Advertising Strike

When merchants fall out with publishers, as Pittsburgh's recently have, both sides lose money. Pittsburgh's press consists chiefly, of the Sun-Telegraph (Hearst), the Press (Scripps-Howard), the Post-Gazette (Paul Block). Because the stores are well organized in the Merchants Association (a coalition of eleven stores), and because the three big newspapers are chainpapers, a fight between them is crucial.

For two weeks the Sun-Telegraph was the only journal to carry department store advertising. The Post-Gazette had been boycotted when it demanded that Kaufman's, second largest store advertised in town, retain its daily back page through 1930. Advertisements were withdrawn from the Press because the paper refused to lower its milline rate (rate per line per million circulation).

The Post-Gazette quarrel was settled by compromise last week. To discipline the recalcitrant Press, the storekeepers considered publishing their own Shopping News. But merchants know that such a paper, now found upon the doormats of Washington, Cleveland and other cities, makes dull reading for housewives, is frequently hurled into the ash can by husbands. And the Press, last week, still refused to budge.

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