PRESS AND PUBLIC.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1868, 30 September 1913, Page 8

PRESS AND PUBLIC.

NEWSPAPERS OF THE FUTURE. In a particularly interesting address delivered at York recently at the, conference of the Institute of # Journalists by Mr. Robert Donald, president of the institute and editor of the "Daily Chronicle." Mr. Donald dealt comprehensively with the past, present, and future of the newspaper industry, showing how the old ordei' liad changed with the march of progress, and how the order would continue to change as the years advanced.

Aero Deliveries. Airships and aeroplanes, lie said, would be used to convey newspapers to the most distant centres. Electric trains and motorplanes, running 011 special tracks, would be utilised. Morning and evening newspapers would be merged, and editions come out almost every hour, day and night. News would be collected by wireless telephones, and tho reporter would always have a portable telephone with liim witli which to communicate with his paper, without tlio trouble of going to an office or writing a message. At the other end the wireless message would be delivered to the sub-editor printed in column form. . . The chief competition of the great national newspaper of the future, Mr. Donald prophesied, would be tho kinematograph and the gramophone.-People might become too lazy to read, and news would bo laid on to tho liouse_ like gas and water. Occupiers would listen to the news of' "the day read to them while sitting in the garden, or have their daily newspaper printed in column form by a printing niachinc in the hall.

National Newspapers. The modern press, continued Mr. Donald, had become commercialised; iiine-tenths of 'the leading papers belonged to • limited companies with "neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to bo damned." Truly the private owner of the old days liked his profit, and made it, but as he had 110 responsibility towards shareholders, _ he preferred less profit to compromise with principle. Shareholders were investors, not journalists; their main concern was dividends, and dividends had to be earned if principle had to suffer in the process. Tho nationalising of the London newspaper was a sign of the changing times. These papers now overran the provinces; .this development had been brought about by advancing the • clock two hours, the greater use of special trains and motor-cars, and new methods of distribution. _ This incursion of tho London press into the provinces in time to.be with the morning milk had had a serious effect on the fortunes of the provincial mornings. It was accentuated by the simultaneous publication! of several newspapers in two ccntrcs.

Journalistic Dreadnoughts. The general advertiser had found, in consequence, that lie could get all lie wanted from fewer newspapers circulating over wider areas, so that less powerful provincial newspapers lincl suffered. "He (the speaker) was not concerned with the cffect of concentrated ownership _ 011 the politics morals, or well-being of the nation. From the point, of view of the reading public the newer journalism was preferable to tho old. There had been a general improvement; newsxiapors were better written, more readable, more entertaining, und more attractive. The tendency towards combinations was likely to increase, and colossal circulations would continuo to grow. Tholo would bo fewer newspapers, but the total circulation would bo greater. The power of these national journalistic dreadnoughts would not bo less, in whatever direction their influence nps exercised.. . , "We cannot prevent or even check the irresistible trend towards more concentration and keener competition, said Mr. Donald in conclusion, but wo cin do our part to maintain the honour, the dignity, and the reputation or the British press. Capitalists may call the tune, but we are still able to give the tone."