PAPERS BEING TURNED OUT COMPLETE, FOLDED, COUNTED, AND READY FOR THE AGENTS—AT THE RATE OF 48,000 COPIES PER HOUR.
But that every section of the public values the quick and accurate publication of news is obvious. The desire for speed increases each year, and it is now recognised that the main object of a modern newspaper organisation is the collection of news and the accurate and speedy publication thereof. Incidentally it may be mentioned that of the quickness with which this is performed by the press, the evening journals in particular, few of the public have the least appreciation. I have known the verdict of a trial, the result of a cricket match, or a boat race, published to the world within ten seconds of the arrival of the news in the newspaper office. The statement seems incredible, but the thing can be done in more than one newspaper office in London and the provinces.
AN EDITORIAL CONCLAVE.
(Deciding the policy of the paper.)
I have asked for and obtained an item of news from New York in seven minutes. In this space of time was comprised the writing of my question in London, its transmission to New York, the writing of the news there, and the telegraphing of it back to London.
The British evening journals, and more especially those of the provinces, and Scotland, are, in my opinion, ahead of the world in the rapidity with which they publish accurate information.
We newspaper men love to chat among ourselves of great examples of the publication of exclusive news, "beats" and "scoops," we call them. One of the most successful was that achieved by the Pall Mall Gazette when it announced, in the teeth of press and official denials innumerable, the resignation of Mr. Gladstone. I was in the United States at the time, and can truly say that for well-nigh a month the Pall Mall Gazette was advertised day after day by a contradictory telegram in every paper in the United States. It is said that £500 was paid for that item of intelligence. It would have been cheap at £5,000.
Another great achievement was the publication by the New York World of news of the sinking of H.M.S. Victoria. It is not pleasant for the British journalist to remember that the full account first appeared in a journal published on the other side of the Atlantic, and that that account was retransmitted to England. Then among other sensational news victories were those of the Times correspondent at Pekin, in the recent Far Eastern imbroglio, and of Mr. Archibald Forbes at the time of the Franco-Prussian war.
The present generation has almost forgotten a great newspaper development of a generation back. Nearly thirty years ago the whole world was wondering what had become of Dr. Livingstone. Many attempts were made to find him; there were private and semi-official hunts for the missing missionary, but without avail. Then the Daily Telegraph and the New York Herald despatched Mr. Stanley, who found him at Ujiji. Next to the splendid war work of Sir W. H. Russell during the Crimea, Stanley's work was the best expeditionary journey of the century. More recently we have seen great feats of newspaper enterprise, both in this country and the United States, grow out of the Hispano-American war. War news will probably always be a newspaper's greatest luxury.