The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-09-25
MEETING OF JOURNALISTS.

0ussesCiohs GIVen by Experienced
Newspaper Men-UsefuI Hints to
the Press, etc.
At meeting of journalists held
at Sacramento, Cal, recently, the fol-
lowing sentiments were expressed:
President Green advocated organ
ization as the means of achieving
success. He favored association
agencies in San Francisco and one
at the East to represent the interior
press as to all Eastern and non-locaI
advertisers. He stood for indepen-
dence, character, dignity in the
newspaper business, and opposed
giving the papers lines in charity,
but favored strict devotion of them
to business, news and thought. He
dwelt on the duty of the country
editor to study his country and peo-
pie, then communities outside, and
urged that the organization be made
an agency for breaking up the habit
of slandering ali opposed to US. He
would abolish the puff" avoid
obligations" make the editor free,
untrammeled.
w. II. Mills, who was made an
honorary member of the association,
delivered an address on the relation
of the newspaper to the public A
newspaper, he said, is property; yet
one owning it cannot own it abso-
lutely to use it as be would. for he is
responsible to the public for its use.
We have the rural and metropolitan
press; we have reason to be proud
of the latter. We are apt to find
fault with things near to US, but it is
true that the Call, Chronicle, Bull
letin and Examiner are great papers,
and we have a right to be proud of
them despite any criticism we may
feel disposed to make. The metropo-
Titan journalism has a franchise
equalled by no other or that at all
compares with it. It towers above
all railroad and transportation and
all other aggregated powers. He
illustrated this by sketch of the
growth and power Of the Associated
Press. He drew a graphic picture
of the gathering and transmission of
news and the power springing from
ability to publish news ahead of its
dates of occurrence. The whole
globe, you feel, is by these fran
chises brought under your daily
observation. So the power of the
metropolitan press and news associa-
tions is subject to limitations in
herent in the magnitude of the bust
ness. But in rural journalism there
is no limitation. Any worthless fell
low can come into the field of any
really good, handwriting, deserving
paper, and by the credit a clean
shirt gives, buy his paper and get
out a first number from job Office.
The rural press wants a franchise
that will augment in value the older
it gets-that franchise you can get
only by organization; have that
organization represented in San
Francisco and New York, and the
rural press will get two or three
times what it now gets for advertis
ing. Then the new fellow cannot
come and crush the individual paper,
because he cannot get into your as
ISOLATION. He warned the journalist
not to cheaper his business, not to
educate the communities that the
wares of rural journalism are worth
little, to take care that the people are
not educated to believe that space is
nothing of cost, that the rural news
paper man stands a mendicant, hat
in hand, begging for the right to
live. Let journalists remember that
independence in journalism means
protitableness in journalism. They
must have that proftableness, and
they must. secure it. Mr.. Mills thor
oughly opposed the folly Of adver-
Using in books and special sheets,
directories and wrappers and pamph-
lets, by statements of frauds that all
on the floor knew to be correct state
ments. The place to advertise is in
the legitimate, regularly establish
ed newspapers. He raked the people
fore and aft for contributing thou
sands of dollars to the fellows who
come into towns and cities and get
up special editions of special sheets.
no one knows are ever distributed.
and thus clean up tens of thousands
Of dollars that If distributed through
the twelve months Of the year in the
regular papers would have been the
only wise action. The rural press
wants franchise, he repeated; it
wants to be understood as indespen-
sible to community life; it wants
the right recognized of the rural
press to be sustained and built up.
Ii the community makes the press
Of town five times as valuable to-
morrow as it is to-day, that commun-
ity will get five times the benefit
from it. The weak faced, worn,
threadbare newspaper of town does
the town harm from the time it leaves
the press until the last poor copy is
worn out. A town with such paper
ought to sue it for libel. The com
munity, then, owes the rural press
franchise; if it won't give it, organ
ize and command it. Educate the |
people to pay, and pay well for news
paper values; educate them to leave
the transient and outside sheets
alone. Gather the statistics of the
waste of money on these outside
sheets and show the people how
I h oi,. oorn,yoc-- QUO 4I,,o,,-, -,,-,.- l.