1941: Newspaper Business

Daily newspapers ended 1941 with the highest circulation in history, a gain of 2.3 per cent over the record of the previous year. The total daily circulation was 42,080,391; the Sunday circulation total was 33,435,575. These impressive totals were compiled before the Pearl Harbor incident which put the United States into the war as an active belligerent, and there is no doubt that current circulations are higher than they were as of Oct. 1, 1941, the date of the quoted averages.

Advertising linage also showed a gain of 2.8 per cent over 1940, although the end of the year was marked by a considerable slackening in the advertising of automobiles and allied lines. Classified advertising also tapered off during the final quarter, reflecting the decline in unemployment as munitions and aircraft plants expanded their payrolls. The immediate outlook for newspaper advertising at the end of 1941, however, was not promising, despite a strong increase in the advertising of foods and beverages. The withdrawal from public consumption of such staple lines as automobiles, refrigerators, heating apparatus, and radio receivers was certain and, at the end of the year no new lines to replace them had been discovered. As the year ended, and conversion of the automotive plants became a certainty instead of a possibility, the immediate prospect was that newspaper advertising linage would be at least 10 per cent below the 1941 record.

A year ago, this article reported the establishment of a new publication in New York, a newspaper which would depend entirely upon revenue from readers rather than advertisers for its sustenance. This was PM, a six-day evening newspaper, with no Saturday, but a comprehensive Sunday edition. To date, the belief in the trade is that it has not been financially successful. It has weathered at least two financial storms and is now the property of Marshal Field III, although it remains under the editorial direction of Ralph Ingersoll, who first projected its publication. PM has also survived several attacks which sought to establish its reputation as a Communistic, or at least, a Left Wing organ, and even though its circulation has by no means achieved the goals set by its founders, it appears to have become a fixture in the New York newspaper firmament.

With his New York experience as background, Marshall Field in December issued the first number of the Chicago Sun, a morning and Sunday newspaper designed to exploit the philosophy of the Roosevelt New Deal against the Chicago Tribune, the outstanding antagonist of that political school. It was not at all in Field's book that the Japanese should have attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, thereby uniting all domestic divisions of thought on the war and destroying his strongest point of opposition to the Tribune — but it happened. The Sun, nevertheless, has persevered and at the end of the year had achieved a substantial daily and Sunday circulation in Chicago, even though it had not yet become a dangerous competitor to the Tribune's supremacy.

Establishment of the Chicago Sun marked the second attempt in two decades to mount a successful offensive against the established metropolitan dailies. Backed by the uncounted millions of the Field estate, it seemed to have a better chance of permanence than most of its predecessor efforts. In all other large cities but two, the newspaper situation remained static. In New Orleans, the morning and Sunday Tribune were suspended, leaving the Item and States as evening papers and the Times-Picayune in the morning and Sunday field. In Philadelphia, the Evening Public Ledger was in receivership as the year ended, with early suspension a probability. That tragedy was realized early in January 1942.

Efforts of the American Newspaper Guild to establish the closed shop in daily newspaper editorial departments marked the outstanding development of the year in newspaper labor affairs. Strikes on this, as the major issue, were called against the Birmingham (Ala.) Post, Chester (Pa.) Times, and Aliquippa (Pa.) Gazette. As the year ended, the strike against the Birmingham Post was called off, mainly because of illegalities attending the strike call. The other two strikes were still in progress. The Guild shop issue has taken various forms, but in the main it calls for enrollment of all eligible employees in a newspaper office in the Guild during a stated period, and maintenance of that membership as a condition of retaining employment. Newspapers have, in general during 1941, rejected this proposal.

There were no other notable labor disturbances in the daily newspaper field.

On the legal side, the cases of the Dallas (Tex.) News, Lowell (Mass.) Sun, and Easton (Pa.) Express and Easton Free Press excited interest. In the Dallas case, the employer had contracted with his employes for a definite salary base per week, plus a bonus, plus overtime if earned. The National Labor Relations Board contested this arrangement, but lost the decision both in the District Court at Dallas and in the U.S. Circuit Court at New Orleans. In the Lowell and Easton cases, the dispute revolved around the legal right of a deputy administrator of the NLRB to call for the books and records of the respondent corporations. In both cases, the publishers were upheld by Federal courts in their refusal to produce their books. None of these three cases had come before the Supreme Court in 1941.

The right of newspapers to comment upon legal trials pending the final appellate decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of the Los Angeles Times against the Bar Association of California. The Times had commented upon several cases in which sentence had not yet been passed. Upon five of these, the Bar Association brought a complaint before the Supreme Court of California. The lower court held for the Bar Association, upheld by a close decision in the appellate court, whence the case went directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. After two hearings the highest court held in favor of the newspaper on a 5-4 decision.

Newsprint prices at the year's end remained at the $50 basic level of the past three years, but an advance of $3.00 per ton had been announced for April, 1942. No shortage of this or other basic materials for newspaper production was anticipated, although it was conceded that transportation difficulties due to war might cause temporary local shortages of paper, ink or metal. See also PAPER AND PULP INDUSTRY.