The Irish standard., 1903-05-30
THE MODERN NEWSPAPER.
Figures That Show Wonderful Growth
In Recent Years.

SAeS was uilAeI idluef Ulldn ABOVE
100000 a day. And New York was
then marvel of newspaper produc-
ton and newspaper reading. To-day
at least 100000 newspapers pour
from New York city's presses every
twenty-four hours; and large circula.
ton figures, 5 years ago grudgingly
conceded to three papers, are claim
ed, and claimed honestly, by eight or
nine. A decade ago or less a circula-
ton of 10000 would have been regard
ed as notable. To-day an east side''
newspaper, published in the Hebrew
German-Russian jargon called Yid-
dish, has daily circulation of 10000.
-Four English newspapers circulate
about 100000 each: a fifth circulates
100000; two others have calculations
that are little below 100000 and
often exceed it.
Two-thirds of these newspapers are
distributed within Greater New York
and its suburbs within a radius of
twenty miles. In that territory there
are not more than 100000 youths
and grown persons. A million and a
quarter newspapers every day for a
reading public of at least 100000 per-
sons. And such newspapers!-twe
fourteen. sixteen and twenty pages on
weekdays: from forty to eighty and
ninety pages on ordinary Sundays; a
hundred pages or more on Sundays
when Christmas, Easter, Fourth of
July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving or
other special numbers are issued.
AS for the making of newspapers,
it long since became a raging fever.
The presses are going day and night.
And behind the presses are the worn,
restless editors, writer's and artists,
toiling needless of the hours for sleep.
ing and eating, wearing out body and
mind in the effort to feed and stimu-
late the public appetite. In the big
Offices the fever is so high
that to an outsider it looks like delir-
ium, almost like insanity. Even the
staid CONSERVATIVES newspapers,
which a few years ago We're content
with a small "class'' circulation and
were proud of their deliberateness, are
now infected and are exhibiting signs
which become only the more apparent
as they loudly rebuke the "yellows''
and protest against the degeneracy of
the times. AS to the cost of paper,
First, there is the plant-the mechan-
ism by which this new and tremen-
dous trumpet of publicity produces it's
effects. Second. there is the product
the voice of publicity. Third, there
is the power-the effect of that voice
upon the enormous and increasing
audience. Let us take the two great
one-cent newspapers of New York, for
example. One of them occupies sew
en- floors Of hugh Office building. The
other is scattered in nine buildings so
widely separated that it would take
several hours to visit them all, yet
intimately connected by telephones
and pneumatic tubes. That paper
pays about 100000 a year in rent and
has among it's expenses 100000 year
for leased telegraph wires. To keep
such a newspaper going without loss,
the business office must find about
100000 year: about $4,000
week. There are just two sources of
income-the sale of papers and the adj
vertisements. BY the sale of papers
perhaps one-fourth of the total ex-
penses is met-$15,OOO to $4,000
week. The average price to the news
dealer or newsboy for the daily,
morning or evening, is about half a
mill over a cent, and for the Sunday,
just four cents. This sum does not
as rule. meet the cost of the white
paper. On that alone, the larger the
circulation the more money is lost.
White paper is the greatest single
problem. the greatest single anxiety,
to the big one-cent newspaper. TO
produce the paper which is used by
either one of the largest New York
newspapers ten acres of spruce forest
must he cleared and swept into the
paper making machines every twenty
four hours. Obviously, difference
of a tiny fraction of cent in the
price of paper may mean prosperity
or the reverse. The object is to keep
the cost of the white paper in each
copy near the selling price of the
newspaper - whenever possible. be-
low it, And this means not only
great watchfulness as to waste and
in keeping down the "returns"-that
is. the excess of copies printed over
copies sold-but also and chiefly great
care in keeping down the number of
pages in the weekday morning and
evening editions. The white paper
costs from $4,000 to $4,000 a week.
The income from the sales is from
$4,000 to $4,000 week.
Advertisements are therefore the
foundation and most of the superstruc.
ture of the business of one-cent jour-
nalism on colossal scale. From
them must come an income of more
than 100000 year. or about $40
600 or $4,000 a week-not in ORDER
that the paper may make profit but