The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-28
An Expose of Unreliable Publications
and Questionable Methods.

The mill may never grind with the water
which has passed.
Hundreds of newspapers are running by
the reputation that has passed.
The self-satisfied position taken by many
publishers, and used by them as an excuse
for lack of progression, is costing the
American advertiser millions of dollars a
year.
The publication of reputation only, and
the publication without reputation, are
worth little to the advertiser, and perhaps
nothing to him.
No man of sense belittles the value of
reputation.
Many men overvalue it, and seem to
reckon the quality of the present by the
reputation of the past and often by the
reputation of the passed
Reputation is part of the stock in trade.
and it's value is invaluable, but reputation
is worth nothing unless under the process of
development and in activity
The good of all good is in the good use CT
the good.
There is no good to unknown good"
Because our fathers were subscribers to
a paper and from force of habit read it to-
day, is not conclusive proof that the paper
of the present is as valuable as was the
paper of the past
The reputation may remain the same, hut
how many people see that reputation?
Quality gives intrinsic value, but the
quantity of quality in advertising gives ad-
vertising value.
The question for the advertiser to decide
upon is not what was the paper, but what
is the paper.
Hundreds of publishers, who have been
dead for years and remain unburied, obtain
advertising for their publications on the
reputation of the past.
AS the advertiser is advertising in the
present, it would seem necessary for him
to select mediums of the present, and not
past mediums.
After a paper has been run for long
time it builds up for itself a sort of sus
tanning inertia which apparently carries the
paper long after it has become diseased
with the Inactivity of old age, and the pub
Usher gives his time TO well-presenting the
nothing he has, or the little at most be-
cause it costs him little to publish, and the
advertising receipt is largely profit
Understand, 1 am not 1epraciating the
value of reputation, and l admit that the
older paper is the better medium 1t Is,
provided it is old in age only.
The paper of bad reputation, be it old or
young, active or inactive, is worth too lit
tie to be considered.
The advertiser must not mistake progress
sive filth and enterprising vulgarity as
marks of advertising value.
The dirty paper, with a milllon clrcuIa-
ton, may be a poorer advertising medium
than the decent paper with ten thousand
circulation
The best newspaper for advertising pur-
poses is the paper of progressive ideas and
reasonable reliability, the paper which oc
cupies a happy position between flash-in-
the-pan journalism and the paper of dry
rot.
The advertiser does not need to exclu-
sively study the paper, for a part of his
investigation should be towards the readers
of the paper.
who will buy my goods" is the ques--
ton, and the paper read by those who Will
buy the goods is the paper to advertise in.
In every community are publishers of lille
ultimate directories and fakes of every
kind the map fiend. the chart seller, and
those who have advertising of unknown
quality and of even less unknown quantity.
The business man would not pay $40 for
a basket of anything unless he knew who
owned the basket and how large the bas-
ket was. and yet this same business man
will spend a part of his advertising money
in the fake directory, the unknown map
and in a hundred other ways, instead of
placing his money where it should be
placed.
When in doubt, stick to the newspaper
the first-class printer, the poster and the
regular programme.
It is safer to let everything else alone
unless one has the time and the ability for
discrimination examination and investiga-
ton NAIH l. &, ,fOW LEn, -
Copyright. 1897, by Nath'l c. Fowler, jr)