Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/350

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • lishing. In large cities the amount of capital required

to establish and maintain a daily newspaper is so great that the publisher-owner must be a man of considerable wealth. Stock in newspaper companies, however, is not held exclusively by those directly connected with the paper. From the point of view of the stockholders of a newspaper company, who are not directly connected with the newspaper and who are interested in it largely if not entirely as an investment, the important consideration is that the newspaper shall be profitable, that dividends shall be adequate and regular. In short, newspaper publishing has become a large business undertaking subject to the conditions of big business enterprises.

Increase in Advertising. Another important factor in newspaper publication, that has developed in the last twenty-five years almost step by step with the increased cost, has been the remarkable growth of newspaper advertising. With growing combination and competition in business, managers of great retail stores discovered that daily news of their establishments, in the form of description of new goods, bargains, and special prices and sales, was read by many with as much interest as were other kinds of news. Newspaper advertising of this kind has proved very profitable both to the advertiser and to the paper.

Half-page, full-page, and even two-page advertisements of department stores and other retail business concerns have necessitated an increase in the size of regular editions of daily papers from eight pages to twelve, sixteen, or twenty-four pages. The number of classified advertisements, such as "want ads," has also increased greatly within recent years. The large revenues from all forms of advertising have made it possible to give the reader a better paper as well as a bigger