WORLD WITHOUT NEWSPAPERS

Taupo Times, Volume III, Issue 129, 16 July 1954, Page 6

WORLD WITHOUT NEWSPAPERS

ADVERTISEMENTS WOULD BE MISSED MOST What would our world be like without newspapers? A recent newspaper strike in New York gave an insight into some aspects of that; problem. One of the biggest advertising agencies in New; York, Messrs. Batten Barton, Durstine and Osborne, knocked on doors during the strike to find out what people missed most through the non-receipt of newspapers. Advertisements were rated first, with news and editorials in second and third places respectively. The agency reported the result of the survey in their own publication "Wedge." The newspaper strike lasted eleven days and "Wedge" reported that during that time millions found that they were living with a hole in their lives. Far worse, the whole economy of the city began to run down. Saies of advertised commodities dropped. United Parcels, an organisation that makes deliveries for New York Department Stores, ^eported a shrinkage in deliveries of 15% to 18%. Buyers and managers of Department Stores complained. One manager said that mail orders and telephone orders were almost nonexistent, and floor trafhc had suffered too. Very few people went above the first floor, he added. Volume was off 25%, reported the manager of a store's furnishing department. Another buyer reported that he was not permitted to buy any additional merchandise until after the newspaper strike. A funeral direetor said that attendances at funerals had dropped considerably because np death notices could appear. '

The survey made by this agency showed conclusively that business fell away badly once the main medium for advertising— the newspapers — was unable to give the public news of what was offering and what was for sale. The result of the New York newspapers strike survey showed conclusively that the absence of newspapers, and the advertising carried by those newspapers, had a serious effect on the general economy of the city and, incidentally prov'ed the fact that advertising is news in the real sense of the word. Writing in "Editor and Publisher," Dorothy Kilgallen had this to say about, the newspaper strike: "You came home at night and the hall table was bare of the usual stack of fresh newsprint. You pulled up to the breakfast table in the morning and there was nothing on it except breakfast.

"No headlines to surprise you. No date-lines to intrigue you. No editorials to prod you into disagreement; no columns to amuse you; no advertisements to tell you what's playing at Loew's State or what's hot at Bonwit Tellers. "The new play? If you hadn't seen it yourself, there was nothing to tell you it had opened, or who was in it, or what one man thought of it. The new books? Go ask the fellow at the corner lending library — that's the only way to find out."