The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 20, 1918, Page 15

kB (%) (] ¥ 4 ~n FoN s 2 s -y it X THE MONEY TO RUN THE MOD-’ ~ent daily newspapers of the United —_ "The Poison .Press of Athe Twin Cities Here’s Inside Information About Why the Big N‘ewspapers Have to ' Defend Big Business and Attack the People or Starve BY WALTER W. LIGGETT HE newspaper field, like nearly every other American industry, is monopolized. I refer to the newspapers as an industry be- cause journalism is no longer a profession actuated by ideals or governed by efforts. The average newspaper is not even published with the primary purpose of printing the news. It is published solely for profit and the proprietor cares for little except that profit. He gets it, too. Protected by its monopoly, the average metropolitan paper pays dividends and at the same time defies and flouts the readers who make its profit possible. If your grocer cheats you it is possible for you to trade with another grocer. If your coal man short-weights you, it is possible for you to buy coal from another dealer. If the milk man puts water in the milk, we can patronize another milk man. But if a great daily newspaper constantly sup- . presses or distorts news, colors its editorial columns and attacks every movement that promises to better public welfare, you have no remedy. It costs at least $1,000,000 to start a daily in a city the size of St. Paul or Minneapolis. The afternoon field is so overcrowded in these cities that'a new paper could not live. No morning news- paper could be started because the Associated Press is the only organization that furnishes a news service for morning papers and the Associated . Press will not furnish this service to new papers and can not be compelled to furnish it by the courts of the land. PROGRESS IS NO FRIEND OF THE EDITOR Therefore, your newspaper publisher feels safe. He has an absolute monopoly and, like all monop- olists, he applies his power. He prints what he pleases and suppresses what dis- pleases him with equal facility; he flouts the public and scorns popular movements. He is not dependent upon the public—the public is de- pendent upon him and he treats the . public with scant consideration. The publisher is not running his paper for the public. He is running it for profit; and his advertisers and not the public are the ones who make his paper pos- sible. * Therefore, it is to the adver- tisers and not to the public that the newspaper proprietor bends a deferen- tial knee. . It was not so even as late as 40 years ago. Then subscribers sup- ported the newspapers and in order to live, a newspaper had to please its readers. Competition was still pos- sible, the cost of printing papers was comparatively small, and advertisers paid less than 50 per cent of the cost of publication. Today 80 to 90 per cent of the cost of publishing a news- paper-is paid by the advertiser and a paper seeks a large list of readers golely so that it can raise its adver- - BIG BUSINESS USES THE BOYCOTT THE ADVERTISER FURNISHES ERN:PAPER. That is why the mod- ern publisher listens to the advertis- ers’ and LAUGHS AT HIS READ- ERS; THAT IS WHY BIG ADVER- TISERS ARE IMMUNE FROM AT- TACKS AND °*HAVE VIRTUAL POWERS OF CENSORSHIP OVER NEWSPAPERS. You do not hear of "newspaper publishers consulting their. readers as to what their policies shall be., A newspaper proprietor who took = ~such a step would be. considered, in- | sane by his fellow publishers. They are in the business for profit; the advertiser makes the profit possible ‘and he is the man that the publisher. consults when there is any question - as to policy. 52 " You can count the really independ- Big bfisinéss men have nev. farmer, however, When the German armies can not win a battle in any other way, they send spies through the lines and poison the " wells. The American people are drink- ing from poisoned wells every time they pick up a metropolitan newspaper. Many people have been brought up to want the doctored and drugged news, the fierce appeals to hate and suspicion, the procession of scares and horrors, the unmeaning headlines and the bold, false prophecies. Journalism is at- tempting to pump into the general mind whatever news and opinions are convenient to the masters of high finance. Read this article and learn what you may always have sus- pected, but couldn’t prove. States on the fingers of your two hands. Prac- tically all are thoroughly prostituted by big busi- ness. This degeneracy is the more vicious because it is partly unconscious. It is not a question in most cases of money being paid out in return for editorials or colored or suppressed news stories, but a case of where individual advertisers and as- sociations of advertisers instinctively shun a paper unless “it is right.” And a paper that is right for the advertiser usually is wrong for the public. There was a chance for newspapers to be in- dependent so long as most’of their advertising came from small business firms. But this con- dition no longer "exists. Advertising in a great daily newspaper is so expensive that most of the advertising is carried by individuals or corpora- OGGING THE COMFORT: ' B[ ‘Yiaes 15 How T &5 £l UsED YO BE.. 7] BG BUSINESS £ 700K ALL THE ! COVERS_AND %] EVEN 3074 4 PILLOWS - BUF- IM USED To -7, Wow TS DOLLARS TO E| DOUGHNLTS THE FARMER wiLL GET i (1S PlLLOW AND._ HiS SHARE OF THE| COVERS ~-AND THATS BNt bl aLL HE WANTS R All he asks is a fair distribution. PAGE FIFTEEN b ; Fa}gggo T ‘{(‘@\_ DREA ~ it ‘;firawn especially for fhe Leader by W. C. Morris er had any respect for the rights of the farmer. They would make him a drudge without any of the comforts of life. You probably have heard financiers complain because the country people:are using motor: cars in their business. It’s the same way all down the line. Fatty has wrapped all the bed clothes around him and then complains because the farmer shivers. The doesn’t intend to make any. one shiver who will work. tions controlled by or associated with big business. These firms will not advertise with a paper which they think is supporting some popular cause that threatens the selfish interests of big business. Let us illustrate. Department store advertising is the life blood of newspapers. Practically all department stores periodically borrow large sums from banks. Most banks in turn are controlled by men. who are connected with the railroads, the steel trust, the milling combine, the packers and other vast concerns. Suppose that a paper attacks the steel trust, for instance. Steel trust directors, who also may be directors of banks from which de- partment store owners borrow, can easily shut down on a department store credit unless the owner of that department store uses his advertising to re- ward or punish papers that the steel trust director may want to control. Furthermore, whenever the big interests find it advisable they start huge “ad- vertising campaigns” to “influence public opinion.” SPEND DESPERATELY TO HEAD OFF STATE OWNERSHIP When there was talk of starting a government- owned munition plant, tHe Bethlehem Steel com- pany immediately started carrying huge ads all over the United States. These ads appeared only in newspapers that opposed government munition plants. When the railroads had their wage diffi- culties with the brotherhoods, the same tactics were used and hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent with papers that were opposing the demands of the brotherhoods. When Francis J. Heney uncovered profiteering and corruption in the packing trust, the packers promptly started spend- ing hundreds of thousands of dollars with the newspapers to head off a demand for government ownership. They call this advertising, but as a matter of fact it looks like plain bribery. Mr. Heney’s investigation unearthed evidence showing that in 1916, when Armour, Swift, Morris, - Wilson and Cudahy—anticipating con- gressional investigation and fearing criminal prosecution—had under con- sideration a plan to spend $1,700,000 for a publicity campaign. This was in effect nothing more or less than a proposal indirectly to pay papers which editorially opposed the govern- ment’s investigation. L Big business has another method of prostituting the press. News pub- lishers often require large sums of money to buy an equipment or for other purposes. The financiers which advance them these sums at once hold the whip hand over the paper and are in a position to demand favors and exercise a voice in the paper’s future policy. Sometimes big interests buy a paper outright. In the New Haven expose a few years ago it was shown that this railroad owned several newspapers. In a federal investiga- tion out on the Pacific coast still more recently, the fact was revealed that the Northern Pacific railway had a large share of one of the principal Seattle papers. It was openly ad- mitted that J. J. Hill had loaned the publisher of the other Seattle paper the money with which he had obtain- ed control. NATURALLY, THESE TWO PAPERS WERE SUBSER- “VIENT TO BIG BUSINESS. They “ fought every meritorious movement that threatened in any way to curtail the profits of big business and were particularly bitter in their efforts to resist every attempt to overthrow the railroad and the shipping ring that controlled Seattle’s water front and charged an exorbitant rate on every .ton of freight that passed over its docks. HOW AN HONEST PAPER FAILED ‘Conditions got so bad that several men in Seattle got together and re- solved to start an independent paper. Many men of comparatively small means contributed. The publi¢ re- sponded generously. :The paper had more than 40,000 paid-in-advance sub-