Page:Columbia Journalism Review volume 2 issue 1.djvu/36



Herd reporting (continued)

In the last issue this column expressed strong distaste for the waste of effort when hundreds of American reporters, broadcasters, and technicians trail along to report a brief Presidential trip. The folly of the procedure was again illustrated by the platoons of newsmen who trailed President Kennedy on his trip to Costa Rica and stumbled over one another in reporting the same handshakes, the same greetings, the same informal words, and the same communiques. A mere three weeks later a revolution in Guatemala was inadequately covered, partly because of a shortage of newsmen in Central America.

When we learn to rely upon the press associations and efficient pools for covering formal visits and ceremonies, we shall have the manpower to cover thoroughly the unexpected or to anticipate the unexpected by probing in depth beforehand.

The magazine muddle

Buried away in recent publishing news was the fact that The New Yorker wound up its fiscal year with a profit in the area of $2,000,000—roughly 10 per cent of its gross revenue. It is to be hoped that the great publishing organizations will someday awake to the significance of this performance.

The New Yorker, perhaps the best written popular magazine in the nation today, still relies on editorial quality to attain circulation and to keep its modest but loyal readership of about 450,000. Enough of the advertising fraternity senses the value of this readership to keep The New Yorker filled with about as much advertising as it can handle.

At the very time these figures were coming out, mass magazines were spending millions on their inefficient race for numbers. Solicitors by the hundreds were engaged in door-to-door subscription selling for Look. Agents for Life were hounding prospective subscribers on the telephone, sometimes by long distance. The Saturday Evening Post was using cut-rate selling methods—along with editorial material and cover blurbs that bordered upon the sensational. Even the Reader's Digest was filling the mails with low-price subscription offers. All of this was going on in the face of the fact that subscribers attained by high-pressure methods are costly subscribers; few will renew.

Ever optimistic, we suggest that it is high time for the publishers of mass magazines to recognize that numbers of so-called subscribers are not important above all else and that magazines have lost the numbers game to television anyway. We yearn for the day when some great magazine will re-examine the facts and announce that it is giving up the numbers game and concentrating on those readers who demonstrate that they really want—and really read—the magazine. If even a fair percentage of advertising-space buyers would recognize the value of such circulation and forget about "fast-growing books," more magazines would return a profit and more advertisers get their dollar's worth.

Celler committee omission

With regret, but not with surprise, it is noted that the long list of witnesses to appear before the Celler anti-trust subcommittee in its multi-faceted inquiry into the newspaper business includes no one concerned with the curious happenings in Lima, Ohio. As noted in the Review's winter issue, the Hoilesowned Lima News so abused its monopoly position as to give rise to an opposition newspaper, lost ground, then resorted to dubious practices to regain its position. Allegations of anti-trust violations have been under investigation. The allegations may or may not be justified. One cannot help wondering, however, why the Celler committee, at least in its early planning, did not even schedule an inquiry into the situation.

Representative William M. McCulloch is the ranking minority member of the Celler subcommittee. His congressional district includes Lima, Ohio.

A correction

In the winter issue, this column erred in listing WCBS Radio, New York, among media that carried the no-mention-of-race policy to the absurd length of describing a wanted man in detail without saying that he was a Negro. Examination of the scripts shows that our ears deceived us. The broadcast in question did not describe the man in detail and hence did not mention his race; other WCBS broadcasts, which described the man, mentioned race.

EDWARD W. BARRETT 34 Columbia Journalism Review