Newspaper Writing and Editing

by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

Increase in Advertising. Another important factor in newspaper publication, that has developed in the last twenty-five years almost step by step with the increased cost, has been the remarkable growth of newspaper advertising. With growing combination and competition in business, managers of great retail stores discovered that daily news of their establishments, in the form of description of new goods, bargains, and special prices and sales, was read by many with as much interest as were other kinds of news. Newspaper advertising of this kind has proved very profitable both to the advertiser and to the paper.

Half-page, full-page, and even two-page advertisements of department stores and other retail business concerns have necessitated an increase in the size of regular editions of daily papers from eight pages to twelve, sixteen, or twenty-four pages. The number of classified advertisements, such as “want ads,” has also increased greatly within recent years. The large revenues from all forms of advertising have made it possible to give the reader a better paper as well as a bigger one, and at the same time to reduce the price generally from three or five cents to one or two cents a copy. The reduction in price, in turn, has resulted in remarkable gains in circulation. Whereas a generation ago 50,000 copies daily was considered a very large circulation, we now have newspapers printing daily editions of from 150,000 to 900,000 copies. Thus, although the cost of producing the newspaper has constantly increased, the price to the reader has been reduced.

The result of these readjustments has been that from two thirds to three quarters of the cost of maintaining a newspaper comes from the advertising, and only from one quarter to one third from subscriptions and sales. This means that when a man buys a penny paper, he is buying for one cent what it costs three or four cents to produce, and that the difference between the cost and the price he pays is paid for by the advertisers.

Decline of Personal Journalism. Coincident with the change in the financial organization of newspapers, significant changes have taken place in the editing of them. Two generations ago the owner-editor who established a newspaper with a limited amount of capital, as Greeley did the Tribune, was the real head of his paper, who expressed vigorously his own opinions in its editorial columns. Personal journalism, as the expression of the political, social, and economic beliefs of great editors, like Greeley, Bennett, Bowles, Raymond, Dana, and Godkin, was an important influence in American life. These men were recognized as leaders. The opinions set forth in their editorials were accepted by readers as significant contributions to the solution of current problems. In short, it was a period of great editorial leadership.

With the development of the telegraph, the telephone, and the railroad mail service, and with the expansion of the nation and its interests, the amount of news available for publication increased many fold. Distance, once a formidable obstacle to newsgathering, practically ceased to exist when news could be flashed in a few minutes from one end of the world to the other. The news field was enlarged from the city and its suburbs to include the whole earth. The newspaper became truly a paper of news, a budget of facts rather than a medium for expressing the editor’s opinions. As a purveyor of the news, it increased in circulation and prosperity. With an ample supply of facts upon which to base their opinions, the readers no longer needed to accept opinions ready-made from the editor. With greater independence in thinking and in voting on the part of the reading public the editorial leadership of the newspapers declined. At present the three or four columns of editorials are relatively unimportant as compared with the ten or twelve pages of news. To-day the names of the editors are unknown to the majority of the readers. Company ownership has contributed toward minimizing the opportunities of personal editorship, until now it is said that personal journalism, in the old sense of the term, has all but ceased to exist in this country.

Wars Develop Newspapers. In the gathering of news and in the effective presenting of it, the two most important influences have been the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. The great demand from readers of all classes for the latest reports from the front during the War of the Rebellion was a great stimulus to newspaper editors and publishers. The beginning of the present summary “lead,” and of the long bulletin form of headline for news stories, is to be found in connection with the telegraph dispatches of war news. The advent of “yellow journalism,” especially in New York City, coincided with the breaking-out of the Spanish-American War. Big headlines, and news displayed in larger type, served to advertise the latest reports, which the public eagerly sought. The climax of large headlines is found in two metropolitan newspapers which announced the declaration of hostilities with the single word “WAR,” spread over the whole of the front page. Banner heads in red and black, and large headlines two and three columns in width, that are now not uncommon in newspapers as a means of advertising the news, had their beginning in the Spanish-American War days.

The Growth of Cities. The growth in the population of cities, partly as a result of the movement from the country to the city, and partly as a result of immigration, has made possible large increases in newspaper circulation. New papers have not been established generally to meet this growth in population; existing papers, rather, have added to the number of their readers. The result has been that a few large papers are to be found in all the big cities of the country rather than an ever-increasing number of small ones. In great centres of population, like New York and Chicago, the influx of foreign immigrants has also been a factor in the development of so-called “yellow journalism.” With a limited knowledge of the English language and of American institutions, this foreign element has been attracted by large, striking headlines, sensational news stories, diagrammatic illustrations, and well-displayed editorials, and has become a considerable part of the total number of readers of the “yellow journals.”

The Development of Features. Hand in hand with the remarkable growth of advertising in newspapers has gone the development of important features in the editing of them. The success of department store advertisements, for example, depends to a considerable extent on the number of women readers. To secure and retain these readers, newspapers have, accordingly, developed a number of features primarily intended for women. Fashion news, cooking and household recipes, discussions of etiquette, articles on health and beauty, advice in affairs of the heart, society news, reports of women’s clubs, and similar subjects have been given greater space from year to year because of the constantly growing importance of women readers as a factor in the business success of the newspaper.

The increase in the amount of advertising has made possible also the expansion, in size and scope, of the Sunday paper. Special articles, fiction, humor, and illustrations in black and colors, fill special supplements, magazine sections, and “comics.” In fact, aside from the news sections, the reading matter in Sunday newspapers has become practically identical in character with that of the popular weekly and monthly magazines.

Reading matter the primary purpose of which is entertainment rather than information has always had a place in daily papers. Despite the great increase in the amount of news available, this kind of material has not been crowded out. The daily short story, a chapter of a serial novel, feature articles, humor in verse and prose, and similar forms of entertaining reading matter are a recognized part of every issue of many newspapers in all parts of the country.