New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-01-10
PROF. MERLE THORPE THINKS SCHOOLS OF
JOURNALISM WILL LEAD NEWSPAPERDOM
AWAY FROM BOG OF PURE CONR4ERCIALlSN

business world The country paper speaking
generally. stands at the foot OF credit ratings
Rankers regard the small newspaper ofhce and
printing plant as one OF the poorest risks that
can be submitted to them. Kansas, pos
sibly the most prosperous OF newspaper states
with publishing ranking sixth in production
had 81 per cent of its business under mortgage
in 1912 These figures are typical OF rural Jour
nalisn in the United States and justify the COM
mon belief that the average country newspaper
lives fro hand to mouth and IS regarded as
a community charity, tolerated as a necessary
evil
Some of the underlying causes for the bust
ness disrepute into which the country press
has fallen are the ease with which small
weekly may be started, general recruiting
from failures i'm other trades and professions,
the country EDITORS hangdog estimate OF his
own calling AMI the intricacy, universally dis
regarded OF the printing trade, with which the
country paper is naturally connected. But here
we find striking tendency to break away from
time honored slipshod methods by the adoption
of cost finding devices and efficiency plans
Competition has been one factor in the move
sity departments of journalism and the general
trend of business along lines Of scientific man
agement have been largely responsible for the
awakening OF country publishers TO reaza-
ton Of their economic condition. Financial
independence must precede editorial independ-
ence; and this movement by country publish
ers will result in more virile and intelligent
state press.
A survey OF Kansas country journalism by
the university department OF journalism in 1911
brought forth the astonishing fact that the ed-
tors are not only working fifteen and sixteen
hours day, seven days in the week, and TOR
a wage that averages less than SIS week, but
that five-sixths of their time is taken up with
soliciting job work and advertising, setting
type and running the presses, while one-sixth
is devoted to gathering and writing the news.
Little opportunity is there for such an editor
to comment irtelligenty on the news, to study
municipal questions and to offer anything like
constructive leadership.
The country paper is the nucleus of COM
munty life, and the country must measure its
progress by the community. The country edi-
tor exerts more Of an influence on the COM
munity than any other agency. He is the big
brother of the church, the patron saint OF the
school, the advance agent Of its civic progress,
the stimulus of its social life. But an economic
condition brought about by years OF neglect
has tied the poor editors hands. No matter
how willing he might be to serve his COM
munity, it is next TO impossible for him to do
so when his hours are long, his pay poor and
the greater part Of his time taken up with hand
and foot labor
The development Of the future in the coun-
try field will be toward the separation OF the
printing business and the newspaper. Already
there are signs OF this tendency where two pa
pers in a town Of 900 population each strug-
Cling to support itself and job printing plant
and each editor dividing his time between the
paper and the printing, have been consolidated,
one editor taking the printing business and the
ether the consolidated newspaper. This al
lows one man to devote his whole time to the
publishing Industry and what is more vital 70
the community, allows the other to devote his
whole time to the newspaper. AS more cost
systems and efficiency methods are introduced
competition will become keener and the weak
or newspapers will be forced to give way to the
more efficient ones.
Not on.y in the metropolitan field do we