The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-03-25
i'm the United States.
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

broke away from the conventional no.
tion that Washington events were al
ways most important, and made each
bit of news stand on it's own merits as
to interest. This movement did away
with the old style Of reporting the de-
hberations of Congress verbatim and
in sequence as is now done only in the
printing the news from Congress was
responsible for the fact that when
President Andrew johnson was i'm
peaehed, the subscriber of the New
York Tribune was forced to read
through four columns of unimportant
matter TO get to the Impeachment of
the President IN the House of Repre-
sentatives.
teats of American newspaper enter
prise have astonished the world. The
New York Herald sent Henry NJ. Stan
ley to Africa to find Livingston Only
last year James Kelley of the Chicago
Tribune went TO Africa in pursuit of
an absconding bank cashier and caught
him. When the New Testament was
being revised IN London, W. W. Story
of the old Chicago Times had 5000
words of 1t cabled to him, and when
the complete copy reached New York
ne had it telegraphed to Chicago over
twenty-one wires for publication in the
Times. During the Civil War the New
York Herald had sixty.three special
larger than any paper has ever had, be
fore or since, working on one line.
The Spanish war gave the modern
American newspaper a chance to show
what IL could do. When the Nashville
fred the first shot across the bows of
the Buena Ventura, the New York Jour
nal found enough interest in the fact
to Justify paper next morning which
devoted more space to that one event
than all of the newspapers in New
York put together had devoted to the
battle of Gettysburg, The battle of
Gettysburg got n headline across one
column. while the first shot of the war
with Spain commanded headlines as
wide as the paper, and nearly all of
twenty-four page issue was devoted
forts, naval commanders. army officers:
Spanish grandees, and the experts
who were analyzing the situation.
The invention Of the photo-cngraving
process from which comes the half-tone
has done much TO change the character
and appearance of newspapers. Illus
tration by wood-cuts was slow and
expensive. The zinc etching was a fail
ure nine times OUT OF lenf ana Iue
chalk plate an abomination. The half
tone is SO quick and accurate that it is
the ideal illustration, In the nineties
the color press came into use. Printing
newspapers in colors has never proved
popular In the greater part of the
United States, although in Colorado
there is long.continued epidemic of
red headlines. The color press made
the comic supplement possible and put
,G f16 10
weeklies out of business, The variety
had cheapened them, and there is
distinct movement against the Fcom-
ic.' not only in the churches and
schools, but among newspaper men, too,
However, the funny section has
been popularized to such an extent that
Buster Brown, Maude the Mule and
of American life as the United States
Senate.
Sending out eight billion copies a
year, the American newspapers and
periodicals arc exerting an influence
such as has never before been known
in the world. All of the schools and
colleges and universities in existence
do not educate as many men and wom~
en-. 1t is sometimes said that the news
papers arc not as influential as they
once were, but the thinking man knows
better, Editorial dictum is no longer
accepted as 1T once was, but the news
paper gives the news and the reader
draws his own conclusions. Printing
the news has made the newspaper of
America. taking it in all its various
ramifcations, quite the most wonderful
thing on earth.
Distinctive Features of American
Newspapers" will be treated by Mr..
uaskin in The Tribune of Tuesday.