BUILDING UP THE SMALL PAPER
OREGON EXCHANGES has long had the theory that the quality of a newspaper is more directly dependent on the ability and enterprise of the publisher than upon the size of the town. The recent achievements of Nelson & Ray with the Junction City Times is another example of what two up-and coming newspapermen can accomplish in a small community—for, with all due respect to Junction, which is a fine little place, it is by no means a metropolis.
Let Jasper J . Ray, secretary-treasurer of the Artgraph Publishers, of which Thomas Nelson is president, and which publishes the Junction City Times and the Monroe News, tell how this concern has been building up in the last half year:
Business in our shop was as good as usual last July. The office force had enough to keep them busy, but somehow there was a feeling that we could do more. So Thomas Nelson, now editor-in-chief of the Junction City Times and the Monroe News and also president of this firm, known as the Artgraph Publishers, and I began to plan bigger things. These larger fields of endeavor, of which we mention a few below, have been made possible by the careful planning, farsightedness and guidance of our president, whose wide range of newspaper experience in dealing with the public for the last 34 years has been remarkable. During this time he has worked on both daily and weekly papers and in job offices, in practically every capacity from devil to foreman in the state of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and California, and has owned and operated five different newspapers of his own.
Volume Nearly Doubled
At this writing we can truthfully say that our business has nearly doubled since last July. We will mention a few of the principal factors which helped to bring about this additional business.
Instead of being interested in ourselves and our own little world, we began to take interest in the other fellow. Not an issue of the paper was permitted to go out of the office without a writeup of some successful farmer or business man in our vicinity. Mr. Nelson, with others from the office, made special trips into the berry patches, gardens, orchards, etc., and talked with the owner on his own soil or at his place of business. Many people became so interested in telling us about their accomplishments that in many cases we were kept several hours listening to the story of how a portion of a man's life had been spent in improving conditions, producing wealth and discovering ideas for the good of himself and man kind. When it came time to return to the office our car was loaded down with the choice specimens to be displayed in our office window, and in nearly every case we were urged to take home products from the farm for our own personal use.
Paper's Improvement Noted
The demand for extra copies of our paper began to grow, and those who showed little interest before were now telling us how fast the paper was improving. As many as 25 extra copies have been ordered by a single person whose name appeared in the article, and in many cases eight- and ten-dollar print ing jobs, which were entirely new business, have been created.
Forgetting self and thinking of the other fellow, in our estimation, is one of the most important factors in the newspaper business. The interest we show in others will return, like the bread cast on the waters, in the form of the other fellow's interest in us.
The Coos Bay Times will issue an annual industrial edition about the middle of December.
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