Spreading

William R. Hearst acquired his 24th newspaper--or, counting his Sunday editions, his 39th. He bought the San Antonio Light, his second newspaper in Texas, his 15th newspaper to have membership in the Associated Press. The reported price was $600,000. There are now ten states in which he owns two or more newspapers. His web is spreading.

A New One

Frank A. Munsey, great newspaper consolidator, must be disgusted. During the past year, he spent several millions--just how many millions is not known--in buying up evening newspapers in Manhattan. He bought the Globe and the Mail and consolidated them respectively with his Sun and his Telegram. Where there had been seven generally circulating evening newspapers in Manhattan he reduced them to five--at his own expense. He did it in the interest of what he believed was sound business. He probably believes that even five are too many for one city. Now the announcement is made that within two weeks an enterprising Bostoner will start a new evening paper in Manhattan.

The name of the new newspaper is to be The New York Bulletin. The name was first announced as The New York Examiner, but the sound was too Hearst-like and a change was made. Its owner, Frederick W. Enright, is publisher of The Boston Telegram and The Lynn Telegram-News. In politics the new paper will be Democratic--in which respect it will compete with only one other evening paper--The New York Evening World. The names and complexions of the Manhattan evening papers will then be:

Name Politics

Sun and Globe Republican

Telegram and Mail Sporting news

Journal Hearst

Evening World Democratic

Bulletin Democratic

Post Independent

A Great Combination

Col. Harvey needs no introduction to the American reading public. Signal as were his achievements in the field of diplomacy, it is as a journalist that he is best known to his countrymen. Successively staff-member of the Springfield Republican and Chicago Daily News; Managing Editor of The New York World [at 27]; President of Harper & Bros, and editor of Harper's Weekly; editor and publisher of the North American Review; editor and publisher of Harvey's Weekly, briefly epitomizes his journalistic career.

His political sagacity contributed largely to the election of Presidents Cleveland, Wilson and Harding.

These facts are vouched for by no less a person than Edward Beale McLean, great and good friend of ex-Secretary Albert Bacon Fall. Mr. Fall contributed much toward making Mr. McLean's name known the country over. Mr. McLean evidently intends that his reputation shall not be allowed to exceed Colonel Harvey's.

Mr. McLean's encomium of the former Ambassador to Great Britain was written in announcing the fact that Mr. Harvey would become "editorial director" of The Washington Post, one of Mr. McLean's properties.

To be sure, Colonel Harvey recently announced (TIME, May 12) that he would resume his post as editor of the The North American Review, but at the time it was made known that the Review, which has been a monthly, will become a quarterly beginning with its June 1 issue. Presumably Mr. Harvey will direct both the Review and the Post.

Eclipse

Less than four years ago a newspaper was started in Minneapolis. It was a great experiment. It had 6,000 owners--mostly laborers and farmers who had subscribed $750,000 worth of stock. It was the Minnesota Daily Star.

It was founded as a semi-radical paper--to reach the Non-Partisan group and give them the news and views of their fellow-thinkers. In spite of the comparatively favorable amount of capital with which it began, it was in difficulty from the first. At last it has been eclipsed; a receiver ordered it sold to the highest bidder.

The story of the Star is not the story of a great and unflinching martyr who went to his death upholding his opinions. It is the story of a soft martyr, who never actually recanted, but tried to mollify his persecutors by concessions. The manner of this compromise was well described by Oswald Garrison Villard in his Some Newspapers and Newspapermen*. The Star adopted the formal tactics of its commercial competitors--screaming headlines, comic strips, subscription premiums. By these methods its business managers tried to gain circulation, and they got perhaps 60,000--no mean feat. But it went further in its compromises; it toned down the vigor of its editorials. It was no longer a piping hot radical-- it was still a radical, but a mealy-mouthed radical. By this means it hoped to gain advertising. It succeeded in part. Business began to bring some advertising to the Star's pages, but not enough. The grim receiver with scythe and hourglass was waiting around the corner.

The Star's failure was due to two principal causes: 1) It was radical-mealy-mouthed radical. The chance of a radical paper's success is small. The chance of a mealy-mouthed radical is less. 2) It was owned by 6,000 people. Multiple ownership theoretically has its advantages; it ought, for example to mean reader support. In fact, it does not. The past twelve months has seen the failure of another newspaper--owned by 300,000 people--the New York Leader, a socialist daily taken over principally by the clothing workers of its city. The great newspaper successes in the present as in the past have fallen to individuals, to one man or two or three in charge of a paper, running it after their own plan. Individual ownership means a paper with a personality--a Hearst paper, a Curtis paper, a Munsey paper, a William Allen White paper, for example. The public prefers it.

A New Book*

News is fleeting; Art is immortal. It is a sign of art in journalism when a man can turn out an anthology of news stories that is entertaining. Joseph Anthony has selected 77 stories from 43 U. S. newspapers and four news services. They make an entertaining book--a recommendation that news-writing in the U. S. has its artistic side.

Mr. Anthony's choice of "the best news stories of 1923" on the whole is fair. It does not include any prominent example of the "substantial, informative article" relating to business or political news--unless perhaps an article on the oil scandal can be so classed. In the main, it adheres to the more dramatic type of narrative. It is apparently an attempt to treat news articles by the standards of fiction. In a sense there is ample justification for this attitude. It is the newspaper man's business to vivify and dramatize news, within the scope of Truth. Several notable examples of this function include the Pulitzer Prize story of the eclipse of the sun and a story of photographing the nucleus of a helium atom.

The book exhibits successful attempts within the old prescribed newspaper formula as well as outstanding divergencies and variants. Most of the examples of "straight reporting" begin according to rule--telling in the first paragraph "who" did "what," "where," "when" and "how." The Pulitzer Prize story is of this type, beginning:

"The biggest shadow in the world-- 235,000 miles high, 105 miles wide, and 75 miles thick at its densest part--fell across San Diego today, the shadow of the moon as it crossed the face of the sun."

(Who?--"the biggest shadow in the world"; what?--"fell"; where?-- "across San Diego"; when?--"to-day"; how?--"as the moon crossed the face of the sun.")

But there are many alternatives presented, as: "This is the story of the late holiday price-cutting war of the New England rum fleet" or: "Ho Nim and Fong Tang had just finished their supper in the tiny kitchen behind the laundry of Jim Fong, 2006 Chester Ave., Wednesday night."

Yet, if these are the best stories that journalism can give, they are certainly crude examples of "belles lettres." Largely responsible for their crudity are the limitations of newspaper work. Time and space do not permit the careful building up of background. Less excusable is the all too frequent lack of coherence.

* Knopf, 1923.

* THE BEST NEWS STORIES of 1923-- Edited by Joseph Anthony--Small, Maynard ($2.50).