AN INTERRUPTED EXPERIMENT
An Interrupted Experiment Voters of Los Angeles Discontinue "The First Publicly Owned Newspaper in the World" THE "first publicly owned newspaper In the world" (as it was styled) is dead. The Los...
...The circumstances of its demise are concisely stated in the "swan song" appearing in the last number, which follows in full: "THE MUNICIPAL NEWSPAPER IDEA CANNOT BE KILLED "With this issue of the Municipal News, the first municipal newspaper passes into history...
...The day is coming when it will arrive...
...Where 102,130 voters expressed their wishes on a municipal newspaper at the general election, but 39,867 voted on it at the charter amendment election, and the entire vote on the newspaper, for and against it, at the charter amendment election was 18,000 less than the mere vote for the newspaper at the general election...
...Its news must be accurate, its arguments fair and its style interesting...
...In truth, it created a service that the citizens will ask for again...
...It will not seek to ingratiate itself with the childhood oC the community with comic pictures whose humor is in inverse proportion to their 'smartaleck-ness' and downright depravity...
...The Los Angeles Municipal News was a weekly, covering the news of city affairs for the information of citizens, and conducting a political forum in which appeared arguments, statements and discussions by writers representing each of the political parties in the city...
...It is an institution which, though it rendered the service planned, fell a victim to the neglect on election day of those who first established it...
...Press Free From Money Needed "The citizens of Los Angeles need one newspaper that is not the private property of some millionaire...
...It was followed closely by newspaper men, special writers, sociologists and public officials throughout the country...
...Created a Service -During the year that the Municipal News has gone into the homes of Los Angeles, those who have had it in charge have conscientiously endeavored to give the people unbiased, clear and complete information of city business...
...Truth and Falsehood By CLINTON SCOLLARE In Munsey's If some great falsehood with its mighty brand Stalk, like Goliath, ravaging the land...
...Fit thou the pebble truth within thy sling, And then, like David—fling...
...This abetted by an ambiguous and misleading Charter amendment, extinguished the municipal newspaper...
...An Interesting Experiment THUS is ended, at least for a time, an interesting experiment in American journalism...
...They need a newspaper in which the various political parties of the city have a guaranteed opportunity of presenting their positions upon public questions without having to ask any one's permission to do so...
...But the municipal newspaper is not an experiment that failed...
...It must not rely on scandal and vice, the improprieties of the stage and pictures of perfect women, as the means for interesting its readers...
...These needs will not cease because the Municipal News has been suppressed...
...The Los Angeles Municipal News, after a brief but lively career of one year, was voted out of existence at the recent election...
...The municipal newspaper of Los Angeles grew out of a need felt by hundreds of citizens of Los Angeles that there should be some medium of publicity in the city free from personal ownership...
...It demonstrated that a paper published by the people can be of service to the citizens...
...It must not present the weaknesses of mankind as worthy, nor the vices of mankind as amusing, nor the virtues of mankind as stupid...
...They need an avenue of publicity not subject to private control, known or unknown...
...Moreover, an antagonism, carefully and consistently fostered by the private press and its representatives, retarded the progress it would have made...
...Those who have viewed the municipal newspaper must not take the recent charter amendment vote as a vote against the municipal newspaper idea...
...George H. Dunlop, who was head of the commission which conducted the Los Angeles Municipal News, was given the closest attention during his discussion of the public newspaper...
...Certain handicaps have kept it short of the standards those in charge would otherwise have maintained...
...The municipal newspaper made good with the people who used it...
...It was established through a vote of the people and was discarded through a vote of the people...
...A grave problem, one with much labor and difficulty, was the delivery of a large circulation and the inability to cope with this problem at the outset injured the municipal newspaper grievously...
...Therefore, it cannot be regarded as an experiment tried and then discarded, but as a victim of the besetting sin of the citizenry—failure to vote...
...Sooner or later the voters of Los Angeles will realize these truths and support an avenue of publicity that performs its functions for all and not for a few...
...At the National Newspaper Conference held in Madison last summer, Mr...
...For all citizens who truly read the municipal newspaper, who did not through prejudice refuse to read it, found that it rendered a service to them that they could not get elsewhere...
...Let no student of civic and municipal prob-lems misunderstand the vote that caused the abandonment of the Los Angeles Municipal News...
...It is a matter of gratification to them that no one has ever accused the paper of misstatements due to bias or policy...
...Other municipalities who have contemplated with interest the Municipal News, and who are seriously considering the establishment of a city newspaper, should not be discouraged by the temporary setback of the municipal newspaper idea...
...It has labored under difficulties, some of them wantonly thrown in its way...
...Among other things he said, "The publicly-owned newspaper, covering the entire field of journalism, most be a very high grade paper if it is to be of value...
...for the wiping out of the municipal newspaper was not effected because the municipal newspaper failed with its supporters, or that it had any less supporters than when it was established, but because fewer of its supporters went to the polls at the charter amendment election than at the general election...
...Above all, it must not preach the gospel of hate and try to make each half of the community believe the other half is the bitter foe of all progress and their fellow man...
...No one can say when we shall see a public-owned daily newspaper of this kind, but I venture to say it is on its way...
...The owners of private newspapers may be public spirited citizens or may be men of vicious purposes, but in either case government by the owners of newspapers is an intolerable condition...
...It has not been perfection any more than any other news-gatherer...
Vol. 5 • April 1913 • No. 17
