of news we are likely to get, and that nine-tenths of that printed is collected without much intelligence exercised in selection. The alliance of the associated press with the telegraph company is a fruitful source of news of an inferior quality. Of course, it is for the interest of the telegraph company to swell the volume to be transmitted. It is impossible for the associated press to have an agent in every place to which the telegraph penetrates: therefore the telegraphic operators often act as its purveyors. ”

“ Financially speaking, our big newspapers and popular magazines are today more dependent upon their advertisers than they are upon their readers; it is not a cynicism, but the statement of a business fact, that a newspaper or popular magazine is a device for submitting competitive advertising to the public, the reading-matter being bait to bring the public to the hook. ”

“ On the other hand, a great part of the advertisements in a daily newspaper have themselves an interest and utility not less than that possessed by the news. The man who desires to hire a house turns to the classified lists which the newspaper publishes day after day, and servants and employers find one another by the same means. The theatrical announcements are so much a part of the news that even if a journal were not paid for their insertion they could not be altogether omitted without inconvenience to the reader. ”

“ Everywhere in the world of Journalism, high and low, you see this power of the advertiser. I live in the beautiful millionaire city of Pasadena, and every afternoon I get my news of the world from a local paper, which is in some ways among the best. It publishes no scare headlines, and practically no scandal; but in its attitude toward its big commercial advertisers, the attitude of this newspaper is abject. There is a page of moving-picture advertisements, and side by side are columns of “write-ups” of these plays. ”

“ Not only do the acquisition and transmission of news require elaborate organization and a large expenditure of money, skill, and effort; not only has it an exchange value to the gatherer, dependent chiefly upon its novelty and freshness, the regularity of the service, its reputed reliability and thoroughness, and its adaptability to the public needs; but also, as is evident, the news has an exchange value to one who can misappropriate it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He speaks of the British newspaper as pages of advertising with news and opinion printed on the back. May not this definition be applied justly to the American daily? Even so, does it follow that a newspaper be cause it has a gross yearly income of a million dollars from advertisements, or more than ten millions a year which comes, for instance, to the New York Times, is any the less an organ of sound opinion? True, the great newspaper to day lacks a Greeley or a Watterson to dictate its policies with respect to all things that concern the public. ”

“ The public knows that newspapers make mistakes and do a lot of exaggerating and sensationalizing. But you once get it into their heads that a certain newspaper is concealing and suppressing news, and see how long that paper will last. The circulation will drop and the very men like Pierce will be the first to withdraw their advertising patronage. Your keen advertiser doesn't waste time fishing in dead pools. So even as a matter of policy the straight way may be the best, in the long run. Whether it is or not, get this firmly into your mind, Mr. Shearson. ”

“ You're an outsider. It's outsiders that make the newspaper game as bad as it is. Look at 'em in this town. Who owns the 'Banner'? A political boss. Who owns the 'News'? A brewer. The 'Star'? A promoter, and a pretty scaly one at that. The 'Observer' belongs body and soul to an advertising agency, and the 'Telegraph' is controlled by the banks. And one and all of 'em take their orders from the Dry Goods Union, which means Elias M. Pierce, because they live on its advertising."
"Why not? That's business," said Dr. Surtaine.
"Are we talking about business? I thought it was standards. ”

“ Important indeed was the discovery that the papers were real business factors, and that the advertisements, rather than the circulation, were the means of making them profitable investments. The business world at large was now beginning to realize the value of the newspapers for making public announcements, and this tendency had increased so much that the matter of circulation was, in a great majority of instances, important only as it enabled the newspapers to command advertisements. ”

“ At all events, without this powerful source of revenue our newspapers could be neither so cheap nor so liberally conducted as they are; and all the economies of the new age will probably be insufficient to enable newspaper proprietors to dispense with them. The better and the more generously-conducted newspapers are, the more money they spend in the careful collection, editing, printing and illustrating of public information, the more dependent they will become on the revenue from advertising, which is the sinew of journalism ”

“ Where the State creates and controls communications, subsidizing them, is it not nonsense to speak of the press—the communications-based news industry—as independent of the State?
What Is News?
Still more deeply hidden is a curious twist in the character of news itself. What is news? A well-worn “gag” accurately describes the publishing industry’s concept. “If a man bites a dog, that’s news.” There is nothing unexpected, nothing unusual, nothing sensational about a dog biting a man; hence, that isn’t news. In short, an accurate picture of what is happening is not news. ”

“ 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 life and power of any newspaper or periodical is thus doubly entrusted to the hands of its readers and to their opinion of it. They must draw from it amusement, instruction and business facilities and for the latter the newspaper proprietor is even more concerned than for the former. The secret of the miracle whereby 6d. or 10 cents worth of news and literary matter can be sold in the streets for one penny or one cent is that the reader makes a return to the newspaper for every copy, which he buys, equivalent to the difference in price. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Business interests, it is said, particularly those of advertisers, influence news and editorials. Because of stock company ownership and the absence of editorial management by men known to the public, as were the editors in the days of personal journalism, wealthy men or corporations, it is charged, have been able quietly to buy up the stock of some newspapers and through hired editors, of whom in these days the public knows nothing, to direct secretly the news and editorial policies [Pg 344] for personal advantage. ”