The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1910-04-28

it for half it cost, then constituting your
self a missionary board to get the diff
ference, is somewhat of business matter,
possibly more of a business matter than
literary.
7 he world at large does not know
that the paper it reads each day costs
more than double the price paid for
it, The advertiser, whom the readers
may never have met, pays more to place
the paper they read in their hands and
their homes each day than they do them
sci es.
That is why the publisher 50 often
gets OF the track and produces his pa
per in the interest of the men who pay
most of the money, and not for the reader.
Drawing the criticism of the literary
newspaper man and the old-timers, | I'M
hesitatingly say that the business side OF
the presert-day newspaper is the more i'm
portant side Let's see why.
In times gone by the reader of the daily
paper paid FIVE to ten cents copy for
tie paper-nearly or quite the entire cost
of production 1t was made overnight,
and was a morning newspaper.
There were no typesetting machines,
there were slow telegraph facilities there
was no telephone, the presses were slow
ard imperfect.
The news that happened on a day took
part of the day and night to reach pub
fishing centers and all night to be set in
type and printed and while the world
slept the printers worked and prepared
yesterdays news for the coming day-and
l forgot to say, yesterdays and last weeks
ideas by way of editorials.
To-day it is all changed.
For example, in newspaper office such
as The Georgian's this feat of magic is
performed
A baseball game may be 500 to 1000
miles ava yfrom our city. A leased wire
leads from the ball park where the game
is played to the composing room OF our
paper-not only to the composing room, but
to the operator who sits within five feet
of a linotype machine on one side and the
sterotyper within equal distance on the
other The telegrapher does not even
write what comes That would take too
long. He simply speaks or interprets it to
these men and they act almost as rapidly
as things happen.
The wire that may be a thousand miles
long leads to the ball park, to the hand
of another operator who sits with his eyes
or the game and as the player plays,
his hands tells it to the wire, and as fast
as the wire gives it the ticks it is in the
type as if by magic.
The game ends, and from the time the
last play is made, whether in Little Rock
or in Chicago, until the papers are in the
newsboy's hands, our average time is two
minutes and fifty seconds to three minutes
In that time the type telling of the
last plays is moulded, the form from which
the page is made is closed up, so-called
matrix, or a paper machine mold is made
of that page, it is dried under high heat
ard pressure, and is shot down a tube
four stories. Molten metal is pumped into
it, making a circular reproduction for the
press, this plate is trimmed, sawed on the
ends to fit the press, cooled in water,
placed on the press and the press is started
to producing papers, completed, folded
and counted, at the rate of 500 papers per
minute from each press.
Does this tell graphically what has chang
ed newspaper publishing from literary
profession to a business?
1t did by first making it instantaneous.
That gave the paper to the world the day
things happened, not the next morning.
1t made the afternoon paper possible.
The afternoon paper appealed to the whole
pCOplC, iiOl simply tl1S WS0AtAASA NAoSSSS
who have time to read in the morning
before they go to their business. The
working man, who must be at work by
o'clock, has all he can do to get nights
rest and be up and have breakfast in
time to get to his labor-but when the
evening paper came he found interest in
it and has made it part of his life
to sit down at night after his days work
and read his days paper.
There are more common people" than
rich ones. They are the support of our
stores and merchants, and the advent of the
paper for the working classes made its
pages valuable to the advertises because
it made way to carry the story of the
merchants wares into the homes of the
masses, whereas previously only the classes
were reached.
The merchant pays for this privilege.