Watchmen at the Waldorf

Editor &; Publisher, chief trade organ for the Fourth Estate, prepared the way last week for the two most important Press gatherings of the year: the Associated Press convention in the tropical roof-garden of Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria and the following three-day sessions of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association 15 floors below in the grey & red Waldorf ballroom. Keynote was a message from Harry Chandler, A. N. P. A. president, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, unable to attend the conventions because of illness. Wrote Publisher Chandler:

"Take away the newspaper--and this country of ours would become a scene of chaos. Without daily assurance of the exact facts--so far as we are able to know and publish them--the public imagination would run riot. Ten days without the daily newspaper and the strong pressure of worry and fear would throw the people of this country into mob hysteria--feeding upon rumors, alarms, terrified by bugbears and illusions. We have become the watchmen of the night and of a troubled day. . . . The collapse of an inflated era of spending has suddenly sobered the American public. It isn't jokes and cocktails that they want now. It is bread and butter and facts. . . . These are the times when the conduct of a daily newspaper ceases to be a commercial enterprise. It becomes a stewardship that often involves great self-sacrifice and great courage. . . ."

Observers suspected that Publisher Chandler's "scene of chaos" in the absence of newspapers might be a subtle belittlement of the news-carrying potentialities of Radio with which last year's Press conventions were hotly concerned.

Editor & Publisher also anticipated that radio competition would again figure largely in discussions of how to stop further shrinkage of advertising lineage. William A. Thomson, A. N. P. A. advertising director, made cheerful but significant point of the fact that, though newspaper advertising as a whole had fallen off 55 million dollars in 1931 from the 1929 figure, proportionately the same amount of the advertiser's dollar still went to newspapers.

P:In Washington last week, the American Society of Newspaper Editors at its annual convention selected Fred Fuller Shedd (Philadelphia Bulletin'), president; Alfred H. Kirchhofer (Buffalo evening News), secretary; E. S. Beck (Chicago Tribune), treasurer; Paul Bellamy (Cleveland Plain Dealer) and Groves Patterson (Toledo Blade), vice presidents.

P:In Philadelphia the Hartford Courant was awarded the Francis Wayland Ayer Cup presented annually by N. W. Ayer & Sons for the best newspaper typographical makeup. From among the 1,475 other entries, chosen for honorable mention, were: the New York American, New York Herald Tribune (last year's winner), Newark Evening News, Baltimore Sun, Detroit Free Press.

P:In New York, Secretary of the Treasury Mills opening the 33rd annual A. P. meeting told publishers pointedly that "credit and confidence" must solve the nation's troubles; that he, from his foretopmast view, saw signs of definite, if gradual, return of confidence. Pointing to the efforts of the R. F. C. and anti-hoarding campaign, Secretary Mills added, ". . . While it seems almost cruel to urge patience ... yet I cannot help but feel we should give the forces which have been set in motion an opportunity to exert themselves before yielding to doubt as to whether we are on the right path." Pressmen applauded politely.

Then General Manager Kent Cooper talked: "Each community requires a supply of intelligence, more necessary in times of depression, perhaps, than in a prosperous era. To dig themselves out of the Depression, people must think, and they cannot think unless they are reliably informed.

"A suggestion from various sources was that we seek items of a favorable nature and present them in such a way as to emphasize the hopeful aspects of the business situation, on the theory that the Depression is largely a state of mind. While endeavoring to obtain all legitimate news, we have recognized the fact that overemphasis of one side of a question would violate our most prized tradition of accuracy."

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