Motion Picture News (Jul-Oct 1915)

©CI.B340061 "When You See It In 'The News' It's NEWS" LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 427 SO. FIGUEROA STREET HAS THE QUALITY CIRCULATION OF THE TRADE NEW YORK CITY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY WEST FORTY-SECOND STREET "The Exhibitors* Medium of Communication" CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 110 SO. DEARBORN STREET Vol ume XII SEPTEMBER 25, 1915 No. 12 The "News" and the Newspaper THERE is another angle to this very important matter of the newspaper and the picture — an angle wider than the manufacturer considers, if he considers it at all. Let us quote from two leading newspapers — the Atlanta "Constitution" and the Indianapolis "News." * * # T/VERY newspaper man knows and respects the "Constitution" and its large circulation in the South, and, I imagine, every reader knows and respects its excellent motion picture page, edited by Britt Craig. An Atlanta correspondent writes : ^ ^ ^ ATLANTA has, in a measure, taken advantage of the opportunity offered by the newspapers, as you will see from the two whole pages taken from the two leading dailies here. A year ago hardly a column a week given over to motion picture news, but now you can see for yourself the change. "All three papers use everything of local interest in their columns, but, as one of the editors of those pages told me, there is plenty of stuff that could be used if the exhibitor would just use his head a little. * * * SOME of the local theatres are, for a comparatively small sum, hiring the local reporters to handle their stuff for them, and the result is that those particular theatres are getting the best notices in all the papers, for all the local men work together and are willing to use each other's stuff. They, of course, work this feature on the side and find it very profitable, as newspaper work goes, in addition to their regular work. "I was talking with Britt Craig, editor of the Constitution page, who in addition to the regular stuff, runs the "Behind the Screens" column. He also does the publicity for several of the local theatres. "He tells me that he gets all his news from "Motion Picture News" and would have no other. He says it gets here in time on Friday night or Saturday morning for him to work up the very latest news from it and has found it very reliable." * * # CROM the Indianapolis "News," J. R. Gadbury, on the city desk, writes — just in criticism of the press sheets sent him by the manufacturer. If he printed all of it, he says, "I would lose my job." :Jc $z ^fi I HAVE yet to find more than one paragraph out of ten to twenty pages of matter I get, which I can use. What I do use from that sent is sometimes a paragraph out of the mimeographed or typewritten material. The printed news sheets I cannot use." And he concludes his letter with: "As it is, whatever I print in my motion picture notes is obtained from 'Motion Picture News' " # * * ""THESE comments from the Atlanta "Constitution" and *■ the Indianapolis "News" are strictly representative of the leading newspapers of the United States, all of whom want only the news which is "real news." I quote the lat ter because of the many letters we receive from them emphasizing this phrase. The fact, too, that these papers rely for their news matter upon Motion Picture News is •conslusive enough evidence of the other angle to the newspaper situation to which I have referred. That angle is a trade paper like Motion Picture News. * * * "THE editorial influence of such a paper is by no means, confined to the trade. Its circulation should be. We take particular pains to keep it so. The only variation we are proud of is the comparatively very small one (though large in itself) of the editors of motion picture departments in newspapers. * * * ""THE trade paper cannot go to the public, but the right kind of a trade paper can, through the newspaper editorial desk, reach "millions of the public, every week, with its editorial items. The trade paper, therefore, the right kind of a trade paper, is a very big, a fundamental, cog in the all important and co-operative movement, now largely under way, but greatly to increase, between the newspaper and the motion picture. * * * '"THERE is every reason why the motion picture editor * should turn to Motion Picture News for his news service ; in fact, it would seem that no better news service could possibly be devised. Our news is authoritative, as fully so as a number of men in close touch with the trade and the trade centers can make it. It is served up "newsily" by newspaper men. Our staff men cover the production centers each week in a constant endeavor to get advance news and often with such success that it is published before it reaches the manufacturer's New York office. Our reviewers are impartial, informative and critical. * * * A ND, finally, this whole budget of news and criticism, a book of it, leaves New York each Thursday in time to reach every newspaper in the East, South and Middle West before Sunday and the far West before any other such medium. With this double avenue to the trade and to the public through their daily papers, the trade paper will hold a powerful and strategic position in the greater campaign of publicity now before the motion picture. William A. Johnston.