The Newspaper Revolution

From the Rockford (.) Register.] " The era of cumbrous blanket-sheets seems coming to an end, and newspapers like the New York Sun and Thk Chicago Daily News are the prominent journalistic successes of the period. The papers that give enough reading matter to fill a good volume in each daily issue are going out of favor with many people who have some other employment for their time than the search through mountains of straw for kernels of news. The sheets that give the news systematically and amply, and without unnecessary padding, are taking the lead in the great cities." Forty years ago the chief duty of an editor, in considerably more than the circulations of all other view of his limited facilities, was to gather all the Chicago dailies combined. It is hardly necessary news he could and print it. Intelligence was to say that such a circulation could not be attained, transmitted slowly ; many occurrences of interest much less maintained, except by a paper of high were never heard of beyond their immediate grade of excellence, as well as one sold at a populocality; ocean mails were long in transit, and the lar price. To win such recognition the cheap overthrow of an European dynasty was not known paper must be as good a newspaper as the best of here until long after the event. Suddenly there of its higher-priced competitors. And this The carne a change. The railroad and the telegraph Daily News certainly is. It is a member of the superseded old methods, and the newspaper was Associated Press, and is the only paper in Chicago literally flooded with news. The death of a petty which possesses a franchise which secures to it ward politician ín San Francisco, the result of a both the day and night dispatches of the AssociaPresidential election, the accession of a sovereign, tion. In the general field of news-gathering it rethe outbreak of a war, and notice that a shanty had presents in the highestdegreethe progressive enterbeenburdeninTexas,allwerehurriedoverthewires prise American journalism : as a wj-paper into the newspaper offices, and there teinguWfcl;.it challenges comparison with any in the land. no idea of discrimination, all were printed. -MilmíjÑ'J its editorial columns The Daily News Thus originated the "blanket sheet." .gjjyííspeaks from the standpoint of the indeThe publisher who could send out MPencent newspaper, and thereby escapes thebiggest blanket for a nickel was the:the temptation of impairinghonest and most enterprising; the biggest paper 3jhonorable influence by condoning or was the best; itwasaperiodofbigness.defending the questionable under the Bubafter a time the very excess of thetPressure of Party allegiance. It is not evil brought the remedy, and there be-ílffllffgí-an organ, neither is it a neutral in gan an era of discrimination, during which jllWpJquestions of principie. It has the courarose such journals as the New York Sun l'Tr4fjl[l1Vtv age of its convictions. The organ of and The Chicago Daily News. That the public no party, sect or interest, it voices the united deappreciated the new departure is best evidenced in mand of all those better elements of society in the fact that the Sun reached a circulation of 1 behalf of purity, honesty and decency in all the 000 a day, and The Daily News 175,000. The relations of life. By just so much as it thus comwonderful and constantly growingpopularity of the mends itself to the regard of the truly " best peocondensed, low-priced papers has sofarbrought the ple " of the community does it voluntarily recumbrous and high-priced blanket-sheets to their nounce any community of interest with all others. senses, that they have now somewhat reformed So conspicious a success must have its imiboth as to size and price, but they are still too far tators, and The Daily News has the endorsement removed from the true ideal of American such imitation always bestows. However as it is the nalism to meet the needs of the great majority. only one-cent paper in Chicago or the West which In the west The Chicago Daily" News has is amember of the Associated Press - all other Chi been the first to appreciate and meet the situation, cago Associated Press papers cost 3 cents - all and it now enjoys the results of its twelve years of imitation must continue, so far as news givhig vahu pioneer work in a daily circulation averaging over is concerned, to be but imitation. The Chicago three times that of any of its contemporaries, and Dajly News is " the original," " the best." Sold by all newsdealers at one cent per copy, six cents per week. Mailed, postage paid, for $3.00 per year, or 25 cents per month. Every farmer can now have his daily paper at little more then the cost of the old time weekly. Address VÍCTOR F. LAWSON, Publisher The Daily News, Chicago