Column Inches

Science, a weekly, took out its measuring stick and added up the column-inches devoted by newspapers to the branch of life and learning it represents.

To fix a focal point, Science selected eight prominent journals; measured the space they gave to a recent meeting in Philadelphia of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The eight sheets consumed 1,379% column-inches, of which the Boston Transcript took 347. Last stood the Philadelphia (where the meeting met) Evening Ledger with 74% column inches. The New York Times led Manhattan journals tabulated with 175% column inches; the World had 113%. Education and general science lumped led the subjects treated with 194%; astronomy stood second with 179%.

Science congratulated newspapers in general for giving more attention to the subject than they used to give. Science, unscientific, failed to indicate that the above column-inches, except insofar as they show a great advance in mass column inches over five years ago, are not a true indication of the respective papers' interest in the subject. For example the voluminous Times may be proportionately less interested in a story than is the slimmer World, and yet print twice as many column-inches.