In Defense of Monopolies

In the last 40 years, the number of U.S. daily newspapers has dropped from 2,600 to 1,772. As a result, the number of "monopoly cities" (i.e., cities with no competitive dailies) has risen to a startling 1,300. Is this bad for journalism? Many newsmen, and such outside critics as the famed Hutchins Commission (TIME, March 31, 1947), have long said so. Last week an able defense of monopoly papers came from John Cowles, who, with his brother Gardner, owns the Des Moines Register (morning) and Tribune (afternoon) and the Minneapolis Star (afternoon) and Tribune (morning), which have no competition in their fields.

Actually, said Publisher Cowles, dailies without newspaper competition no longer have a monopoly on news; there is heavy competition from newsmagazines, radio and television. But whether anyone likes it or not, Cowles told the Missouri School of Journalism, the trend toward monopoly is going to continue because of rising newspaper costs. And John Cowles thinks the trend is all to the good.

"Emotional Orgy." Except in the competitive cities of New York, Washington and St. Louis, "the best newspapers in America are those which do not have a newspaper competing with them," said Cowles. Noncompetitive newspapers don't have to scramble hard for circulation, thus "are better able to resist the constant pressure to oversensationalize the news [and] the pressure of immediacy, which makes for incomplete, shoddy and premature reporting . . ." In general, noncompetitive dailies "have a deeper feeling of responsibility because they are alone in their field . . ."

Nobody, Cowles added, has a monopoly on responsibility. Competitive or not, all newspapers must be more responsible than they are, must "demonstrate by their daily performance that they deserve their freedom . . . We must show that we understand that the basic reason for a free press is to have and preserve a free society." Editors should restrain themselves from "whipping the public into a frenzy with cartoons, news stories and editorials that are so violent as to be almost psychopathic." Example: "The emotional orgy" that some newspapers are "currently stimulating" over General MacArthur.

Preaching Practiced. John Cowles had so well practiced what he preached that the University of Missouri School of Journalism presented him with a distinguished service award for his Minneapolis papers. In making his case for the good that lies in monopoly, Cowles had left out an interesting note. It was not necessarily monopoly that made newspapers good; generally, the newspapers that achieved monopoly were good in the first place--and that is how they gained command of their fields.

But even total command is a qualified thing, to be held only with the fullest exercise of journalistic responsibility. Said John Cowles: "If a monopoly newspaper is really bad, then it won't last as a monopoly. New competition by abler and more socially moral newspapermen will eventually displace and supersede it."

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