The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-04-21
BUSINESS NEWS
 AHEAD OF CRIME.
Survey Shows How Papers ]. Treat Various Events
 Of Day

lhere Is great 0eal OI, ulScuSSlOti of newspapers and of whether or not they arc performing the service expect led of them. They carry too much trash Itoo little serious stuff; too much, mur- der; too little intellectual fodder-these land many other charges are leyeled Iagainst the press pretty frequently, writes Roger William Rils ins the In ldependent (Newi York;. SISs{ .z The following is the result of an at- ltempt to find out just what they print The American paper is standardiz- led paper. There are extremes of 1t, Ito be sure; but, taken in masses, it is the same in Maine as in New Mex hco. The sole distinction is that in New York, for instance, the space de- voted to business is filled with market reports in St. Paul it is largely grain ; in Portland, Ore, it. is forestry, fish ing and shipping. x2g5s z g-s, : For compafison, I added q group of English papers, a group of French pa pers and group of German papers. If you want to try the same: thing for yourself with the same papers, you will sprobably reach different conclusions. sfhat is inevitable, because they depend Do much on the current items of news interest, and good deal, too. on just how you classify the various news sto- Fies. The death, for instance, of Pres dent Harding, where would you put Ehat? Does it come under the head bf political or personalities, or obitu- kries or what?
 Business Leads
 A good many of suchs unclassified Items, therefore, have been listed as Miscellaneous and left out of the ta- bIes. Furthermore, what a newspaper prints depends partly on the day of Inc week. On. Monday there are many ! lccounts of sermons, and on Saturday ], here are many book reviews and week. k business summaries. On Sundays 7 khe papers are so very different from < Ihe other six. days that Sunday edi. | ions were left out Of tisiS figuring They are magazines rather than news. lapers, anyway. sAnd, lastly; morning Ind evening editions of the same paper Ire as far apart, often enough, as the loles.
 The newspapers from which these fig. Tres were gathered include five issues 7 hch of the Boston Globe, New York 4 Times, New York World, New York kvening Post, Philadelphia Public Led er, Philadelphia North American, At knta Constitution, New Orleans Times Iicayune, St. Louis Globe-Democrat he Kansas City Star, Chicago Trib. he, Minneapolis Tribune, St. Paul Iioneer Press, Portland Oregonian, San francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee an Diego Union and Fort Worth Star telegram. .-,e.., eS,.g, The English papers were the, Ton. bn Daily Telegraph, Westminster Ga. lite, Manchester. Guardian,ss Hamp. hire Advertiser and Oxford Times.
 The French papers, Le Temps, Le latin. Figaro, Journal dtf Hayre and larseilles Semaphore. The German, Frankfurter sZeitung olnisehe Heitung, Berlin Lokal An liger. Hamburg Nachrichten and lunchner Tageblatt. The leading American interest turns It to be business, in all its various lrms. We must earn our daily bread len to the extent of filling one-fiftf
 our newspapers with the accounts how we earn it. In England, the tion of shopkeepers, business stands eond and represents 17 per cent Of e total news space. fn France it is hrd, with 9 per cent. In Germany is second, and is as high as 30 per ht. Apparently the Germans have
 work harder to earn their daily ead than either we or the English oI French.
 Less Of Foreign News
 Baseball, racing and sports in gen hl stand second in American papers rd in English, ninth in French and Tenth in German. This runs true
 the conception of the Anglo Saxon tions as lovers of athletics but there
 even at. that, marked9 difference tween our 15 per cent and Frances per cent. England's sports, more kr, were made up in no small part Of
 exhausting game of chess.
 Amusement, which is to say serial tion stories, the ''funnies," the jokes Il the departments of openly ayowed mOr, comes third in America, four nth in England, second in France fourth in Germany. The English Ie it a little over 1 per cent of their Ice; we give it 15 per cent, the ench 21 per cent. Even Germany
 find the desire to laugh 8 per cent the time.
 ss is and should not be should note C IL IS uOS dAA lOuC lUuk t9tOEJ iOl he, divorce, murder and arson. All se kinds of news are Jumped under
 head of police news.pand occupy 10 per cent of our daily press. In EIand this type of news gets 6 per E of the space, in France z and in
 many 3. t is in foreign news that the most ttling variations occur. With us btands sixth, getting barely [ per of our attention. And it gets
 In more attention in eastern and
 tern newspapers than in the press
 he inland states. In Pacific, coast
 ers much of the foreig8aRnews is of
 ha and Japan. B lss < tas
 ut where we put this skindaof news
 h, the other nations give it undis-
 Id first place. England's papers
 23 per cent foreign news, Frances
 per cent and Germany's 35 per
 Ignore The Women
 That in these tables is called Arts
 rde for lack of any other place to
 them, painting, music, philosophy
 ature, history and poetry. Taken
 alone, none of them would have
 yn up at all. Piled in together
 manage to make a respectable ap-
 lance as q genuine interest. And
 this classification, too, that ruins
 nearly parallel in each country,
 seventh with us, sixth in Eng