The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-08-11
COST OF WAR DISPATCHES.
what the Newspapers Pay to Get Dis
patches From the Front.

The average reader
g~lances in a casual way at the state
ment that the report of the overthrow
of Spanish arms comes by mean of the
dispatch boat s~o-and-so; he skins
through a statement which explains
that the news was obtained by a man
who risked him life to get it; he notes
I'm a ~perfunctory manner the explana-
ton that the dispatch was. delayed a
little in transmission, little dreaming
that the delay was caused by the in
ability of the writer to get IL in quicker
time owe eight miles of mountain and
swamp. and gives the matter no more
thought.
1t is only those who sit in the exc
cutive offices Of the great newspapers
and newsgathering associations who
know a CHASTITY thing from a
financial standpoint is this business of
reporting a 18th century war, the seat
of which is On an island a goodly dis
lance from the mainland. 1t convers-
ing with the writer on this subject,
Melville f. Stone, genera manager of
the associated press, said:
1T requires a fleet of four dispatch
boats in order that the papers that are
members of this association may get
the stories of battle and bombardment.
The boats that we have in active SER
vice are the Wanda, the Dauntless, the
Dandy and the Cynthia III. Coal, of
course, Is the great expense, especially
in a region where steamboat fuel is al
most as expensive as the n~ecessaries of
life. Each of our boats when going full
swing on dispatch work will burn from
six to 10 tons of coal a day. Coal that
we can purchase here for $40 a ton
cannot be bought in the section where
the fighting is in progress for less than
from Sc to SO a ton, and even at these
figures the quality is very inferior. and
all kinds of rubbish that is not coal is
mixed with it. No matter what the
cost, we must buy the coal, for no coal.
no motive power for our steamers, and
had the wheels of our newspaper boats
ceased to revolve there would have been
a sad dearth of news regarding the do
ings of our warships and troops.
Apart, however, from the coal ex-
pense, the average cost of running this
fleet of boats is about 5000 per month.
To be added to all this expense is the
salary of the correspondents and the
expense of cabling news dispatches at
the appalling rate of 40 to so cents a
word. 1t will be interesting for the
reader of the news dispatches in our
daily papers who happens to be mathe-
matically inclined to figure out the cost
of the dispatch that he peruses with so
much interest. When / state hat it
costs this organization no less than
81. 900 a day for cable tolls alone it will
be seen at once at what a frightful out
lay of money the incidents happening
at the front are made known in a flash
to the anxious American public.
Il ave confined myself entirely to
the expense of getting the news. The
danger and hardship are another story.
The public has read of the wounding of
some of the war reporters and can judge
for themselves what an arduous n
dangerous task ii is to report a fight
in which modern long range weapons
are used. 1t is not too much to say,
that no war has been so earnestly,
painstakingly and accurately reported
as is the present war between this coun-
try and SPAIN"