Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-03-14

A city staff of twelve reporters on salaries
ranging from 80 to $50 per week would cost
about s2250-or on space and time, as is the
rule in New York, the schedule would be
about as follows:
City staff of twelve reporters, writing
forty-two colrmns in six days.
At SIS per column. .S21G At 30c. per hour S72
At Sc per column. 252 At 40c. per hour. . 96
At s. per column. 294 At SOC. per hour. -. 40
This makes the reporters cost for six DAYS
from S2S2 to S4l4 The time average is put
at twenty hours per week per man. 1t brings
up the homo office for the matter in the pa
per from 1897 to 81 PIG per week
Several of the New York papers pay s.
per column for regular news, $40 to $50 for
special matter and anywhere up in the hun
dreds for beats
The Washington Office may require one or
two men. Ii one he will get from $50 to 500
The second will cost about S25 to $50, giving
the expense from $50 TO 800 per week.
The Albany office will cost nearly, if not
quite, as much more. Other correspondents
are generally paid ON space for their work.
Twenty-four columns Of telegraph will con-
sst, if a news agency franchise is obtained,
OF sixteen columns from this and eight from
specials, the latter costing-for six columns,
S4S; for seven columns, $50; for five columns,
$40
The press association franchises and SER
vices vary in cost in almost every city in the
Union. In New York the Associated Press
franchise is valued, for a morning paper, at
S250,000; for an evening paper, at something
over 100000. This is membership in the
A no
from The World and Mail and Express. The
United Press service costs about 500 week.
The telegraph tolls Oh the twenty columns
of telegraph from Washington, Albany and
elsewhere would amount to about sos per
week. This expense would rarely be dirnin-
isheG and often increased in the case of i'm
portant happenings, to which extra space
would be given
Foreign matter always comes from agen-
cies in the case of cheap paper, except that
which IS rewritten from the larger afternoon
papers. 1t is not uncommon, however, to
have a foreign correspondent who mails
letter each week. For this he may be paid
anywhere from $40 to 500 in the case of a
resident correspondent.
In the business Office the expenses would be
about as follows:
Manager. NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. SIS to SIS
Advertisement solicitor. .............. 90 to 50
l>ookkeeper... .-.......-..-..-........ Is to 40
Two clerks. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 2Oto 81
Total ......-.---......-.--..S1l S245
4 resume Of the whole expense. outside of
the mechanical department, including the
rent, which may vary from for floor st
S:115 a week to a building az $500. would make
no M of I,;l 60
something between 81 100 and s., 900 a week.
This is leaving the Sunday paper out of the
question and making no allowance for paper.
ink, pressworS. cost Of plant or composition
Items on which il is impossible 10 mako
even approximate figures. The paper may
be printed on single perfecting press cost
ing about $4,000. or II may require two or
three $4,000 presses The paper NAV cost
anywhere from s25 to $500 a day, accord
ing 10 the edition printed. Rates Of compo-
sition vary in every city in the Union, and
other expenses are larger or smaller, as the
methods of circulation, the liberality or
economy of the management and the style Of
the paper may dictate.
1t is impossible 10 give any exact figures
without knowing sill about the city in which
a paper Is TO be published, its surroundings
ana connltlons. 1t would, no doubt, be pos
sible to run a daily paper in some sections
on four or five hundred dollars week, and
from that sum TO The Worlds $4,000 is a
big junp-e.pecially when pay day comes.
have endeavored 10 present fair average.
not so much for the Instruction OF neyysi,sper
men as for the great outside public, who have
very little idea Of the details involved in the
publication OF a newspaper ana the expendi-
ture of hard cash required beforei is possible
70 put paper fairly on It's feet
IL 1t makes single ambitiouc individual
pause to calculate the cost before he sinks his
hard cash IN this most uncertain of bust
nesses, or, better still, If 1t brings home 70 the
readers en- idea OF the expense and labor to
which the editor and publisher Is put and
makes the borrower subscriber and tine de-
hniGent pay up. The object OF this article
VIII be accomplished. ALLAN FoEMAN.