The Press: Who Reads?

The consumption of magazines, like the consumption of flannel underwear and hot tamales, is regional in its distribution. Professor Ward G. Reeder of Ohio State University examined the question,published his results. He based his calculations on the circulation of ” ten magazines having the largest circulation.”— The startling point of the survey is that, although most magazines are published in the East, most magazines are read in the West. The calculations show the percentage of the entire populationwhich is supposed to be the magazine-reading public. District of Columbia 3.7 California 25.8 Oregon 24.9 Washington 24.1 Nevada 21.25 Wyoming 20.8 Montana 18.5 Colorado 17.9 Massachusetts 17.8 Connecticut 17.2 Idaho 17.0 Ohio 16.8 Mississippi ranked last with about 4%. This rating places a group of seven Western states at the head of the list. Only two Atlantic seaboard states get into the first twelve— no Southern states whatever. The South in general stood last. Mr. Reeder declared that the ranking of the states in magazine-reading is about the same as their ranking in intelligence obtained by Army psychology tests during the War. There are two factors which perhaps are not properly allowed for in this analysis: 1) that the West has comparatively few high class newspapers to compete with magazines as reading matter; 2) that there is a large foreign population in the Eastern half of the country which reads foreign-language periodicals to the exclusion of all else.

Daily lowan

Teaching the young journalism has for some years been part of college curricula. Practical education in the newspaper ” game” has become the function of college daily newspapers. There are now 31 of these papers in existence scattered over the country from Los Angeles to Cambridge. They are probably more useful as educational institutions than as news -distributing agencies, for even the long established dailies of Yale, Harvard and Princeton are replete with errors and journalistic faux pas.Among the 31 is the Daily lowan of Iowa University, and that paper, it was announced, has become a member of the Associated Press.

It was further annonuced that this will be the ” first college daily newspaper to receive a full leased wire service.” It will be published six times a week, in eight-page eight-column form. The students of journalism will edit the paper; the students in the College of Commerce will manage business affairs. It will be published from its own plant, equipped with three linotype machines and a press that will print ” from the roll ” and turn out folded and complete 6,000 papers an hour. Besides general news, cartoons and ” cuts” or pictures, the lowan will have a Society column.

This ambitious program does not exceed that of some other college dailies. Contrary to the announcement, The Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca), TheMichigan Daily (Ann Arbor), and The Dartmouth (Hanover) have also Associated Press service. Perhaps the most notable of these is the Cornell Sun, which maintains a considerable circulation outside of the college,among people of the city, who prefer it to the regular Ithaca newspapers.

How to Kill a Child

The Chicago Daily Tribune, self-styled “World’s Greatest Newspaper,” is not afraid to place itself in famous company. Recently it took its stand beside Dean Jonathan Swift, master of the most devastating satire ever known. When Swift wrote his Modest Proposal for disposing of excess Irish population by feeding children of the Irish poor as hors d’oeuvre to the well-to-do, he was taken seriously by his countrymen and for a time ostracized. The Tribune, far from profiting by the Dean’s experience, printed instructions on How to Kill a Child:

” Take a quart of synthetic Gordon gin, ten oranges and some ice; mix; get a refined lady drunk and distress her mother; get drunk yourself; when you and the refined lady are thoroughly intoxicated get into the car and zigzag through the streets until you see a woman wheeling a baby carriage from one curb to the other; then step on the gas. The chances are the carriage will have a baby in it.”

Seven Better

Edward W. Bok, of Philadelphia, as a public citizen, makes it his business to supply suitable rewards. He has established the Philadelphia Award of $10,000 annually to the person who renders the most significant service to that city. He has established the American Peace Award of $100,000 (see page 6) for a practical peace plan suitable to the American temperament. His latest stimulation of effort is a series of advertising prizes.

These are eight in number and will be given annually under the auspices of the Harvard School of Business, which will select the jury of award.

The prizes:

1) For the most distinguished personal service in raising the standards of advertising (publishers of newspapers and periodicals as well as advertising men eligible) a gold medal.

2) For the best planned and executed national advertising campaign, $1,500.

3) For the best planned and executed local advertising campaign, $1,500.

4) For the most valuable scientific research in advertising, $1,500.

5) For the advertisement most effective in its use of English, $1,000.

6) For the advertisement most effectively accomplishing its purpose in a few words (with or without illustration), $1,000.

7) For the advertisement most effective in its use of typography, $1,000.

8) For the advertisement most effective in its use of pictorial illustration, $1,000.

Mr. Richard J. Walsh, editor of Collier’s Weekly, last Spring wrote an editorial on the award of the Pulitzer prizes for 1922:

” Here are awards for the best play, the best biography, the best newspaper editorial, the best novel, the best book of poems, and so on. Why has not the time come for someone to encourage better advertising writing by offering an award for the best advertisement ? ”

” There,” said Mr. Bok, ” was the idea.” But Mr. Bok went the editor of Collier’s seven better. He offered eight prizes instead of one.

Phoenix Journalism

The urge to print cannot long be overcome, despite the intervention of gods, demons, earthquakes. Mr. Uyema, owner of the Tokyo Asahi, arrived in Manhattan to buy linotype machines, web presses and other devices to replace the destroyed plant of his journal.

— These are, according to Editor and Publisher: The Saturday Evening Post, Pictorial Review, Ladies’ Home Journal, American, Mc-Call’s, Woman’s Home Companion, Literary Digest, Collier’s Weekly, Cosmopolitan, People’s Home Journal. (In that order.)