The San Juan County index. (Aztec, N.M.) 1890-19??, 1902-10-31
SERVING THE PUBLIC
IMMENSE SUMS EXPENDED TO
SECURE NEWS.
Publishers Of American Newspapers
Spare No Expense IN Gathering IN
formatlon-lntereotln Facts In Re-.
Cent Census Bulletin.

People who believe newspapers to-
day are making money hand over fist
and raking in unlimited numbers OF
shekels from their advertising can
refer to the recent census bulletin on
Printing and Publishing and get
much valuable information.
II is asserted by Mr.. w. s. Rossiter,
the expert agent of the bureau, that
the newspaper managers have made
and are making daily large sacrifices
for the public benefit, and the last
ten years have been a period of inn
portant gain to the public at the ex-
pense Of the publishers.
"At the close Of the decade" says
Mr. Rossiter, "the daily newspaper
was more Of a pubic institution than
eve before, because it sacrificed an
increased share Of it's revenue for
the public benefit, obtaining no com
%pensating financial return from either
purchaser or advertiser"
To the uninitiated this phase Of the
newspaper business comes as a puz.
cling proposition. They see that a
newspaper increases in size, gets a
wider circulation and carries more
advertising. and they naturally arrive
at the conclusion that the paper is
making excessive profits. It rarely
occurs to them to take into account
that an enormous increase in expense
is always incurred in this develop
ment.
The progressive newspaper of Il
day gives its readers the news regard
less of cost, with the result that the
public is always the beneficiary In
the transaction. The telegraph news
service of a frst class paper is most
elaborate, and is obtainable only
through heavy expenditures on &C
count of telegraph tolls and the pay
Of correspondents.
The bill for the white paper used
is a heavy and ever increasing ex-
pense, and each additional page
means additional outlay. AS the cir
culation grows, so does the bill for
the white paper. To print all the
news and give space to advertisements
at the same time becomes to publish
ers a serious problem.
In giving some interesting facts
along this line, Mr.. Rossiter says that
on a certain New York paper, whose
circulation is much over 300 1000, the
advertising entails a cost of 81 cents
a line for the white paper alone, and
he adds:
THE publisher who secures a cir
culation of huge proportions confronts
the necessity of securing from his ad-
vertising patrons a return of the cost
Of his paper space they occupy, with
a margin of profit"
There are a number Of American
newspapers, according to this author
ity, whose expenses in the actual
cost of white paper threaten to ex-
coed the returns from advertising.
In the decade on which Mr.. Rossi-
ter based his statistics advertising
has showed 10 remarkable rate OF
increase, while the expenses of the
papers have grown enormously. A
better instance where papers spared
no expense in securing news cannot
be cited than TIE Mont Pelee affair.
The American public was kept thor
oughly posted in every detail of the
great catastrophe, and to do this
thousands Of words were cabled to
the press at a cost Of from 50 to "a
a word.
So far, then, as benefits are count
ed, the public has been the gamer in
the newspaper business, and in many
instances at the expense of the pub
Usher.