"Machines Do It"

Bruce Bliven, former managing editor of The New York Globe, former Director of the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, and contributor to many magazines, is well qualified to discuss the subject of journalism. He does so, in an article titled Our Changing Journalism in The Atlantic Monthly for December. "The public," says Mr. Bliven in effect, "is always asking about newspaper morals. But equally important with newspaper morals is newspaper intelligence. And both of them are changing drastically, dangerously, because of mechanical progress." The telephone and the typewriter have played havoc with journalistic English. High speed rotary presses, stereotyping, typesetting machines, color presses, rotogravure, the electric telegraphic typewriter have all added their quotas to the impersonality, haste and complexity of journalism. They have increased the size of papers, so that all the profit must be made--and often some of the expense borne--by advertising revenues. They have made the production of a newspaper an enterprise for large capital, with the consequent driving out of the old editor-owner and the shift of command from the editorial to the business and circulation departments.

The result has been the "ready-made-- newspaper--a paper full of syndicated news (i. e., identical articles furnished from one source to a large group of papers), syndicated "features", even syndicated editorials made of "boiler plate" (articles set in type on the face of meta plates, a column in width), "matrices" (composition molds bearing the imprint of type, pictures, etc., into which it is only necessary to pour type metal) anc "patent insides" (sheets of newspaper printed on one side, with articles, advertisements, etc., furnished principally to country newspapers. On the blank side the editor places his own articles advertisements, etc. The newspaper when folded gives such a result as this Pages 1, 4, 5, 8, product of the loca newspaper office, pages 2, 3, 6, 7, "patent insides" made up by the manufacturer.)

Last, and perhaps most important of the products of the mechanical revolution in journalism is the multiple ownership of newspapers, by which one man may control newspapers over the entire country. On this matter, Mr. Bliven can speak with especial poignancy, for he joined the staff of the Globe in 1919, and was its managing editor last May when Frank A. Munsey amalgamated it into his group of Manhattan journals. Says Mr. Bliven:

"Today, one may own an unlimited number of papers scattered from coast to coast, identical as to their telegraphic news, their "features," many of their important editorials; and identical in policy even in their handling of local news ...

"William Randolph Hearst is, of course, the outstanding example of the "chain" newspaper proprietor. His papers in New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Detroit and other cities, are replicas of one another. Every important editorial appears in all of them simultaneously, and, theoretically at least, reaches within 24 to 36 hours fully a fifth of all the homes in the United States. Not only is this true, but Mr. Hearst sells his various features to independent newspapers in cities where he is not yet represented. Arthur Brisbane's daily column, for instance, appears in more than 60 papers. The Hearst telegraphic news services are sold to hundreds of journals, as are his syndicated cartoon strips, the work of his large corps of professional humorists, his daily advice to the lovelorn, his serials for women.

"This syndication makes it possible for Mr. Hearst to pay salaries which are far beyond the means of the single newspaper. Not only among his employees but those of competing syndicates, salaries of $50,000 or $60,000 for authors and cartoonists are not uncommon, while a few go well beyond the $100,000 mark. This results in semi-monopolistic control, if not of the best journalistic brains, at least of the most popular; and increases the difficulty faced by the isolated newspaper seeking to survive in competition with the member of a chain. ... To have so large a proportion of the country's press in the hands of two or three men or corporations seems to me a menace in itself. . . .

"It is possible, of course, that the readng public may in time become satiated with its highly perfumed garbage. . . . The utmost we have the right to expect is that the country may be brought to realize in what direction its press is moving, and with what speed."