The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1884-01-31
JOURNALISM IN PARIS.
Interesting Facts Which Contain
Lessons for American
Contemporaries.
New York Sun. !


In Paris there are published about 100 peri
odical publications, daily or weekly neNvspa-
pers or reviews treating on politics and social
economy; in the provinces the number OF
similar publications amounts to about 500
that is to say, in all, go. The political jour-
nal that has the largest circulation Is II one
SOU journal, lie Petit Journal, which prints
between 620,O and 65O, 600 copies. The polt-
ical journal that has the smallest circulation
is lie Vigilant Republican journal pub
ished at Sedan, which publishes less
than hundred copies day. At
the present moment nearly seventy
daily political journals appear at Paris, some
sixteen of which are small 5-centime jour
mails of the type of The Petit Journal; the rest
are four-page papers like The Figaro vary,
ing in price from 8 to - centimes, the usual
price being ID centimes. No eight-page
journal has ever succeeded in France. Tho
last attempt to found one was made in 1879,
in LIE Globe, which endeavored to be u regu-
lar newspaper full of news and reading mat
ter of serious description. lie Globe
proved an utter failure, and at the end OF a
year it was transformed into a four page
journal Of the approved type.
The average daily circulation of all the
daily papers published in Paris is a little I'M
der two millions of copies. Next to lie Petit
Journal, the journal that has the larg-
est circulation, is La Petite Republique Fran
caise, with l60,0 900 to 10000 copies. The
Figaro has circulation of about $1,000
copies; LIE Temps, -, 900 to $4,000; LIntransi-
geant an average of 5000; the old Constitu-
tionnel, which before and after 1880 had the
then enormous circulation of 1000 copies has
sunk now to about 1000, and is still con-
Quoted on the old principle for the benefit OF
a few aged and faithful abonnes. OF the
provincial journals The Petit Lyonnais has
the largest circulation, with u daily average
of -, 90 copies; then follow The Petit Mar
sellais with 81, 900, and The Lyon Republican,
with 52,00O.
The regular 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
Monseet, is loo francs a month Tor one or
two articles "A week The leading reporter q
The Figaro receives the same sum, together
with handsome travelling expenses In short,
the small fry of journalists earn from POO to
800 francs month, while the leading writers
say, at the outside, twenty men-will make
an average of y, 900 francs a year out OF
their pen.
Some half dozen of the Paris journals keep
one or two reporters IA rAmericalne, with
a staff of subalterns under them. The re
porter rAmericaine' has a speciality of ln-
serviewing the celebrity of the hour OF
wrestling secrets from diplomatlsts and
statesmen, and of bribing the Wallets of kings
en- voyage to tell him what the mona1 chs eat
for breakfast. The reporter FAmeri-
cainen doubtless arrives ut a certain num-
ber of interesting facts, but his prose is ut
terly untrustworthy and too full of his own
personality to be practical The whole sys-
TEN of reporting and news gathering Is
trivial There is not single Partisan jour
nal that gives an adequate and thoroughly
unbiased report of Il political meeting. As
for rapidity in publishing news, 1t is out Of
the question
The French reader seeks two things in a
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 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 he deems him