The Press: McCormick’s Straw

Every U. S. newspaper publisher knows that competition with a Hearstpaper on weekdays is one thing, on Sunday something entirely different. And no publisher knows it better than Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick, whose Chicago Tribune nearly doubles Hearst’s Herald & Examiner in weekday circulation, but comes second on Sunday. Like any other competitor of Hearst, Publisher McCormick had not far to look for the reasons: 1) the famed Hearst Sunday comic increased last week to 16 pages; and more important 2) the gaudy Hearst Sunday magazine section, The American Weekly, which boasts “Greatest Circulation in the World” (6,000,000) and gets $16,000 a page from advertisers.

Col. McCormick has always tried to keep the skirts of his Tribune free from sensationalism. Nevertheless, circulation is circulation, and the Sunday Tribune had lost more than other Sunday papers: the first seven months of this year its average was 88,000 less than its average for the same period last year. Colonel McCormick decided to test the circulation winds with a straw. With utmost secrecy a Sunday magazine section was made up, printed in four colors. Very gingerly last week the first issue, called The Graphic Weekly, was sent out with the Sunday Tribune, but only to readers beyond a radius of 100 mi. from Chicago.

First issue of The Graphic Weekly was less attractive than The American Weekly in appearance but, as could have been predicted, much more restrained. It had none of the keyhole-peeping, naughty-prince-and-chambermaid, sin-among-undergraduates, bloody-murder type of article so frequently found in The American Weekly. And its “scientific” articles, favorites of all Sunday editors, were somewhat less imaginative. Features of the first issue: a description of the aborigines of Australia & New Zealand; the child temple-dancers of Bali; Ras Tafari’s monogamy; a big-game hunting article, suggesting that African lions are really tame; a summary of now familiar facts about Siam’s royalty. The American Weekly of the same date offered: “If the Earth Becomes Uninhabitable—Where Shall We Go?,” with brilliant illustrations; “Mystery of American Lady Curzon’s Vanished Millions.” “Still Another ‘Betty Coed’ Tragedy”; ‘Judas the Hero of a Play That Has Startled London”; “Lacquered Hair Women’s Newest Freak Fashion”; “Contradictions of Nature Which Puzzle Science”; “Real Nightmare Pictures Painted While She ‘Dreams.’ ”

The Tribune management would not admit that The Graphic Weekly is under experiment for city circulation. They insisted its sole purpose was to give more reading matter to subscribers in “the provinces” who, because they receive such early editions of the paper, are deprived of many sections which go to press later.

While the Tribune was adding to its features, the Chicago Daily News dropped a conspicuous one. One of the first acts of its new publisher, William Franklin Knox (TIME, Aug. 24), was to kill the paper’s midweek magazine which had been costing reputedly $100,000 a year.

New Lows

Many a reader of the McCormick-Patterson tabloid New York Daily News, like many a reader of any newspaper, skips the editorials. But one day last week the News’s editorial column was calculated to arrest the most cursory eye. On it appeared the picture of a pudgy male, clad only in underdrawers, squatting Gandhi-fashion at a spinning wheel. The body was the body of any corpulent, middle-aged man but the head was the head of Herbert Hoover.

The editorial hastened to explain: “We were so much impressed with the Gandhi [radio] speech that we tried to picture what a Western nation’s leader would look like and how he would act if he were chosen according to Eastern standards. The result is the picture here shown—Mr. Hoover seated at a spinning wheel, contemplating his navel. There is no intention to ridicule anybody with this picture. It is merely meant to illustrate the great gulf that is fixed between Eastern and Western ideas. . . .”

Mechanically the picture was a variation of the “composograph” (faked picture) with which the Macfadden tabloid Evening Graphic used to sensationalize the news. “Composographs” are rarely used these days to simulate actual news photographs. The energy of news photographers and the license taken by tabloid editors make such devices unnecessary. When the trussed and battered body of Benjamin P. Collings was washed ashore on the sands of Long Island last week (see p. 17). News and Mirror obliged by printing large, close-up pictures of the muddy corpse as it lay on the beach. That put them one jump ahead of the Evening Graphic, but not for long. That afternoon the Graphic blossomed with a full front-page photograph of the corpse on a morgue slab, posed on its side by two obliging attendants to show the hands tied behind the back. Protested Cyrus H. K. Curtis’ polite Evening Post: “Journalism, it seems to us, reaches a ‘new low.’ . . .”

Gannett Preferred

When William Randolph Hearst needed money he offered stock to his employes and the public in a new $100,000,000 company called Hearst Consolidated Publications (TIME, June 30, 1930; Sept. 7). Last week Publisher Frank Ernest Gannett (Rochester Times-Union, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Hartford Times and 14 other papers) announced he would offer $1,000,000 preferred stock in Gannett Co., Inc. But Publisher Gannett insisted that his company did not need money. Said he: “[The company] has never had a losing year. It was making money before the depression. It has been making money since the depression. It is making money now. The purpose of the financing, he said, was primarily to provide a “subscriber ownership.”

For one who did not have to worry whether or not the money came in, Publisher Gannett’s line of appeal was remarkably insistent. Unlike Publisher Hearst, he ordered his own employes to sell the stock. To each went a circular letter, a booklet of selling hints and a blank prospect list. The letter, signed by the publisher, read in part: “We expect every employee of the company to turn in at least 24 names.” The booklet suggested such prospects as “Your relations. . . . People your relatives can suggest. . . . Personal friends. . . . People with whom you trade. . . . Members of your club or lodge. . . .” The prospect list was to be filled with names and signed by the employe under a sentence which read: ”Between October 12 and October 24 … I promise to talk with all the people whose names I have selected, and to give them information about the preferred stock.”

The stock, $6 cumulative convertible, is to sell at $100. Employes were promised a commission of $2 per share. Bonuses totaling $18,000 were posted for selling more than 100 shares.*

Ballyhoo’s Million

When the first issue (150,000 copies) of Ballyhoo, adless funny magazine, was sold out, Publisher George T. Delacorte Jr. ascribed it to curiosity. His family & friends told him the magazine was “terrible”; his office aides predicted early failure. On the point of killing the project Publisher Delacorte changed his mind, sold out a second issue of 450,000; a third, of 675,000. Last week he sent out an edition of more than one million copies.

To date none of the burlesqued advertisements has been paid for (even those with actual trademarks) but the publisher is still negotiating with companies who wish to pay to be made fun of.

Other Ballyhioo news, from Editor Norman Hume Anthony:

¶ Although it is no cheaper to subscribe than to buy each issue, and early announcements definitely urged readers not to subscribe, some 4,000 subscriptions were received. Among the subscribers: Julius Rosenwald, Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Truman Handy Newberry. Dr. Julius Klein, Norman Bel Geddes, Admiral Arthur Lee Willard.

¶ A coupon in the October issue burlesquing Curtis Publishing Co.’s offer to make extra money in spare time by selling subscriptions to Satevepost was signed and sent in by nearly 100 readers. (“He mailed Our Coupon 80 Years Ago—NOW He’s at the Head of the Line!—[Bread Line]”). Two coupon-bearers appeared at Ballyhoo’s office in person, went away satisfied with subscription blanks.

¶ The Gay Nineties photographs which illustrate many of the advertisements are obtained from Brown Bros., oldtime newsphoto agency of Manhattan. The picture of the young man in the “Faery Soap” ad of the current issue (“Whoops! I’m just curazy about Faery Soap!”) was taken from a French postcard.

¶ Because publication has been speeded too fast (the current issue is dated November), the next issue may be dated “Octvember.”

¶ Editor Anthony’s friend, plump, baldheaded, Phil Rosa, who worked with him on Life and Judge, was recently hired. He comprises the Staff.

*Last year Gannett Co. earned net $964,746. For the first half of 1931 net earnings were $498,455 as compared with $578,688 for the same period last year. But the 1931 half-year earnings were eleven times the dividend requirement of the preferred stock then outstanding. With the sale of $1,000,000 additional preferred stock to the public, it is estimated that earnings for all of 1931 will be about five times the dividend requirement.