WHAT NEWSPAPERS PAY FOR WAR NEWS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 22 January 1912, Page 6

WHAT NEWSPAPERS PAY FOR WAR NEWS.

; ASTONISHING FIGURES.

"Get it, at a reasonable cost if, you . can, but get it." This practically con- '(. stitutes the orders issued to its war ' correspondents by the enterprising Lon- - don newspapers of to-day; for whether a war is taking place next door to our own country, or a couple of thousand miles away, the public expects a full . ■account at breakfast time of the pre- , vious day's battle.. The consequence is that the modern newspaper must spare no expense to obtain war news. Take the last big war—that between Russia and Japan—which broke out at -- thjß' beginning of 1904 and lasted 20 months. It is estimated that newspapers were spending during that time £40,000 a week to secure news of the war. This money was expended on the salary of some 200 correspondents, their * interpreters and servants, the upkeep of at least 600 horses, the maintenance of ' despatch-runners, and the forwarding of cable messages. COSTLY CABLES. The expense of getting war news is I so great that the small newspapers during recent years have, in some cases, ! and snared the cost of sending "out correspondents. The more important newspapers, however, send out their own men and also have correspondents stationed at various places' where news is most likely to be ob- ! tamable. In the Turko-Italian war, for instance, papers are receiving telegrams from "our own correspondent" at such places as Tripoli, Malta, Djerba, Sfaxj Constantinople, Rome, Tunis and many other places. . During the Boer war the. Daily Telegraph had no fewer than seventeen war correspondents in South Africa, and the cost of cablegrams themselves was enough to raise wrinkles on the brow of , the man of average wealth. One message from Mr Bennet Burleigh, for instance, ran away with £105, and altogether the little bill incurred for these messages by the Telegraph alone was something like £50,000. That, of Router's Agency could not have been ■ \ less thaif a cheque for £200,000. TELEGRAPH RATES. It is the cost of transmitting the news which is the biggest item in the war- - ibill for a newspaper. During the course of €he South African war, the cable press rate was Is a word, although it j is now reduced to 9d, while in the Russo-Japanese war the rate varied from about Is 4d to nearly 2s a word. , These are the special Press rates, but it oftened happened that when the correspondent had some exclusive news he paid two or three times these rates in order 1o secure precedence of Pressrate messages. In the case of. the Tripoli war the cost of transmitting mews is not so great, although from Tripoli itself there is no Press rate. ; but the full rate per word is only 7d, while that from Malta is only 2d. The upkeep of war correspondents at the seat of the campaign is a great expense. As a rule the remuneration is from between £25 and £40 per week per man, apart from his personal expenses, and even such sums do not exhaust the liabilities of newspapers when war breaks out. Many proprietors take out a special insurance on the lives of their representatives, and some of the more generous go to the ,«xtent of giving an undertaking to see to the future of those dependent upon them.