The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-01-19
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY PRESS.


newspaper. 1t began after Alfred
Harmsworth, the millionaire London
publisher, had made his experiment
With the New York World. Mr..
Harn1svorth thinks that the coming
daily will be in magazine form and
that it's articles will be short and pithy,
eschewing pictures; New YORK OPINION
holds that there may be some modih-
cations as to size, lhat the edltorlai
page will disappear and that 1llustra-
lions will improve in quality ana
news-gathering in reach and spirit; Z.
Arthur Pearson, editor of the London
Express, says the new century journal
will be a symposium of all thought and
all sorts of writers. Clement Scott
saws that illustrations and fancy writ
ing will go to the dogs and that the
news. the whole news and nothing but
the news will be the distinguishing
feature.
We are inclined to think with Mr.
Harmsworth that a radical change is
going to be made in the shape OF
newspapers so that they may be more
easily classified by the editor and han
died by. the reader. Already the maya
zine form has been adopted by rell-
sious and other .weeklies which, not so
long ago. were printed on large, bian-
ket sheets or quartos. The Indepen-
dent, The Outlook, The Evangelist and
Harper's Bazaar are examples in point
When the changes of form were tried,
many subscribers protested, but lit
tie later when the merits of the maya
zine style were better understood, the
circulation of these journals increased.
Publishers and readers like the inno-
walton because advertisers are willing
to take the first and last score of
pages, leaving the body of the paper
for pure reading matter. 1t is only
question of time, we think, when all
large dailies will have to take Har-
per's Bazaar as a model. Their sheets
are too unwieldly now and to read
metropolitan Sunday paper one needs
a big table to spread it's various sec
lions on for perusal in their order.
Once the magazine form has been
adopted it follows that the pictorial
features of the nineteenth century pa
per will be improved and embellished
for twentieth century readers. 1t is
Impossible to divorce literature and art,
and even the crude and hasty work of
the daily paper must have it's pictorial
adjuncts. But the art will be better
than it is now; and indeed, the writ
ing Is also bound to improve. The
broadly educated man finds himself
more and more in demand even for the
minor places on the press. 1t used to
be that great editors graduated from
the "case''-the poor mans college"
But every year the chances of the self
made journalist are growing fewer.
Even Horace Greeley, the nestor of the
demanded men of
university or collegiate training in his
staff. His coadjutors were Charles A
Dana. DR.. Ripley, Whitelaw Reid, Hen
ry j. Raymondand other men of special
training and of liberal culture. Now
reporters who have been to college are
preferred over those who have not. In
the end this change of policy, while it
may not realize Whitelaw Reds pre-
diction made twenty five years ago
that the press of the twentieth century
will be written by Macaulays, must
raise the level of newspaper writing to.
or near, the magazine plane.
There will be fewer newspapers in
the twentieth century than in the nine
tenth Trusts may do something to
bring about this result, but a surer
agency Is rapid transit. Some day
electric trains for carrying mails and
express packages only will be run over
sunken or elevated tracks, at rate of
400 miles an hour. They will be con-
trolled from electrical stations along
the way. When that time comes the
great journal of the nearest metropolis
will reach the house of the subscriber
in the distant small city as soon as
his local paper does; and the great and
cheap daily, with the news of the small
city spread out on special pages-news
sent in by telegraph during the night
will crowd out the local journal and
cause it go die neglected. Facilities will
have been so improved that the metro
politan sheet with all it's fullness of
worlds news, can issue special local
editions for every small city in. its
sphere of influence, and that sphere
may extend fifteen hundred miles in all
directions. Small papers can not
then compete with big ones.
None of those whose views on the flu
ture of journalism we have noted speak
Of the possible influence of the phono-
graph or gramaphone upon the service
VI lHe udly press. may not the time
come. after the printed newspaper or
Magazine has had its day, when
long strips of tin foil will be sent about
which, when run through the family
or office gramophone, will tell the news
in the clear tones of an elocutionist?
They are using the telephone for that
purpose now at Buda-Pesth. Why not
the gramophone later? 1t would be
taking novelty now to give a literal talk
by Francis Murphy or T. De Witt Tai
mage at the breakfast table or perhaps
an air sung the evening before by Mel
ba or De Reszke. OF course if the
printed page were not given up entire
ly, the tin foil strips could be used as
supplements.
Yes, the press will change and ad-
vance, and wide are it's opportunities
for novelty and enterprise. May we
not also hope that it will grow In it's
power to redress wrongs. defend rights
and to spread enlightenment?
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