Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1904-08-12
A PRACTICAL VIEW
Newspapers Should be Conducted
on Business Principles.

OucsACOO Oy OpcCluC lulpfcSSiOI duU
special adaptation. The merchant
should never go behind the counter if
he does not feel a call to that line of
work. The newspaper man should
never write line unless he be called
to the work and adapted to it by
nature.
And yet there is point that / wish
to make here. We as opinion
moulders and country savers have
laid to our souls all these fiattering
unctions until we have come to be-
lieve that our business is strictly
evangelical; that we are true savers
and reformers. with mighty duties to
perform, mighty works to accomplish
and that the miserable wretch of a
Scribbler who would be so Sordid as to
ever think of the dollar in connection
with his business is an earthly product
unfit for the heavenly association of
this noble class. Permit me to say
that the newspaper man is no better
than any other honest citizen who is
trying to earn an honest living. And,
mark you, his duties and responsibili-
ties are no greater. It's no more his
duty to inaugurate crusade for any
reform in his community than it is
the lawyer and the merchant.
The mission of the newspaper is
primarily to make a living for the
and if possible. to give him
a surpluS-in other words, to make
money out Of the business and the
paper is success or a failure in pro-
portion to its money earning capacity.
The man who enters the profession
with any other idea is crank to
start with and will be failure to
wind up with. The editor offers the
product of his brain or his imagina-
tion as the case may be, for SO much
consideration and the public accepts
it or declines it On that basis. The
peuple want the news and the news
paper offers to gather it and deliver
it to them for stipulated price, This
is not doctrine of SOrdidnesS. but it
is practical business.
or course, do not mean that the
editorial opinions of the paper should
be subject to bargain and sale. They
should not be under any circumstances.
But the merchant who permits the
public to rife his shelves and purloln
his goods can hope for success with as
much prospect of securing it as the
man who donates his space
to individuals who ask it for selfish
or unimportant ends.
It ought to be taken for granted
that the journalist should, first of all,
make his paper paying proposition.
He should adopt methods that are
the best and surest for this end.
He must be Industrious and pains
taking with the ability to calculate
profit and loss and with the facility to
with reasonable certainty the
results Of every undertaking in the
mechanical department. of his shop.
He will recognize the fact that
civilization and all development end
at the home. The hearth stone is the
basic sill of all our work Individually
and collectively. The editor should
print nothing that the mother is not
at liberty to read to her babes at her
nee thai the innocent girl or boy
with iuquiSitive mind is not free to
pursue. The key to big subscription
list lies in the confidence and good
will Of the women. He will get all
the news bar out malicious matter
trim out the sensational and print the
rest in an attractive and readable
shape.
He will have opinions and will dare
express them. 1t paws. He will give
his paper a distinct personality and
make it a force for good in his COM
The engineer looks upon his
engine as a thing of life and speaks
Of it as she or her, never it. Every
throb of its side is the pulsation of
the thing of life over which he exerts
And SO the editor should
regard the sheet over which he pre-
sides as thing of life speaking second
hand to the people, in the homes of
his readers.
Above all things he will refrain
from making his paper anybody's
organ, not even his own. There is no
more pitiable or deplorable state into
which he can fall than that of an
organ grinder. A paper should have
its convictions and cling to them
1t may with propriety
be partisan in politics, but when it
becomes so partisan that it upholds
its party in any and every act excusing
it here and applaudiDg it there always
abusing the opposition and never
finding ought of merit in it's men or
measures it becomes vicious and
from the true spirit Of journal
ism. 1t is losing policy in the long
run.