Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1880-04-30
Newspaper Matters.

E The editor owes his first and paramount
duty is to humanity in general, and his next
duty is to promote in every honorable manner
the interests Of his patrons. He should new
or for one moment forget their interests, and.
particularly those of his advertisers. The
profits of the newspaper business are almost
wholly in advertising, official and otherwise,
as there is usually no profit whatever on sub
scriptions. Subscribers are desirable only to
make the paper a suitable advertising nedi-
um. heEpublisher, in adopting policy to
be followed in the management of his paper,
should first consider what is morally right,
and next the interests Of his patrons. The
interests of his advertisers require constant
attention on his part. because matters are
continually being thrust before him in various
ways which, ifnot handled jrdiciously, would
injure the business more or less Of some of his
advertisers; and the home advertisers, the
ones from whom he gets support tho year
around. ore the ones to whom he owes special
obligations. For instance, early last whit or
we refused to furnish n st. Paul house with a
schedule Of our prices for advertising, for the
reason that said house was doing line of
business that might draw some trade from
Morrison county dealers who advertise with
toners than local dealers would. We have
adopted the policy of accepting foreign ad-
,vertisements of the same lines ofgoods sold
by the merchants in Morrison county, only
where there is no civil or gentlsmanly way of
avoiding it. We openly declare that we don't
want any such advertisements. Our aim is to
rem der The advertisements Of the local dealers
of real value to the persons who give us their
advertising patronage, and the extent to which
we have succec ded is shown by the very liter
al advertising patronage given us by the
merchants and other business men of Little
Falls, village of not more than seven hun
bred inhabitants. Now, this article is not
written for the purpose Of boasting, but for
the purpose of abating what has become an
almost daily nuisance, and letting it be known
that we will not publish as news business
''puffs" for persons who are not advertisers !;
or for persons who are not even subscribers,
as we have been expected to do in some in
stances. =, Everything that is really news is
sought after for publication, but business
"puffs' are seldom news. We have in some
instances been expected to publish "puffs''
that we would not publish for ten dollars a
line, because our advertisers would doubtless
be able to see the injustice of our throwing
business out Of their hands. and into the
hands Of persons who do nothing for the sup
port of our paper, and we would therefore
have reason to expect heavy loss of patron
age. We wish it known, also, that we jeal-
ously guard the interests of our subscribers,
and that no advertisement is admitted in our
columns that bears the faint of fraud. No
adver tisement is admitted unless we believe
that the advertiser intends to do just as no ad-
vertises, no matter how lucrative it might be
to US. The advertising on the third page of
the Transcript is printed in St. Paul, and is
not contro lied by US but our readers may
rest assured that no advertisement of a fraud
ulent nature will appear on our local pages.
As much as we desire to promote the interests
OF our local advertisers, we are equally as de-
sirous that our subscribers may gain, and Tot
lose anything, by the advertisements in our
paper. It is our confident belief that custom
ers, as we'll as advertisers, gain by the adver-
Using system. The experience of buyers
everywhere is that the liberal advertiser is a
liberal man to deal with in every way. A
miser was never known to advertise. It is
contrary to his nature. The. lowest possible
price for space in newspaper looks to him
like downright extortion. Everything looks
like extortion to him unless he succeeds in ex-
torting something out Of somebody else.
Perhaps such man is not to blame for be-
| ing as he is, for it was born in him and will
go with him to his grave, Ordinarily a. man
who is liberal in one respect is liberal and
generous in all his dealings, and as general
rule the liberal advertiser is just such man
as customers like to deal with. There is,
therefore, no conflict of interests in bringing
| our subscribers and our advertisers together
| in their dealings, for all are mutually benefit
tad fherahv