The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1883-11-21
JOURNALISM IN PARIS.
Interesting Facts Which Contain
Lessons for American
Contemporaries


lNeW Ofk sun.
In Paris there are published about 100 peri
odical publications, daily or weekly newspa-
pers or reviews treating on politics and social
economy; in the provinces the number of
similar publications amounts TO about 800
that is to say, in all, go. The political jour
nal that has the largest circulation is a one
sou journal, LIE Petit Journal, which prints
between $4,000 and $50, 900 cupies. The polit-
ical journal that has the smallest circulation
Is 10 Vigilant, n Republican journal pub
lished at Sedan, which publishes less
than a hundred copies a day. At
the present moment nearly seventy
daily political Journals appear at Paris, some
sixteen Of which are small 5-centine jour
mails Of tho type Of The Petit Journal; the rest
arc four-page papers like The Figaro, vary
Ing in price from 6 to IS confines, the usual
price being Is centimesL No eight-page
journal has ever succeeded In Franco. The
last attempt to found one was made in 1879,
in lie Globe, which endeavored to be a regu-
lar newspaper fun Of news and reading mat
tor of a serious description. lie Globe
proved an utter failure, and at the end of u
year it was transformed into a four-pa2e
Journal OF the approved type.
The average daily circulation Of all the
daily papers published in Paris is a little un-
der two millions OF copies. Next 70 LIE Petit
Journal, the Journal that has the larg-
ost circulation, is La Petite Republique Fran
caise, with 10000 tn l70,OO copies. The
Figaro has a circulation of about 80, 900
copies; lie Temps, $4,000 10 $1,000; L'Intransi-
geant an average Of 30 600; the old Constitu-
tionnel, which before and after 1880 had tho
then enormous circulation of %, 900 copies, has
sunk now TO about 1000, and is still cou-
Quoted on the old principle for the benefit of
a few aged and faithful abonneA. or the
nrAutnnfo1 N1V.rn.1r rrl, D.NgR ---... L..
the largest circulation, with a daily average
Of 5000 copies; then follow The Petit Mar
seilais with 81, 900, and The Lyon Republican,
with So. 900.
The ar staff of The Figaro, the most
numerous, is composed of twenty-five per-
sons The pay of the celebrities of the
chronique, like Albert Wolf, Scholl and
Monselet, is 1900 francs a month for one or
two articles "A week. The leading reporter Of
The Figaro receives the same sum, together
with handsome travelling expenses. In short.
the small fry of journalists earn from 200 to
500 francs II month, while the leading writer's
say, at the outside, twenty men-win make
an average of IS 200 francs a year out of
their pen.
Some half dozen of the Paris journals keep
one or two reporters n rAmericaine,n with
n stuff of subalterns under them. The ire
porter a rAmericaine" has a speciality of in
terviewing the celebrity OF the hour, of
wrestling secrets from diplomatists and
statesmen, and of bribing the Wallets of kings
en- voyage TO tell him what the mona. chs eat
for breakfast. The reporter a rAmeri-
cainen doubtless arrives at a certain num-
Der Of interesting facts, but his prose is ut
terly untrustworthy and too full Of his own
personality 10 be practical. The whole sys-
ten of reporting and news-gathering is
trivial There is upf n sfnOln PoFic;op So,-
nal TINT gives an adequate and thoroughly
unbiased report Of ii political meeting. As
for rapidity in publishing news, it is out of
the question.
The French reader seeks two things in n
newspaper-nmusement and newsstand he
perhaps prefers the former to the latter. In
his eyes the journalist is a sort of mounte-
bank OF the pen. and the stranger his antics
the more droll lie deems him.