Chapter XLIII: The Owner and His Advertisers

The third method by which the “kept” press is kept is the method of the advertising subsidy. This is the “legitimate” graft of newspapers and magazines, the main pipeline whereby Big Business feeds its journalistic parasites. Financially speaking, our big newspapers and popular magazines are today more dependent upon their advertisers than they are upon their readers; it is not a cynicism, but the statement of a business fact, that a newspaper or popular magazine is a device for submitting competitive advertising to the public, the reading-matter being bait to bring the public to the hook.

And of course the old saying holds, that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” The extent to which the bait used in the game of journalistic angling is selected and treated by the business fishermen, is a subject which might occupy a volume by itself. Not merely is there general control of the spirit and tone of the paper; there is control in minute details, sometimes grotesque. For example, Arthur Brisbane wrote an article on dietetics, deploring the use of package cereals. The advertising men of the “Evening Journal” came to him, tearing their hair; he had knocked off a hundred thousand dollars a year from the “Journal’s” income! Brisbane wrote an editorial pointing out that stiff hats caused baldness, and the “Journal” office was besieged by the hat-dealers who advertised in the paper. Brisbane went to Europe and wrote editorials supporting a municipal subway. Said the advertising man: “Don’t you know that Mr. —— at Wanamaker’s is dead against that sort of thing?”

Max Sherover, in his excellent little pamphlet, “Fakes in American Journalism,” writes:

The editor of a New York paper wrote an instructive editorial on the
right kind of shoes to wear. The editorial was not inspired by any
advertiser. It was simply the result of the editor’s study and
investigation of the problem of footwear. He advised against the
wearing of the shoe with the curved point and urged in favor of the
square-toed shoe. One of the big advertisers somehow got wind of the
shoe-editorial that was intended to appear on the following day. It so
happened that this store-keeper had a shoe-sale scheduled for the
following week. He called up the business manager of the newspaper on
the ’phone. After five minutes of conversation the editorial went to
the waste-basket.

And if the advertisers censor the general ideas, needless to say they censor news about themselves. Henry Siegel owned a department-store in New York; his wife divorced him, and nothing about it appeared in the New York papers—that is, not until after the department-store failed! Our great metropolitan dailies are, as you know, strong protectors of the sanctity of the home; you saw how they treated Upton Sinclair, when he got tied up in the divorce-courts; you saw how they treated Gorky and Herron. But how about the late C. W. Post, of “Postum” fame, when he decided to divorce his wife and marry his stenographer? Hardly a line in the newspapers throughout the country!

I have told how the Philadelphia newspapers suppressed the suicide of one of the Gimbel brothers. This same firm has a store in Milwaukee, and I have before me a letter from the District Attorney of Milwaukee County, setting forth what happened when the vice-president of this firm was indicted for bribing an alderman:

Representatives of Gimbel Brothers requested, as I am credibly
informed, the newspapers in which their commercial advertisements
appeared to suppress the facts connected with the proceedings of Mr.
Hamburger’s trial. With two exceptions, so insignificant as to justify
their being entirely ignored, the English press did so. The five daily
English newspapers published no account whatever of the trial, which
occupied about one week and disclosed sensational matter which would
have undoubtedly been published broadcast in an ordinary case. Some of
these papers printed a very brief notice at the time the case was
called, stating this fact, but not all of them did even this much....
It was shown that all the books of account of the Gimbel Brothers,
together with their correspondence and legal documents pertaining to
the transaction in connection with which the bribery was alleged were
burned under the direction of the defendant immediately after it was
brought to his attention that the grand jury which indicted him was in
session and about to investigate this case. This destruction of the
books and documents occurred within the period of the statute of
limitation, and less than three years after some of the entries had
been made in them. The only explanation for this singular proceeding
given by defendant or his business associates was that they lacked
room in their vault and found it necessary to do away with papers,
books and documents which they felt they could dispense with. I
mention this particular line of evidence because I am satisfied that
if such a showing had been made in an ordinary case of bribery the
facts disclosed would have been given the widest publicity by the
daily press. That the proceedings of this trial were suppressed by the
English papers of this city for commercial reasons which appealed to
their advertising department is unquestioned. Every newspaper man of
my acquaintance to whom I have mentioned the matter has admitted the
fact and deplored it.

In the same way, when Wanamaker’s was detected violating the customs laws, only one Philadelphia newspaper reported the circumstances. There was organized a league for honest advertising, and you might have thought that such a league would have appealed to our highly moral newspapers; but when this league prosecuted a merchant in New York for selling furs under false names, not one newspaper mentioned the circumstances. This merchant was convicted, and again not one New York newspaper mentioned it. In Chicago various firms were prosecuted for misbranding goods, and the local papers suppressed the news. In Milwaukee four firms were prosecuted for selling a potted cheese doped with chemicals, and the newspapers withheld the names of the firms. Says Will Irwin: “I have never seen a story of a shop-lifting case in which the name of the store was mentioned.” Also he makes the following statement concerning the most august of the Brahmin newspapers of New England:

The “Boston Evening Transcript” published in its issue of April 8th
the fact that a workman had fallen from a tree, that an aged pauper
had been found dead in bed, that the Harvard Shooting Club was about
to hold a meet, but not the fact that “Harvard Beer,” known to every
consumer of malt liquors in Massachusetts, was in peril of the law for
adulteration. Neither was the fact noted on Monday, April 10. But on
Tuesday, April 11, “Harvard Beer—1,000 pure” appeared in the pages of
the “Transcript”—as a half-page advertisement!

Every newspaper editor feels this pressure—even though he feels it only in his imagination. A horse that travels in harness does so, not because he likes to travel, but because he carries in his subconsciousness the memory of the whip and the bit which “broke” him in the days of his wild youth. And if, by any chance, he forgets this whip and bit, he is quickly reminded. William Winter, a dramatic critic who had served the “New York Tribune” for forty-four years, was forced to resign because his reviews of plays injured the advertising business of the “Tribune.” Certain managers were making money out of producing indecent plays; Mr. Winter rebuked these plays, the advertisers protested to the “Tribune,” and the managing editor of the “Tribune” censored Mr. Winter’s reviews. During the controversy, Mr. Winter wrote to the managing editor that he had desired to injure the business of the producers of indecent plays; to which the managing editor replied; “My instructions with regard to that page are that the articles are not to be framed with any such purpose.”

The same thing happened to Walter Pritchard Eaton, dramatic critic of the “New York Sun.” I learned of it just as my book was going to press, and wired Mr. Eaton for the facts. Here is his answer:

Syndicate withdrew ads from “Sun” after my review of Soul Kiss,
demanding my discharge. Six months later I was fired, no cause given.
Next Sunday all ads back in paper. No actual proof but conclusion
pretty plain.

Everywhere in the world of Journalism, high and low, you see this power of the advertiser. I live in the beautiful millionaire city of Pasadena, and every afternoon I get my news of the world from a local paper, which is in some ways among the best. It publishes no scare headlines, and practically no scandal; but in its attitude toward its big commercial advertisers, the attitude of this newspaper is abject. There is a page of moving-picture advertisements, and side by side are columns of “write-ups” of these plays. Nine out of ten of these plays are unspeakable trash, but from the notices you would think that a new era of art was dawning upon Pasadena. All this is “dope,” sent out by the moving-picture exploiters; such a thing as an independent and educative review of a moving-picture is not conceivable in my local newspaper. And it is the same with “write-ups” of bargain-sales, and new openings of department-stores. It is the same with the chain of leisure-class hotels; the man who manages and finances these hotels is a local god, and everything he does and says takes the top of the column.

This system of publicity in return for advertising is a fundamentally dishonest one, but it is inseparable from the business of publishing news for profit, and the legitimate and the illegitimate shade into one another so gradually that it would be hard for an honest editor to know where to draw the line. The rule will differ with every newspaper; it may differ with every editor and every mood of every editor. I have made a little study of it with my local newspaper, and had some amusing experiences. Belonging to the Socialist local in Pasadena, I several times had occasion to solicit publicity for Socialist meetings. Being a naturally polite person, I did not go to the editor and say, “I’ll buy ten dollars worth of advertising space, if you’ll publish a quarter of a column of news about my radical venture.” What I did was to insert the advertisement, and then send to the editor the matter I wanted published, and it was published. So I thought this was a regular rule; but some time later, when the labor-men of Pasadena started a co-operative store, and I became vice-president of the enterprise, I inserted an advertisement of the store, and again presented my “copy” to the newspaper, and I did not get so much space. The advertising manager of the newspaper explained to the manager of the store that his paper could not boost a co-operative store, because the local merchants which supplied the bulk of its advertising were hostile to such an enterprise!

At the last election the people of California had to decide upon a social insurance measure, and a friend of mine wrote an article in favor of this measure, and could not get it published. I suggested that she publish it as an advertisement, but the “Pasadena Star-News” refused it, even in that form, and explained to me the reason—that the lady had referred to Christian Science as “a foolish belief”! The partisans of Christian Science are accustomed to rent a page in this paper every now and then, and to have their foolishness published without question.

A still stranger experience befell a gentleman in Boston, Sinclair Kennedy by name. In April, 1918, Mr. Kennedy learned that his state was falling far behind in the purchase of war savings and thrift stamps, and by way of helping his government in its thrift campaign, he prepared an advertisement consisting of three quotations, the first from a speech by President Wilson, the second from a speech by the Secretary of the Treasury, and the third from a speech by the Chairman of the National War Savings Committee: all three of the quotations urging that people should purchase only necessities, so that the energies of the country might go to war-production. The “Boston Herald and Journal” contracted to publish this advertisement in four issues; it published it in two issues, and then refused to publish it again, and paid to Mr. Kennedy the sum of five hundred dollars damages for breach of contract. The “Boston Post” refused to publish the advertisement at all, its manager giving the reason that it was “contrary to public policy”! I have read of many Socialists being sent to jail upon a charge of interfering with the government’s war activities, but if the manager of the “Boston Post” was sent to jail, the other newspapers did not report it!

What this amounts to is a censorship of the small and occasional advertisers by the large and permanent ones; this censorship is common, and sometimes it is made to wear the aspect of virtue. The best-paying advertisements are those of automobiles and other leisure-class luxuries; as such advertisers will not publish alongside cheap patent medicine fakes, publications like “Collier’s” and the “Outlook” make a boast of censoring their advertisements. But when it comes to protecting their high-priced advertisers, these publications are, as I have shown, every bit as unscrupulous as the sellers of cancer-cures and headache-powders. I, who wish to attack these high-priced advertisers, am forced to publish what I have to say in a paper which can only exist by publishing the advertisements of cancer-cures and headache-powders. This is very humiliating, but what can I do? Stop writing? If I could have my way, of course, I would write for a publication having a large circulation and publishing honest reading matter and honest advertising matter. But no such publication exists; and I have to decide the question, which does the least harm, a publication with honest advertising matter and dishonest reading matter, or a publication with honest reading matter and dishonest advertising matter.

Also, of course, there will be censorship of advertisements containing news. If the newspaper is suppressing certain facts, it will not permit you to make known these facts, even for money. The “Los Angeles Times,” although it bitterly opposed single tax, was willing to take my money for an advertisement in favor of single tax; but the “Times” would not take my money for an advertisement reporting a meeting at which the truth about Russia was told. The “Times” would not sell me space to make known that the Socialists of the city had challenged the Superintendent of Schools to debate the truth of certain false statements which he had made about Russia.

In Louisville is the “People’s Church,” conducted by an independent clergyman in a theatre, and attended by one or two thousand people every Sunday. The “Louisville Courier-Journal” and its evening edition, the “Times,” have not contented themselves with suppressing all news about these meetings for several years; they have also refused all advertisements of this “People’s Church.” (Since this was written they have put the “People’s Church” out of business!)

Some fifteen years ago the most important news being put before the American people was in the form of paid advertisements signed by Thomas W. Lawson. The “New York Times” refused to publish these advertisements, and tens of thousands of New Yorkers, myself among them, were obliged to buy other newspapers in consequence. It cost the “Times” large sums of money to refuse these Lawson broad-sides, but the “Times” made a virtue of it, because the broad-sides threatened the entire profit system, without which the “Times” could not exist. In the same way the newspapers of Baltimore and Boston refused advertisements of a magazine run by Thomas E. Watson in Georgia, on the ground that he was publishing in his magazine articles attacking foreign missions. If you do not believe that interests like this exercise pressure upon newspapers, just try to publish in any capitalist newspaper an advertisement of a book or pamphlet attacking the Roman Catholic Church!

Here in Los Angeles I know a man who set himself up in business as a land-appraiser, and interfered with the leading industry of our community, which is selling real estate to “come ons” from the East. He advised one client that some land in Imperial Valley was worthless, because it contained nearly three per cent of alkali; and this judgment was later vindicated by a report of the U. S. Bureau of Soils, which I have read. But it happened that this land lay perilously near to the tracts of a great land company, in which the heads of Los Angeles newspapers are interested. The three leading newspapers of Los Angeles broke their contracts with this land-appraiser, threw out his “copy” and ruined his business, and now he is working as a cowboy in the “movies.” And if you think that the power of the real estate sharks is confined to the places where they prey, consider the experience of Rob Wagner, who wrote two articles about the Southern California land-sharks for the “Saturday Evening Post.” The first article, being full of fun, a farce-comedy, was accepted and paid for at once; the second, giving the real story, and being full of meat, was turned down.