Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1879-07-05

81 slraitiOrWaru anu so remuileratlve.
3. Sell your wares for what they are.
Don't surrender 10 the vulgar folly chat
you must make advertisers believe that
you have an incredible circulation. or
even that you have the largest circula-
ton. The value of a circulation Is often
comparative. anyway; one paper with a
list OF 10000 may be worth as much az
another which prints 100000. The pub
lie is finding out the humbugging about
big circulatiOns. and sooner or later it
goes where it gets its. moneys worth.
The Nation announces that 1t prints only
1000 copies, all told. Yet it gets Is cents
a line for its advertising, has plenty Of il,
and gives the moneys worth every time.
There is but one reason of Eihe least
weight against publishing daily state
inent of circulation. The public have
been so demoralized by the grotesque
ideas of numbers, not merely rs to news
papers but i'm hundred other matters,
with which every editor is familiar, that
ordinary figures have largely lost their
| signficancc. You all know how meet
ing which completely Packs a hall with
seats for $40 is always spoken of as "a
gathering OF thousands; how a man who
is known to have few thousand dollars
in each of Two or three ventures present.
ly becomes, in the current talk, worth a
hundred thousand, while from that to
being a millionaire who swindles the tax
collector i'm his returns is the shortest
sort of step. Not until the administra-
tor comes to look up the assets is the de-
fusion discovered, and then the dear pub
lie goes through the same old amazement
over and over again. Just such mistakes
| exist perpetually in the popular fancy i'm
in regard to the circulation of favOrite
newspapers, until there is scarcely one in
| the country which can frankly state. ex-
actly what it prints, without disappOint-
ing some of its champions, who, having
lost the meaning of figures. would think
| it certainly entitled to double as much.
But the policy of preposterOus brag on
circulation has ceased to pay. The other
members of the profession know, and
the public will learn, that there is some
sort of proportion between means and
ends, that the range Of circulation and
the mechanical facilities for producing it,
bear some relation to the real figures, and
| should to the figures given. TO s--.'iii'
a. Sell your own wares; don't fool away
time trying to run down your neighbors'
| What difference does it make what his
circulation is? Probably you don't know
much about it anyway; but you do know
about your town. Put fair price on
space in that, and give your whole mind
to selling it. If your space is worth the
price you ask, you can get all the adyer-
Using you want, whenever business is
prosperous enough to warrant it, or adj
vertisers are wise enough to know how
to make business. Arnold & Constable
sell their goods by offering at fair price
what the public want, ard forcing the
public to know it-nOt by standing
around criticising the offers of A. T.
Stewart & Co., and Lord & Taylor. Ar
old rule French, think, i'm its origin
used to fix the value of the ordinary ad-
vertising i'm daily newspaper going
among the better classes-the CLASSES
likely to buy and with taste enough tC
want good things-at one cent per line
per thousand copies of actual circulation
It was fair rule. There are plenty o.
papers that charge more aud earn it. BuI
on the whole IL will be good thing FOL
the daily papers having their largest cir
culation among the people when they
are able to enforce that rate. The essen
lial thing is to have some rate. fixed with
reference to the actual value Of the cir
rulatiOn, and to adhere honestly TO Il
with all alike. i''.- ~ Of" '....
5. Keep the advertising i'm the adver-
Using columns. | realize that 1t is no,
the golden age and that we cannot ex
pect impossbilitics. do not know oil
five considerable newspapers in the
United States rigidly adhering to-day t.
this rule, doubt il there is one thai
has never, under any temptation, depart
ed from it. But we can all see that hon.
est dealing with our readers, and honest
dealing with our advertisers alike tend in
this direction. Ii may be said there is a
class of subjects i'm which the public has
la certain interest, while private parties
have a greater; that there is, therefore, q
certain excuse for publishing matters
about them as news, and also certain
excuse for taking pay from them as adj
yertising. But this opens too many
doubtful questions, and gives the cash
drawer a great leverage on the editors
Judgment, as to the real degree OF public
interest i'm the news. The safe way, the
true way is to put whatever is to he paid
i for sauarely and honestly into columns
that are recognized as. paid for; to select
what is to be printed as news with refer
ence to the interest of the widest num-
Der; and then if such selections happens
to further private interest as well, to take
the pay for that in the high esteem with
which those interested will come to re-
gard newspaper SO judicious in all its
selections. r..lFss ED =-1gqGt
6. Have we not nearly reached the
limit of public patience in the matter OF
type? May We not fairly insist soon on
a reform which shall make all type read
able, none of it so small as to be trying
to ordinary eyes; and none of it SO large
and grotesque as to be offensive to the
ordinary taste? ,--o-.f- mo 10 igscd
| q. Shall we not soon recognize the fact
that the fast printing-presses. demanded
by the needs of the great newspapers,
are not adapted to the printing OF en-
cravings? Can we not persuade adver'
Users to abandon the effort to make these
presses do what they we're never intend
to do? If double prices for cuts will moi
persuade them out Of it, if blOtche:
where they look for pictures will not
then will it not soon be time to throw
stones instead of grass, and to drive thu
cuts out of your advertising orchards q
any cost? Ssh D. .,a .st.f,-.! a..,. g a
Macarthur. Smith & Co.