CHAPTER IX

THE DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE SMALL CITY

“I had rather be the editor of a daily in a small city than hold any other newspaper post,” remarked a journalist who had tried almost every kind of newspaper work—and many will agree with him. Increased facilities for gathering news and information and the wonderful improvement in printing office mechanism permit the making of a complete newspaper almost anywhere. The small cities may have just as good a daily sheet as the big ones if the owners care to pay the price of producing it. The news associations and the telegraph companies deliver news simultaneously in all parts of the country. The newspaper in the remote Northwest or the extreme South gets the same telegraphic news as is furnished to New York City or to New England.

Any editor may supplement his news service with syndicate articles—by which is meant, articles written in New York, Washington, the State Capital, or anywhere, and duplicated to any number of newspapers. Syndicate service has come to be an important feature of American journalism. Its use saves the editor time, trouble, and expense. A few syndicates in New York139 and Washington send special news by wire but most of the matter goes by mail. It consists largely of articles on national topics, social topics, business, the theaters, music, art, and sports. At this writing a syndicate is sending from New York a service of excellent editorial articles on general topics. All sorts of feature matter also may be had: the medical column, the cookery department, the fashion show, the question and answer diversion, the short daily or weekly story of fiction, a daily cartoon or a comic strip or cut. Entire pages of matter are offered on every imaginable topic for use in Saturday and Sunday edition supplements. They include even the comic pictorial broadsides in vivid color. Several of the big metropolitan sheets sell their miscellaneous Sunday features entire and some of them furnish a special news service intended to supplement the news associations’ report. This news service and Sunday syndicate service sent from the big newspapers furnish the identical articles that appear in the papers from whose offices they are sent. By their use the out of town editor may go a great way toward reproducing the big city sheet. All of this kind of matter is offered at ridiculously low prices, the profit to the producer being, of course, in its repeated duplication.

The modern multiple printing press, the modern stereotyping process and the linotype typesetting machine are in general use all over the country, giving the same mechanical facilities as enjoyed in the larger cities.

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By availing himself of all these things the editor in the small city may produce a newspaper of any size and almost any quality to suit his fancy. In all matters of national or state importance or of world-wide interest he may reasonably compete with the big newspapers if he cares to spend the money with which to do so.

The chief concern of the provincial editor however will center in his organization for the collection of home and neighborhood news. This must be of superior quality and in generous volume, for his so-called “local” news is vital to his success.

In New York City there is practically no such thing as local news. Happenings of considerable importance are not printed simply because they happened in New York. They must possess enough of importance in themselves to interest a large number of readers, must be just as interesting to outsiders as to residents of the city. Scores of big societies and organizations give banquets with three hours of oratory and reporters listening to every word, but unless something important or highly interesting is said by the speakers the newspapers print not a word about the event. An ordinary murder, or suicide, or elopement, or a celebration like that of a golden wedding, even though it may have happened in the next block to where he lives does not interest a New Yorker any more than as though it had happened in Boston or Buffalo. He does not know the persons involved. The newspapers make very little of the event unless it has some dramatic features.141 In New York City there are between two hundred and fifty and three hundred homicides every year and not one half of them are even mentioned by the press. The details of them are known in every office but little is printed about them because they are not of general interest.

Now, had the big banquet or the murder or the other things happened in a small city the editor must have printed columns of matter about them, for the very good reason that in smaller communities everybody knows everybody else and all are interested in each other. Everybody who attended the banquet must be especially interested in it for people like to read about things in which they themselves participate.

The metropolitan press prints nothing of the ordinary happenings in the scores of cities and villages within fifty or seventy-five miles. The small city newspaper has a correspondent in every town and hamlet near by and everything of any account is recorded. In the country, the newspaper that has the best town and neighborhood news becomes the most popular sheet.

In the big city the editor and his staff know personally a very small proportion of the population; in the small city they know everybody worth knowing. The provincial editor enjoys, if he will, the social life of the place. He hobnobs with the congressman, with the state officers who chance to live near, with all those who have to do with public affairs. He is influential in their selection. He participates in public functions, takes a lively interest in all that is going142 on, sits in councils, is a member of the board of education and trustee of the nearby college, and by personal interest and activity makes himself a “leading citizen” of the place.

The journalist in the small city, like the village editor, is in close intimacy with his readers. He is bound to them by the tie of community interest. He lives with them as well as for them. He may make himself the most influential and the most beloved man in the neighborhood if he cares to do so. Repeatedly in the history of this Republic the editor of the small city newspaper has been called to the President’s cabinet, to a foreign ambassadorship, to the national congress, to the government of his state and to county and town office.

Loyalty to community interests is perhaps as popular and as profitable an attitude as the provincial editor can take. If the town needs sewers, or if its pavements are poor, or its streets unclean, or its educational system is faulty, or any obvious reform is needed, he easily can effect the change. Some public official is responsible for the defect and nothing so quickly warms an official into life as temperate, convincing criticism of his acts. He cannot withstand public opinion, and he knows that public opinion finds its first reflection in the newspaper.

The editor may influence as none other can toward the erection of public buildings, the establishment of high schools or colleges, the making of parks, and the bringing to town of new enterprises. He may champion143 the community needs by addressing legislative bodies, may defend against unjust taxation, may call for state aid or federal assistance. In a thousand ways he may influence to great benefits. There is no denying the fascination, the wholesome satisfaction of well directed influence. There is no limit to the honest pride a man may have because he influences the thoughts and the actions of many men.