Year: 1873

Advertisements and tho Advertising


Business.


We are not in the habit Of discussing our
planning or defending our methods of doing
business. Such discussions are rarely profit
able. When any one of our friends is dis
satisfied with the HERALD he has his remedy
in his own hands. Now and then some en-
terprising contemporary relieves us OF the
responsibility of these discussions. The
never-failing theme of that mysterious class OF
human beings who write 'the New York
correspondence for country journals is the
HERALD. What it does and what it means to


do, its revenues and expenditures the balloons


it proposes sending up to discover ''easterly


currents" the expeditions it is fitting out


against the North Pole the subsidies it re-


ceives now from one party and again from
another the gentlemen who write for it and
gentlemen unknown to US who are about to do
us this honor-these are among the subjects
upon which we have information of startling
character by every mail


Nor is it surprising that, with this tendency
to write the history of the HERALD on the part
of so many able and well-informed gentlemen,
we should find ourselves under admoni-
ton and instruction as to our methods of do
ing business. Now and then an occasional
overburdsned advertising columns, insists that
the HERALD transacts its business in open and
persistent violation of public morals. Some
times we are told, by one newspaper
especially-an English newspaper, edited by
Englishmen who fancy they fit themselves for
American journalism by studying the news
papers of forty years ago; q journal rs far be-
hind the HERALD and even the average press
of New York in enterprise and power as it is
in dignity and common sense, which has no
position in New York except to recall mourn
full memories of its founder-that the manifest
and unblushing purpose of the HERALD is to
profit by deeds Of infamy and ll-fame. We
have paid no attention to these murmurs, for,
as our able and prosperous contemporary, the


Tribune, so well remarks, we have no concern
in the petty personal quarrels Of our calling.
But, as consequence, that small portion of
the New York public which interests itself in
English affairs and confines its instruction to
the journal in question is constantly IL
formed that absence of advertising business is
an evidence of high virtue; that the HERALD,
as an especially successful newspaper, is espe-
cially immoral; that we pander to depraved
tastes, crave the patronage of the worst classes
of society, and that no advertisement is really
welcome to these columns that does not
embody some sentiment offensive to morals
and good taste. As we have said, these aver
ments do not disturb us. But let us look at
them seriously for moment or two-from q
business point of view-without considering |
the maignity of our Bethnal Green critic and |
then dismiss the subject from our minds


We do not glorify ourselves or exult over
much when we say that no journal is less
liable to the temptation Of doing business in
open violation of the laws of morals and good |
taste than the HERALD. For many years the
people of New York have done us the honor
of making our columns the medium for the
expression of their general advertising wants.
There has not been time, within this genera
ton at least when the problem of the
HERALD has been, not how to increase its
advertising business, but to SO control it that
it could be transacted with advantage to the |
public and without loss to ourselves. Those
who know the philosophy Of the
business of journalism understand |
that when advertisements 60 beyond |
a certain space their publication is
q loss, and not gain. This is the problem |
that vexed the managers Of the London Times
for SO many years. The cost of the increase
of the white paper necessary to print the
extra pages required for unusual advertising
purposes is SO great that the added number of
columns will not always pay for it So we
are confronted by two problems-how to print
the news and at the same time do our adver-
tising business. If we printed small and
limited edition of the HERALD, say about the
same number of copies as our critical con-
temporary prints, this would not be
large consideration. The increased cost of
white paper would then be small
item. But when the question involves the
publication of between one hundred and
twenty thousand and one hundred and fifty
thousand fully printed papers every day, the
cost of the increased supply of white paper is
serious matter. Remember, too, that
quadruple sheet of the Misunderstanding
sixteen pages, or ninety-six columns, Of closely
printed matter, as much reading, let US say, as
an ordinary octave book Of four hundred
pages-is sold, wholesale and retail, at the price
we ask for one ordinary sheet; and, as this sell
ing price, like that OF the other journals is
closely calculated upon the value of the
ordinary sheet of white paper, every increase
in the size Of the HERALD-triple, quadruple
and quintuple sheets-involves largely in
creased expense for which we do not always
receive an adequate return. Qf course there
;s tho rat,,rp from fhe incraaaad nr nber of adj