The Utah County Democrat. [volume] (Provo City, Utah) 1898-1909, 1908-08-29

SAID that, as matter of fact, the coun.
try newspaper man has neither oppor.
1 tunity nor any great cause to exercise
any such close supervision over his
advertising columns His advertising
comes chiefly from his home business
men whom he knows personally. He
gets some general advertising, which
includes patent medicines, but what
he gets is usually fairly clean and can
be made fairly remuneratlve. For in.
stance, the Record and Chronicles
general business runs from 81 200 to
$500 a year.
While we may publish some adver-
Using that we're better omitted, be.
lieve our readers are quite capable OF
! looking after their own interests. |
believe that none of our subscribers
would go naked did we decline dry
goods advertising, nor any Of them
starve by reason Of us having no gro
Gerry ads. No man was ever poisoned
or escaped being poisoned simply be-
cause his home paper contained no
I drug store ads, and there would be
many deaths due to lack of medical at.
tention did everybody die but who
had seen physicians ad in his local
paper. And, to touch more vital
point, / believe no man Las ever lacked
for a drink because his home paper de-
clined whisky ads. Advertising, Of
course, pays. But, except with abso-
lutely new articles, 1t pays chiefly by
taking away from the firm which does
not advertise. As l see It, a newspa-
per is a business just like any other
business. II is somewhat more, some
VIII contend, and that n newspaper Is
really a quasi-public institution. To
an extent that is true. But the only
business I've ever known dry goods
and grocery stores turn down Is that
popularity known as poor pay" But,
being a Quasi-public business, the
newspaper should go bit further and
decline not only the poor payers" but
as well all announcements that are in
decent, suggestive or prurient, not so
much as a matter OF policy as on the
same principle that II should refuse to
publish indecent, suggestive or pruri-
ent news matter.
Impossible to Please Everybody
We should not, however, let our "re-
sponsibilities to the public" fall too
heavily upon our shoulders and be
guided wholly by all the dear public
says. II we undertook to please every
subscriber, either in our advertising or
our news columns, we should wind up
by pleasing none. In n news way the
women folks are largely interested in
their church news, the women's col
umn, the society events and the like.
The baseball fan probably cares as
little about the horses as the race
horse tout does about baseball. The
men want the markets and the general
and local news. There are some who
want paper to publish no sporting
news, Just as there are some sports
who want nothing else. IL we con-
suited any one class alone we would
run to that class's extreme. But, by
consulting all classes and handling all
kinds of news, we interest them all
and, better, hold their subscriptions.
You may be wondering what this has
TO do with the subject, but to a large
extent the same holds true of the ad.
vertising column. Some of our read.
ers would have us accept no liquor
ads. Some no tobacco or cigarette
ads. Some no patent medicine ads.
Some no foreign ads at all. And there
are a great many who would really
prefer that we publish nothing but
reading matter, and no advertising at
ALL You simply cannot please all of
them all of the time and you had Just
as well not try. But II you can please
some OF them all the time and all OF
them some of the time, both in your
advertising and in your news columns,
you are doing pretty we'll and may go
up to the head OF the class.
Texas newspaper men will, we be.
lieve, admit tbs impracticability OF ad.
herring very closely to an ideal in the
class of advertisements we permit In
our columns II the ideal is really an
ideal. The members Of this associa.
ton are, believe, practically unit
upon the classes of advertising they
accept with one exception. That is
! liquor ads. Some decline this class of
business as a matter of policy and be-
cause 1t might offend some of their
readers. Especially is this true in the
dry counties But, as with the maya.
zines. there are some who refuse II as
a matter OF conscience and principle
and did so long before 1t became a
matter of popular policy Speaking
for the Record and Chronicle. we &C.
cept such advertising simply as a
matter OF business and because we
have never, II maybe, seen the error
of our ways. While we have had some
protests and possibly have lost few
subscribers on account of It, we do
not believe that our advertising liquor
has increased the aggregate consump.
ton, but has only increased the local
sales of the firm that has advertised
with us,
The newspaper in a small town has
responsibilities enough anyway, good
ness knows. What with furnishing our
readers with their daily or weekly
pabulum; with keeping before our
citizens the need of better sidewalks
and better roads in bad weather and
more street sprinklers in dry weather;
with stating our honest convictions on
the different public and political issues
that may come up and thereby never
failing to offend some of our readers
with all these we are kept pretty
well laden with responsibilities with.
out adding further to them.
To sum Il all up: Our responsibility