The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-11-26
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS


 It's to be limited to just white paper and publishers problems, for it's scarcity Southern Newspaper Publishers asso- citation. which covers 13 states, to spend two days in trying to devise ways and means to meet a situation which is about it to put them out of business.
 
 A witness before a congressional com mittee investigating the cost of wfrfte paper was asked: Do you run your newspapers for benevolent purposes or as business propositions?" Now, you may have thought that the implied sarcasm would have disconnected the newspaper proprietor who was testifyins. but it did not feaze him, as you will see from his nonchalant reply.
 Most newspapers" he answered, "are run by gentlemen who have sporting blood, different from the conductors of other enterprises. They are all very much alike. They take all sorts of chances and do things that would make ordinary business men shiver." It was lightly spoken but it gave an insight
 into the publishing end of newspapers that few have caught onto who have not been in the game.
 
 Time was when the newspa per business was profession, then it developed into a trade, and now it has become "busi eft hi1zad ta ht,t ct he-
 less continues to stand apart in a ciass by itself It has been pointed out that newspapers have not been capitalized" and their shares distributed via Wall street. It is stilf the business of the in- dividual, ready to take long shot, with all the fascination of gamble, but it gives am individual with red blood in his veins run for his money that is worth the risk.
 Don c. Seitz says: "The newspaper pub fisher is quite out of the line of ordinary business. He does not take that which was thine and make it mine for a profit. He does no merchandising, but must pro- duce from the start. He must be a Si Cd~Ol anu O SCAlSii pul AiOb O AlhiiiShcA. Moreover, he deals in the most elusive and perplexing of all articles-news. The merchant can figure on his values and his costs; he can reckon his profits with a degree of safety and to an extent lean upon the market. At least his wares are saiable tomorrow if not today Y Now, it is just this difference which causes the business end of newspaper to be continually sitting on the anxious seat, for yesterdays edition is dead and as useless as last years bird nests. It's because the publisher deals entirely
 in the perishable and does not know up to the hour of going to press what his wares are to be, that makes old men out of young ones, and causes middle-aged ones to get prematurely gray. The moment the paper falls from the press his cards are on the table, and no chance to get new deal It's showdown.
 Nbw, according to Max Eastman, and IT only give his view as it sets forth one which is heard by many, for he says: "A publication is a piece of goods manufactured and sold in competition company which owns it. The stockhold> > CTS as group are interested in divi- dends. They hire an editor to put out publication that will sell, and they pay him according to his success Now, this charges that editors are economically 1i ,ir,a1 nd for the profit there is in them
 
 He is willing to italicize the fact that to eat food. and beget families, which | is to say that their tastes and ideas are subject to an economic interpretation, And so they seek to mix into their pub lication little bit of everything that will sell. I do not look upon this as that editors are credited with having com mon sense in trying to supply the de- niands of the reading public in which they circulate. l do not mind his charg- ing that 'the editorial art is the art of ever attracting new constituency with out alienating the old" The fact is the "highbrows" and the .reformers in their adventures Into journalism have not made any better success of it than have the interests" when they have bought an organ to bol ster up their cause. There is an invar fable law that newspaper publisher can not have relations with other lines of trade and keep his paper strong in the public esteem This is why the dema- gogic cry about the evils of the "capi- talistic press falls to the ground, for it is a known fact that a successful newspaper creates it's own "capital;'' no capital as such can save an un- successful one. Take the case of the World, which Joseph Pulitzer took over from the burdened hands of Jay Gould Here is another .truism in the publish | ing world. Few newspapers ever began | as calculating getters of money and few could survive if this was their sole intent, for the public is as quick to catch onto a constituencies journal that | is being printed for what it gets out of lit as it is to size up the politician who is in politics for revenue, the preacher who makes out of his holy calling mere secular profession. a doctor who uses his special knowledge not in the intarests of a sl,fferine hu,,,ap;t,. h,,. e