THE DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE SMALL CITY

“I had rather be the editor of a daily in a small city than hold any other newspaper post,” remarked a journalist who had tried almost every kind of newspaper work—and many will agree with him. Increased facilities for gathering news and information and the wonderful improvement in printing office mechanism permit the making of a complete newspaper almost anywhere. The small cities may have just as good a daily sheet as the big ones if the owners care to pay the price of producing it. The news associations and the telegraph companies deliver news simultaneously in all parts of the country. The newspaper in the remote Northwest or the extreme South gets the same telegraphic news as is furnished to New York City or to New England.

Any editor may supplement his news service with syndicate articles—by which is meant, articles written in New York, Washington, the State Capital, or anywhere, and duplicated to any number of newspapers. Syndicate service has come to be an important feature of American journalism. Its use saves the editor time, trouble, and expense. A few syndicates in New York139 and Washington send special news by wire but most of the matter goes by mail. It consists largely of articles on national topics, social topics, business, the theaters, music, art, and sports. At this writing a syndicate is sending from New York a service of excellent editorial articles on general topics. All sorts of feature matter also may be had: the medical column, the cookery department, the fashion show, the question and answer diversion, the short daily or weekly story of fiction, a daily cartoon or a comic strip or cut. Entire pages of matter are offered on every imaginable topic for use in Saturday and Sunday edition supplements. They include even the comic pictorial broadsides in vivid color. Several of the big metropolitan sheets sell their miscellaneous Sunday features entire and some of them furnish a special news service intended to supplement the news associations’ report. This news service and Sunday syndicate service sent from the big newspapers furnish the identical articles that appear in the papers from whose offices they are sent. By their use the out of town editor may go a great way toward reproducing the big city sheet. All of this kind of matter is offered at ridiculously low prices, the profit to the producer being, of course, in its repeated duplication.

The modern multiple printing press, the modern stereotyping process and the linotype typesetting machine are in general use all over the country, giving the same mechanical facilities as enjoyed in the larger cities.

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By availing himself of all these things the editor in the small city may produce a newspaper of any size and almost any quality to suit his fancy. In all matters of national or state importance or of world-wide interest he may reasonably compete with the big newspapers if he cares to spend the money with which to do so.

The chief concern of the provincial editor however will center in his organization for the collection of home and neighborhood news. This must be of superior quality and in generous volume, for his so-called “local” news is vital to his success.

In New York City there is practically no such thing as local news. Happenings of considerable importance are not printed simply because they happened in New York. They must possess enough of importance in themselves to interest a large number of readers, must be just as interesting to outsiders as to residents of the city. Scores of big societies and organizations give banquets with three hours of oratory and reporters listening to every word, but unless something important or highly interesting is said by the speakers the newspapers print not a word about the event.............