It makes for rapid reading, gives a better idea of some stories than verbal description can give, makes the paper more decorative, not to say more artistic. It's definitely in, and it's a change of the last few years. Such a change would have been financially impossible under the old expensive processes, but Frederic Ives' invention of the half tone process, nearly sixty years ago, made the newspaper picture a more economical feature, adopted in the late eighties and in Oregon more than ten years later. The telegraphed picture, the Wirephoto, giving the accompanying picture right along with the news, from the remotest corners of the earth, is the latest great advance in pictorial journalism, and it is very popular.
The newspaper chain is something that has come to Oregon only to a limited extent. Portland has one chain daily paper. There are several chains of small country weeklies. This writer does not know what the future holds in this respect; chains have their obvious ad vantages and obvious disadvantages, and there will be no attempt to evaluate them here.
In no department of the newspaper has there been greater advance than in the advertising department. This advance has been sweeping, covering every phase of advertising. What was the matter with advertising in the pioneer days? Well, just about everything. It was worse than the news and didn't compare at all with the editorial. Type faces were good, though the printer often mixed them badly in the same ad. But there were no illustrations aside from an occasional conventional logotype or an infrequent big wood cut. The advertisements usually were mere cards, without the slightest attractive pull, and "the same yesterday, today, and . . ." The newspapers apparently preferred not to have the ads changed, since in many cases there was an added charge for composition in changing copy. They were run on either side or both sides of the front page, in many cases. All sorts of quack and semi-obscene medicine advertisements were run by the column. Reading notices were mixed with news without any tip to the reader. In short, advertising was in its not too attractive infancy, and its improvement, in Oregon as elsewhere, has been one of the marvels of journalism.
Reasons for the improvement: cheaper processes, linotypes, fast web presses, better machinery in general, more study of advertising on the part of both business men and the copy-writers; a more ethical, more intelligent attitude toward the whole subject. The improvement, apparently, continues, with all the most recent typographical and pictorial processes and all the arts of the good writer collaborating to produce an attractive advertisement, which will benefit alike the newspaper, the advertiser, the consumer—for, really, they are all in the same boat.
Generally, the story of Oregon journalism, the history of the newspapers of Oregon, has been one of improvement, of advance,
