The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-09-15
NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE.

A significant sign e the times is The
invasion by the newspaper, especially
through its Sunday issue. of the field
that has long been regarded as belong
ing. almost exclusively to the
magazine. The magazine is be-
ing beaten. ard badly beaten,
on it's own ground, and sooner
or later it must abandon a position it
is showing its inability to occupy.
TimeIiness is a demand of the age.
The world moves rapidly nowadays
and for the things of yesterday, save
as they serve ito point a moral or
adorn a tale" it has little inclination.
Pictures of an earthquake or volcanic
eruption of six weeks or two months
ago, however terrible has been the de-
struction of life, lack the essential of
recent interest. The biography of a
premier who has for month been di-
recting the destinies of an empire pals
on the mental palate of the modern
news epicure. He wants his accounts
of contemporaneous happenings, in the
expressive phrase of the sage of
Archy Road, right off the bat'
And in the newspapers he gets it.
Does some CONFUSION of nature de-
stroy a city and terrify a world? The
newspapers of the next morning de-
scribe the tragedy and those of few
days later, in Illustrations equalling in
artistic value those of the magazines,
picture it's CHASTITY features Is a. king
crowned? One reads of it, cabled pos
sibly from the uttermost ends of the
earth, over the morning coffee. Does
a nation, amid the clash of arms and
the din of war, totter to it's fall? The
most capable men in the world de-
scribe for the daily press it's last strug-
gle for existence, the heroism of it's
brave defenders, the cruelty or mag
naminity of it's conquerors.
Before the magazines, published once
a month, and, by the necessities of
shape and size, printed long before
published, have had an opportunity to
describe the happening, it has become
through newspaper enterprise as wear
isome as a thrice-told tale.
Nor is it solely in matters of news
that the newspaper enjoys a proven
supremacy. The great discoveries of
the age in every domain of knowledge
are discussed in its pages by the ac-
knowledged authorities; the great
books are reviewed-when they are
really greatly critics scarcely less
distinguished than the books creators.
Musical and dramatic art is criticized
with at least as much of ability and
sincerity as is displayed a month later
in the pages of the magazines.
There is, of course, a field for the
magazine the newspapers are not like
ly to win-that which is represented by
the purely creative literature of the
day. 1t is true that some newspa-
pers, by their too liberal use in news
stories of what they refer to as
color" make thinly disguised at
tempt to invade this territory. Their
efforts, however, are not attended with
distinguished success nor received with
commentator particularly glowing
from any source.
The magazines of the day that are
winning the largest share of popular
favor are those which devote them
selves to the field that has been left
them-those whose pages are filled
with the best of modern fiction. They
are taking away subscribers from
those who still cling to the exploded
theory of observation-disclosures
filled with the. oft-used paragraphs of
the daily press. 1t is not difficult to
foresee the time when all the maya
zines will follow, perforce, the lead of
their more enterprising contempora-
ries.