09 -615.
cals illustrate the effort of the periodical press to reach outbeyond
a restricted circle and to supply the needs of a wide class of readers.
Similar in object has been the syndicated article that in its present form , so says S . S . McClure, was in the air about 1884,
but that has been protean in form and that has had numerous kith and kin .85 These changes in the purpose of the newspaper have been accompanied by radical changes in its character. Interest in the nature of the news presented often seems subservient to the speed with which news is disseminated ;86 events that are abnor mal or unusual seem to have priority of claim over those that are normal or usual, - such normal events are indeed not regarded as news; trivialities are magnified , as news, out of all proportion to
their relative importance;87 newsbecomes important not through 85 S . S. McClure gives a full account of his own connection with the syndicate in My Autobiography, pp . 42 -44, 164 -192; L . Klopsch , in 1885, began syndicating the sermons of Dr. Talmage. - C . M . Pepper, Life -Work
of Louis Klopsch , pp. 6 – 7. The forerunner of the syndicated article was the paper in small towns printed at a central office. The Joliet, Illinois, Phoenix printed the Phoenix for six other towns ; at least three pages were alike, the rest of the paper
gave the distinctive local news of each place. - F. W . Scott, The News papers and Periodicals of Illinois , p . C .
The bar sinister is found in the press that does not join a syndicate but
prefers to appropriate the news collected by others. R . H . Fife, Jr., says that in Germany much pirating of news from the larger journals is carried on by all the provincial papers , “ in a way that is absolutely conscienceless , possibly because, . . . the reading public seems less eager for news than for editorial comments thereon.” — The German Empire between Two
Wars, p. 362. 86 The adoption of the Declaration of Independence was first recorded in a Philadelphia newspaper ten days afterwards, and in a Boston news paper twenty -two days afterwards. - H . F . Harrington and T . T . Frank
enberg , Essentials in Journalism , pp. 193- 194 . The New York Evening Post published the news of the battle of Waterloo forty -four days after the battle was fought; the London papers did not
know of it for three days. The Evening Post had no editorial comment on it , - " editorials were not a great factor in that period of American journal
ism .” - Evening Post, August 2 , 1915.
It seems reasonable to infer that to-day no news would be published if received forty - four days after the event. 87 This is not a new criticism . The Athenaeum , February 2, 1856 , in writing of the Globe, remarks : “ Rich in its vein of solemn respectability , it discourses on everything with judicious gravity , and in a spirit of un impeachable Whiggism . It can , however, condescend to the assumed tastes of its readers; and it handles little matters as an evening journal must do ,
though always with great seriousness and dignity. Only a few da
