Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/407

Rh in Madrid sent their news by special couriers to France, thence the messages were sent without censorship, and without other molestation from authorities. Such messages had to be paid for in gold and in advance and the expense for this service for one New York newspaper totaled over two thousand dollars a week. After the Manila cable was cut, a certain newspaper in order to be first with the news chartered a special dispatch boat to run to Hong Kong and thereafter sent its war news by cable from that place at $1.80 a word.

At home the American newspapers were put to great expense in being forced to get out extra editions. The New York Evening Journal, for example, printed as many as forty editions in a single day, and The Evening World nearly, if not quite, as many. The size of editions reached startling figures: one New York newspaper, for example, frequently printed over one million copies a day and failed even with such an output, to meet the demand.

The immediate effect of the war with Spain upon American journalism was the large streamer headline. During the war the headline of the most important item, or news story, stretched itself across the page. It not only increased in width, but also in length, until some of the more sensational newspapers used one which occupied fully one half of the first page, except a little corner where the name of the newspaper appeared in small type. In the absence of exciting news, certain newspapers adopted rather questionable methods in the composition of headlines. A half-page would be given to the two words "BIG BATTLE," in large black letters. Underneath these two words and directly under the fold of the page would be some qualifying expression, in small type, such as "Expected To-morrow." When the paper was on the stand or when it was held aloft by the newsboy, all the passer-by could see was "BIG BATTLE." Such questionable tactics brought certain papers into bad repute with their readers. While the newspapers of the better class never practiced such deceptions, they did increase the size of their headlines. Even the World War did not produce any such flaring headlines in American newspapers as appeared during the time the United