Print media

“ The print media, as an overlapping practical experience uniting literacy and the power of sight, are more visual today than at any previous time. We are no longer subjected-sometimes with good reason, other times for dubious motives-to the sequentiality of literacy-dominated modes of communication. An entire shared visual language is projected upon us in the form of comic strips, advertisements, weather maps, economic reports, and other pictorial representations. ”

“ INTRODUCTION The world of the print media is big: it includes everything related to books, periodicals and pictures. The world of the Internet is much bigger. It is that tremendous network which is leading to the upheaval of communications and working methods we are hearing so much about. ”

“ In content creation in the multimedia environment, it is very difficult to know who the journalist is, who the editor is, and who the technologist is that will bring it all together. At what point will telecom workers become involved as well as the people in television and other entities that come to create new products? Traditionally in the print media, for instance, we had printers, journalists, sales and marketing staff and so on, but now all of them are working on one floor from one desk. ”

“ For this purpose, mass media includes print media such as, but not limited to, newspapers, magazines, and publications; broadcast media such as, but not limited to, radio, television, cable television, and cinema ”

“ Many newspapers and magazines' latest issues are available on-line, as well as "dossiers" on current events and archives equipped with a search engine to find information from previous issues. We are also witnessing the first steps of an on-line press which would be different from the paper version and would have its own criteria. Some publishers of specialized periodicals, as well as academic and research works, are thinking about becoming "only" electronic to escape the paper publishing crisis, or making only small print runs when necessary. ”

“ Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press 15 (1947) .
The obvious solution, which was available to dissidents at an earlier time when entry into publishing was relatively inexpensive, today would be to have additional newspapers. But the same economic factors which have caused the disappearance of vast numbers of metropolitan newspapers, [16] have made entry into the marketplace of ideas served by the print media almost impossible. ”

“ If I may explain this further, when we relied on the print and audiovisual (film, television, radio, video, cassettes) media, we had to depend on the information or entertainment we wanted to receive being brought to us by agents (publishers, television and radio stations, cassette and video producers) who have to subsist in a commercial world or — as in the case of public service broadcasting — under severe budgetary restraints. That means that the size of the customer-base is all-important, and determines the degree to which languages other than the ubiquitous English can be accommodated. ”

“ There are 650 active print publications reflecting differing political views. There are 15 television networks and 55 private radio stations. There are also 150+ private printing houses and 145 media and film production companies. ”

“ The purchase of a Market Book is necessary if one desires seriously to make his way selling photographs to publications.
"Study the magazine" is the bromide flung always in the teeth of the beginner. But what if one can't obtain copies of the magazines which print material which the reader may easily find? Then he has only to request from the editor a sample copy of the magazine, using the address gleaned from the Market Book—and he then has the best information as to what that particular magazine wants. ”

“ And contrast, if you will, the slow and inadequate composition and dissemination of intelligence by the laborious process of handwriting with the present-day marvelous facilities for publication when the linotype is mostly employed in setting the type-plates for periodicals and books, and when a single press will print and fold about thirty thousand copies of a metropolitan journal in one hour's time, and, from both comparison and contrast, you must have a higher appreciation for the printing-press as an instrumentality for the spreading of intelligence and the progress of civilization. ”

“ Today, by virtue of faster writing and printing, books compete with the newspaper in capturing the sensational. The unholy alliance between the film industry, television, and publishing houses is very adept at squeezing the last possible drop of sleaze from an event of public interest in order to catch one more viewer or purchaser of cheaply manufactured books. ”

“ The public prefers readable print, demands it, and is ready to pay for it. The magazines have long recognized this phase of public taste. When the newspapers have done the same, the eyes of coming generations will be relieved of a strain that can only be realized by those who in that day shall turn as a matter of antiquarian curiosity to the torturing fine print that so thickly beset the pathway of knowledge from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, and, in the twentieth, overthrown in the field of books and magazines, made its last, wavering stand in the newspapers. ”

“ Here it is: 'Provided always that this Act, or any part thereof, in no wise extend or be prejudicial of any let, hurt, or impediment to any artificer or merchant stranger, of what nation or country he be or shall be of, for bringing into this realm, or selling by retail or otherwise, of any manner of books written or imprinted.' Can we stand up against that, if we have more presses than the old press of the Abbey of Westminster?"
"Ay, truly, we can, good friend," briskly answered {157} Wynkyn. "Have we any books in our stores? Could we ever print books fast enough? ”

“ In the country, half the time, the editor is no other than the printer himself, the division of labour not having yet reached even this important branch of industry. But looking to the papers that are published in the towns, one man of letters is a luxury about an American print. There are a few instances in which there are two, or three; but, generally, the subordinates are little more than scissors-men. Now, it must be apparent, at a glance, that no one individual can keep up the character of a daily print, of any magnitude ”

“ We can already do so in three, and by the same number of machinings we can reproduce such pictures in print, provided we can afford to print slowly enough and on a sufficiently smooth paper. The process is in its earliest infancy as yet. We shall ultimately make it far more practicable. But even so, printing presses of the present sort are far too slow for newspaper use. A hundred years hence magazines and weekly periodicals may perhaps still be printed on greatly improved presses; but daily papers will be produced by photography alone. ”

“ Other copy for the editorial page—letters to the editor, communications, verse, comments from other newspapers, and the like—is prepared by his assistants. “Editing” copy means preparing it for the compositor, putting it in the exact language in which it is to be printed.
Systematic, careful revision of all copy is necessary not alone to correct error of fact, of judgment, of good taste, but also to regulate the volume of matter. The notion that newspapers print articles “just to fill up” is as absurd as the intimation that they “print anything they can get.” ”

“ But none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America, than the press. Care has been taken that the art of printing should be encouraged, and that it should be easy and cheap and safe for any person to communicate his thoughts to the public. And you, Messieurs printers, whatever the tyrants of the earth may say of your paper, have done important service to your country by your readiness and freedom in publishing the speculations of the curious. ”

“ For every editor knows that the more details of sin, vice, and crime he crams into his newspaper the more89 copies of that newspaper will be sold; and every editor knows that the most subtle temptation that besets him is the temptation to print the things that should not be printed and that temptation is the more acute because he knows that the people want to read them. Aye! there’s the rub! The people want the sensational stuff. The very sensational newspapers sell three or four times as many copies as do the conservative ones. ”

“ There are two hundred licensed printing-presses here, and it takes usually four men to a press—two to set the type and get [Pg 119] things ready, and two to run the press. This does not count, of course, the men who write the books, and those who make the type and cut the blocks from which they print the pictures for the illustrations. At first, you know, the books they printed in Venice had no title-pages, initials or illustrations. ”

“ If your ad does not show up well in the first few impressions run off, the press grinds on just the same, with little or no make-ready. Once they start, it is too late to stop to allow the press-room foreman to investigate why a certain ad does not print up well. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I dwell on this and repeat it, because in examining the basis for the present industrial efficiency in advertising I have found everywhere I have examined that writers have ascribed it primarily to the perfection of the printing press and the spread of literacy. The industrial efficiency of advertising, therefore, has depended upon the increased ability of our modern presses to print and our modern people to read advertisements. ”

“ The atmosphere has been becoming more and more charged with the character of the printing business. Now may be felt the tremour and heard the sound of moving presses. Printing houses, dealers in "litho inks," linotype companies, paper makers, "publishers and jobbers of books," "photo engraving" establishments are all about. Here is a far-famed publishing house the sight of which takes you back with a jump to your boyhood, your youthful, arrant, adventurous reading. Those were the happy days when the flavour of Crime was like ginger i' the mouth. ”

“ A sixth mainstay of the magazines is in the presentation of articles dealing with happenings of national interest or personalities prominent in the day's news. This task grows increasingly difficult as the newspapers tighten their grip upon the public's attention and as the news pictorials of the moving picture screen gain in popular esteem by improved technical skill and more intelligent editing. The magazine of large circulation must go to press so long before the newspapers and the films that much perishable news must be thrown out, even though it is of nation wide appeal. ”

“ To furnish for a cent or two a fairly complete record of important events that take place in any corner of the world, editorial comment, market quotations, reviews of new books, critiques of plays and concerts, fashion hints, cooking recipes, cartoons, and illustrations, as well as advertisements of all kinds, would seem a stupendous, not to say impossible, task if it were not an everyday phenomenon. A single copy of a daily newspaper in a large city contains, exclusive of advertising, from 60,000 to 80,000 words, or as many as does the average novel. ”

“ In examining the literature of the age, as represented by the contemporary productions of the press, we are particularly impressed by its utilitarian, and, as a corollary, its essentially popular character. We do not employ this latter term as indicative of a relation between the printers and the mass of the people, who at that period were generally unable to read, but between the printers and their limited public. In our times a considerable proportion of the current literature of the day is produced without any reference to the needs and tastes of the reading public. ”

“ The Tribune was the first newspaper to adapt for journalistic purposes the printing of the half-tone photograph. The innovation started the rising flood of news-in-pictures which is so distinctive a feature of the American press of 1923.... Some of the events of the day’s news can be visualized for the reader simply by the printed word. Others need the aid of a picture. Others still find presentation possible in a picture alone.... The universal appeal of pictures can be taken advantage of for sound informative and educational purposes, instead of for scandal and filth. ”

“ Modern advertising needs many media. Mark Sullivan, at the Author’s League Dinner, Hotel Plaza, 1916, attributed the increase in short stories to the invention of the gasolene engine. Periodical literature, if in part literature only by courtesy, meets the taste and intelligence of all classes. ”

“ The successful achievement of such an undertaking, day by day, requires extensive equipment and effective organization. The rapid production of a large edition demands many expensive machines to transform written matter quickly into type, and huge presses to print the papers at the highest speed. Furthermore, it makes necessary a large staff to gather and prepare news and [Pg 2] other reading matter, a large force to put this material into type, to print it, and to distribute the papers, besides managers and clerks to carry on the many business transactions involved in so big an enterprise. ”