Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-07-20
Value of the Local Paper.

public spirited of the business men in most communities do not seem ad- equately to appreciate the value of the local newspaper as an agency Of advertising the business interests, and augumenting the importance of the city or town in which 1t is published. There are to be found in every town very considerable portion of business men who are ready to give their time and labor to the organization and maintenance of boards of trade, or any other movemen for the attrac- ton of outside enterprise and capital, and whom it is not difficult to induce to subscribe money for the establish ment of promising enterprises, but nevertheless contribute little or noth- ing to a means of greater importance and efficacy in the building up of their rowu-tlfe- support and Improvements of their newspapers.
 There is no question but that the newspaper of any town or city may be made the most effective possible agency in it's development and pros perty. The efforts and influence of either individuals or organizations are at least but spasmodic and transient, but the newspaper works on steadily and necessarily. The individual agi tator of the board of trade reaches only comparatively limited field of op- portunity-only those to whom the particular effort may be directed; but the newspaper reaches out in every direction, and carries its influences to hosts of unknown and unsuspected watchers of opportunities. Among shrewd, intelligent men of affairs, the character of every community is measured more by the standard of its newspapers than perhaps by any other single indication. With little ob- servation and experience remarkably just estimate of the characteristic of a town may be reached by an inspec- ton of its newspapers. If the com munity is live, pushing, liberal one, the columns of its local newspapers will be found crowded with the adver- tisements of its manufacturers, it's merchants and professional men. If these announcements are absent, the investigator will naturally set the town down as containing slow, un- ambitious, unprogressive community. And without such support in liberal measure no newspaper can do justice either to its town or to the ambition of it's publisher.
 It is quite safe to assert that a news paper is rarely found inadequately representing the consequence and en- terprise of its community. The cases are exceptional indeed in which a community deserves better newspapers than 1t possesses, or in which local newspapers do not flatteringly reflect the actual character of the communi- ty. But to do this-thus to indulge a laudable spirit of local pride-they are very commonly compelled to make pecuniary contributions to the public good, far exceeding in volume what might reasonably be expected by them at the hands of scores of business men who seem to feel that they have done all that is incumbent upon them, as public spirited men of the community, if they give the paper the support of mere subscription.
 It is popular, but probably falla- cious impression that newspapers are what their publishers and editors make them. They are not; they are to g very great extent what the business community where they are published makes them. They represent the character and merits of the commun- ity far more exactly than they do the energy and enterprise of their pub fishers or the ability and ambition of their editors. It is in the power of the business men of any community to push their local newspapers for ward to standard impossible of at tainment by any effort of the pub fishers without their cooperation, and in no other direction can an equal measure of effort and experience be applied with anything like equal eff feet in advancing the interests, not only of the community at large, but of the individual business man him self.-Industrial Journal.