Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1908-02-17
THAT CITY PRINTING
VETERAN EDITOR OF The WASH.
INGTONIAN ON The subject.
he Tells Some Facts Known TO Every
Newspaperman of Experience. The
"nOrale" of Rate Cutting. BuIIe.
tin and Herald Are Simply Adopt
ing Business Methods.

The affable editor of the Post ar
raigns two Aberdeen papers and The
Washingtonian for objecting to his
taking the city printing at 3k cents
per inch, and implies that it is none
of their business so long as The Post
pays the printers and asks no favors
But the trouble is deeper than that
Three and one-half cents per inch
per week is but 5 cents per inch per
month of four publication days. 1t
is not fair to take advertising from
the city at a less price than mer-
chants are expected to pay, and nc
weekly paper OF the character of the
Post should take any advertising at
less rate per month than 81 per
inch. Some weekly papers accept ad-
vertising at rs cents per inch, and
not many at 80 cents per inch per
month.
Fifty cents per monitor, 121b
cents per week; is not sufficient tC
properly support a decent weekly pa
per and it cannot be done at that
figure unless the paper is constantly
overcrowded with advertising, and
then 1t absorbs all the profits of the
job department to come out even.
When a respectable newspaper ac-
cepts printing of any sort-especial-
ly city printing, where the price is
always made public-at a low down
rate-even the councilmen assume
to believe they have been buncoed
by the former higher rates.
When this paper was published as
an evening sheet, the highest rate
being charged was cents per inch,
or 81 per month. The little dollar
year country weekly exchanged for
the evening. paper was getting 1Sh
cents per inch for each insertion
four and one-half times as much per
inch per issue as was being paid here
and nearly twice as much as is being
now paid to the daily papers of Alb
erdeen and Hoquiam.
The Post consists OF eight pages of
six columns each, columns 10 inches
in length. Forty-eignt columns in
all, or 912 inches for the whole pa
per- AT 3 u cents per inch (for the
w ch
the magnificent sum of $21.92. AS a
paper generally uses but half its
space for advertisements, the sum
should be reduced to $1O.96, and this
meagre sum would not pay the ex-
penses of such a paper as the Post
for ONE DAY.
1t is the morale Of the act which
makes a newspaper man take eXcep-
tions. 1t is feared that even The Post
will learn, or has learned, the pain
full fact that the next time a mer-
chant asks the ad. rate he will quote
the rate given the city as basis.
This paper was told when it raised
the rate tnat the predecessor made
it go on lesser rate and it must be
our merchants We're being robbed.
Well if merchant wants to be
robbed by selling sugar less than
cost-that's his usiness.-Hoquiam
Washingtonian
The Post terms the attitude of
the Herald and Bulletin in the mat
ter of city advertising as childish.
To Others it will appear that all the
baby business SO far has been done
by the Post. With us it is a pure
business proposition. Advertising
space is almost the only commodity
a newspaper has to sell, and any low
ering of it's value affects all in the
trade. The Post, having attempted
to lower the value of this commodity,
has put it up to it's competitors to
render the attempt as improbable
as possible. This is just what the
other two papers are going to do.
The present condition is not new
in Aberdeen. Eleven years ago, with
three weekly papers in field that
scarcely presented paying PROPOSE
ton for one, a similar fight for the
mythical prestige imagined by ANA
teurs to follow the magic words,
City Official Paper" at the head of
the editorial columns, took place, and
the Herald received the contract for
1897 for the magnificent sum of 1
cent for the entire year.
While healthy competition pro-
notes trade all will admit that a
competition that forces the sale of
goods at an actual loss on cost price
is not only ruinouS to the price cut