The Washington times., 1908-12-28
HOW YOU COT THE NEWS Is
HOURS EARLY.

You were not fifteen hours late with
the most important news since Satur
day noon-not if you read Sundays
issue of the seven-day Washington
ugly charges were made as to the
measurements for District asphalting
that graft of more than SOC, 900 was
alleged, and that if the suspicious of
District officials were confirmed the
ugIiest local scandal of the quarter cen
tury had been unearthed- You did not
have to pick up this information from
your neighbor Sunday evening or wait
for it until o'clock Monday morning
not if you read the news while it was
news.
The revelation of these asphalt
charges was accomplished by this
papers news service for its Sunday
evening edition. The Times takes no
particular credit to itself for that, ex-
cept that it maintains on that day tas
on every weekday a service which
reaches all the sources Of news. 1t
regards this news as illustrating
squarely the need for a newspaper
while the news is hot-that Is all.
The charges came to light at IL
o'clock Sunday morning. At that hour
it was impossible for any Sunday morn
ing paper-gone 20 press eleven hours
earlier and on the street at least six
hours earlier-to publish the news. It
would have hung fire under the old rule
until the following Monday morning, a
dead wait of fifteen hours. Under the
present rule it was before your eyes at
the time when you wanted to know
about it. That is the situation in a
nutshell. And this asphalt episode IL
lustTates it only as one or more news
items of first Importance have illustrat-
ed 1t in every issue since The Times
blazed the trail as a straightawny
seven-day evening newspaper.
That Is not all the showing of yez-
teTday's news told when it was news.
This mornings papers contain about
A great deal more matter is printed,
but the rest is speculation on the at
titJide of officials toward certain ques-
tiOns, OF advance accounts of conven-
stories, or what-not. The actual news
of these issues, by the reckoning of
these papers themselves, is limited 70
twenty-three items, and of those items
about twenty appear in both our Mon
day morning contemporaries.
Now Of those twenty-three items in
each case, fifteen appeared in The
Washington Times fifteen hours ear
lier. In other words:
The news need for each of these
Monday morning papers is represented
in six items.
The news need for the Sunday even
ing edition of The Times is represented
in fifteen items-including the most i'm !
portant District news of many months, |
and taking nc account of items which |
were disregarded yesterday as not |
worth using, but yet appear in the
Monday morning papers when the pick
ms weren't so good
Here is the explanation for the grow
ing. and, by a short months expert !
ence, secure success Of the Sunday even |
ing newspaper. 1t is now four issues
old. In those four issues It has nailed :
itself TO its first buyers as an indis-
pensable source of news while the news
is yet live, not when it has been fifteen
hours dead. it has also found new
buyers with every issue-nOt twenty.
or one hundred, OF one thousand, but
thousands more the second issue than
the first, thousands more the third
issue than the second, and thousands
more the fourth issue than the third.
No wonder, when it has a field more
than twice as big in news scope as the
papers which follow it, picking up Sun
day afternoons news and rewriting it
fifteen hours laterI