A NEWSPAPER DIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18139, 2 October 1930, Page 3

A NEWSPAPER DIES.

STORY OF STARK TRAGEDY

WHEN THE HIVE IS EMPTIED. (By C.C.T.) There is something inexpressibly pathetic about the demise of a big daily newspaper. It is' as though some Jove or Jupiter, with a single blow of a clenched list, destroyed a ivilisation, or a mighty tidal wave overcame a great city with no warning of impending doom. One moment there Is life, action, lirobbing, pulsating movement in which brains and brawn play an equal part; the next, annihilation, silence, despair. Thus it is that the general public has little conception of ail that was Involved when the Auckland Sun published for the last time the other day. To the public It is a passing incident,’ a sign, perhaps, of bad times, and of inexorable economic laws. There are other newspapers. We will not be starved for news. It will make no difference to us. Why worry about it?

Only those who have held the roles of stewards in the Fourth Estate can capture the real tragedy and loss consequent on the death of a city daily. And lest it be misinterpreted, let it be said that -that loss is not entirely material. It is as much the severance of a spiritual bond, a sentimental tie, which depresses those whom it has touched. Philip Gibbs, the doyen of British journalists, with his effortless descriptive ability, has given to the world a glimpse of that feeling in his novel “The Street of Adventure.” Here, more forcibly than anywhere, is painted the picture of desolation and futility when the Tribune passed into the limbo of forgotten things. Any newspaper worker will tell of his sense of possession and pride as a contributor in a marvellous system, a unit in an intricate mechanism of many parts, each part separate yet dependent on the other for successful operation. He may speak of the enormous expenditure, time and trouble required to build up a fabric of delicate tracery. He may detail the system, the regularity, and the clearsighted direction which ensure the journal being placed in its subscribers’ hands at a specified time, each day. Despite the clamour for awards and better working conditions, there are few em\loyees in a newspaper office bereft of the idea of intimate relationship which is akin to that between mother and child.

And then, in one fell blow, death and destruction to that mighty but delicate mechanism I Rotary presses cease their interminable pounding; the clatter of the linotypes is no more; pencils and pens are suddenly atrophied; a building crammed with busy humans becomes an empty mausoleum. The city* man bound for a suburban home in a tram seeks in vain for the familiar sheet and the “features” which, perhaps, endeared it to him. Hundreds of agents, newsboys and correspondents in all parts of the province search needlessly for the service cars and trains with their loads of neatly-stacked papers. It is the end. “De Mortuis " And what of the city staff, those cosmopolitan men who follow a peculiar and truly precarious profession? In the morning a reporter may be writing about the very economic depression or commercial competition which proves the paper's downfall; an operator may be planning the final nstalment on a suburban bungalow; an editor considers the subject of next week’s leading article; a canvasser proposes a new advertising scheme; an office-boy decides to start saving for a bicycle. In the afternoon —disaster ' undreamed of and disillusionment! Journalists’ wives, those wives whom Philip Gibbs pities and sympathises with, preparing the evening meal when the breadwinner returns with his tragic story. Workless,, at a time when industry and enterprise are stagnant and when taxation has assumed the aspect of a deadly cancer, eating into the heart of every man’s income. It is about five years since the last newspaper death in New Zealand. After a vigorous and active career, blighted near the end when it became almost completely a political organ, the New Zealand Times shut its doors -and caused a panic among newspaper workers. Auckland has now joined Wellington and Dunedin in supporting but two daily papers. With many qualified employees unable toffind jobs the outlook for a much-sought profession is far from bright. That the newspaper industry is only one of the many industries in the Dominion sharing in the prevailing slump is certain, and that conditions must improve within a year or two is also certain, But such observations do nothing to relieve the distress and suffering occasioned by the death of a city newspaper. It is imposamie to tg^o.o the stark tragedy of it.