It has become a practice to make use of the blank space on both ends of the title line, and in such spaces will now be found weather forecasts, slogans such as “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” and edition names. (See Example [405].) It was the custom at one time, and is today to some extent, to print under the title a quotation which defined the newspaper’s editorial policy. (See Example [403].)
A type line under the title separated by rules on both sides contains the name of the city, the date, the volume number, and information regarding the price. (See Example [403].) Usually the rules have a double line, altho some newspapers use single rules for this purpose.
The Text.—The main desire of newspaper publishers, besides preparing the news, seems to be to have the matter set in the smallest size of type that can possibly be read. The large city dailies habitually use a seven-point type-face, which is the smallest that should appear on any newspaper. (See Example [406].) During the recent prevailing high cost of print paper some publishers began to use six-point in order to save paper, but they found that this move was a mistake. Newspapers are published to be read, and everything possible should be done to make the reader’s task an easy one. Experiments by an educational body in England resulted in determining that ten-point should be the minimum size of type used for educational purposes. From this it will be seen that the seven-point type used on newspapers is too small and a cause of eyestrain.
The narrow width of the columns of newspapers—twelve and a half or thirteen picas—makes reading of the small type fairly easy, however. The eye has been tested scientifically and the discovery made that a person actually sees at a glance less than an inch of a line of type. Hence long lines require extreme side movements of the eyeballs or of the head. It is a mistake, as will be seen, to set editorials in a measure that extends over two columns, as is done on some publications.
Space between lines also helps the reader in locating the beginning of the next line, for which reason, and also to give them prominence, editorials are usually leaded. The beginning of an important article is sometimes leaded.
Lengthy excerpts or quotations are usually set in the same size of type but indented one em at the right and left ends of the line. (See Example [405], third column.)
The Headings.—The first newspaper continuously published in this country was a letter (see Example [402]), and the items it contained were not set off with headings. As the quantity of news increased and newspapers became larger in size, headings were added. During the middle of the last century most of these were side headings joined to the first paragraph. When it became possible to print news promptly more attention was given to displaying the headings. As the Civil War developed, newspaper headlines grew, and with the Spanish War came front-page headings of poster proportions.
Headlines not only advertise the contents of the text pages, but assist the reader quickly to absorb the news. As the reader cannot in these busy days read the entire paper, headings assist him in locating the items in which he is interested.
The error of using thrilling scareheads for comparatively unimportant events was made evident when the European War started. Some of the publications had cried “Wolf!” so frequently that there was no emphasis left for a really big story.
