UNCONVENTIONAL EDITOR

Northern Advocate, 29 September 1926, Page 2

UNCONVENTIONAL EDITOR

UNPROFITABLE IDEALS. THREE PAPERS FAIL. The recent failure of tliree provincial American newspapers—the “Illustrated Daily Herald” of San Francisco, the “Illustrated Daily News” of Los Angeles, and the “Illustrated Daily Tab” of Miami, Florida—reveals an interesting story of the rise and fall of an unconventional young editor who failed in his efforts to establish a “clean” chain of newspapers in every largo town between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Piquancy is added to the story by the fact that the hero of it, Cornelius Vanderbilt, junr., is one of the wealthiest young men of America in his own right, besides being the heir to the millions of his father. At the beginning of the war, young Vanderbilt, still in his teens, had not finished the education already begun with private tutors and private schools. Against the wishes of his family, he joined the American Army as a private and saw service in France. When the war was over his family expected him to ■go to Yale University to finish his education. But this did not fit in with the plans of the young man. Instead, he joined the staff of the “New York Herald” for eight months, then migrated to the more august '“Times’ ’ for some more months, and later on went to Washington as a political correspondent. While in Washington he started the “C.V. Newspaper Service,” being aided in this work by his wife. Apparently he made a good job of this newspaper service. But he wished to fly higher; and once again turned a deaf ear to the advice of older and wiser heads. Although he had. but a few months’, training as, a reporter and correspondent, he decided to become a publisher of newspapers on a grand scale. That was just three years ago.

Hp began operations in Los Angeles. He formed a publishing corporation, and the name of Vanderbilt worked like magic. In a very short time £1,000,000 had been deposited by subscribers to the stock, and the citizens of the film city anxiously awaited the first issue of “Los Angeles’ first and only clean' newspaper.” It appeared on September 3, 1923, his mother’s birthday. Its circulation iwas 130,000, but later on it reached the figure of 212,000. In December, 1923, he founded bis San Francisco paper, with an initial circulation of 100,000. At the height of the building boom in Florida, he founded his Miami paper, which was a great success, making money from the first day. But, in spite of the success which attended his ventures at the beginning, Ithe three papers have now gone bankrupt. Several reasons have been put forward for the failure. First come ! the conditions under which the papers were run. Salaries were much too high! Inexperienced people were paid £lO a week for doing work worth half the salary. The Los Angeles paper foundered on the rock of bad tactics.

Mr Vanderbilt was foolish enough to incur the displeasure of the biggest business men of the city by attacking a charity scheme organised by them and. the community. But there was another and far more important reason why the newspapers could not succeed. Mr Vanderbilt from the very first went in for “clean” journalism. That is to say, his papers did not contain news of crime, scandal, and other

unsavoury matters. Only constructive news was to be found in the columns. Such papers st%)d no chance against competitors not 'accepting the same rule of self-denial with respect to personal photographs, divorce, death, and scandal.