[Footnote: "It is an axiom in newspaper
publishing--'more readers, more independence of the influence of
advertisers; fewer readers and more dependence on the advertiser' It
may seem like a contradiction (yet it is the truth) to assert: the
greater the number of advertisers, the less influence they are
individually able to exercise with the publisher." Adolph S. Ochs,
_of. supra._] A body of readers who stay by it through thick and
thin is a power greater than any which the individual advertiser can
wield, and a power great enough to break up a combination of
advertisers. Therefore, whenever you find a newspaper betraying its
readers for the sake of an advertiser, you can be fairly certain
either that the publisher sincerely shares the views of the
advertiser, or that he thinks, perhaps mistakenly, he cannot count
upon the support of his readers if he openly resists dictation. It is
a question of whether the readers, who do not pay in cash for their
news, will pay for it in loyalty.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CONSTANT READER
I
THE loyalty of the buying public to a newspaper is not stipulated in
any bond. In almost every other enterprise the person who expects to
be served enters into an agreement that controls his passing whims. At
least he pays for what he obtains. In the publishing of periodicals
the nearest approach to an agreement for a definite time is the paid
subscription, and that is not, I believe, a great factor in the
economy of a metropolitan daily.
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