| Show UPA FUNCTIONS --THEN AND NOW Publisher and Printer and to regulate dissemination of those funds Members were elected to three-year terms at the annual convention and were eligible for reelection Asresult several publishers served multiple terms of office USPA Inc was dissolved when the membership decidedsingle board could carry out that function It gradually became obvious to those whose inventive minds created early newspapers that subscription sales werenthe only way revenue could be generated And anyway they fell far short of paying production costs much less affordingmargin of profit Additional income the nationvery first publishers quickly learned could be derived from the sale of advertising What would eventually be called want ads was the first form of advertising in Americanewspapers Researching the earliest publications brings to light here and therefew lines of type offering farm products livestock and land for sale It would be decades before such ads would be collected intospecific area of the paper and even longer before an unknown but creative individual thought of grouping subjects into classifieds Three centuries later want ads still generate significant amounts of revenue for newspapers large and small Recognizing the value of advertising the Uintah Papoose forerunner of todayVernal Express carried this admonition on October 23 1891 If you want to see the Papoose becomebig Brave or Squaw bring in your ads You canruncountry paper on wind and promises Itbasic that newspapering success depends on attracting readers so itnecessary to make the news content sufficiently appealing that it will induce readership Once therea readerbase advertisers will be attracted And itno secret inside or outside the trade that advertising is what makes the wheels of presses turn The money paid bysubscriber hardly covers what it would cost to deliver that much blank newsprint to his or her home Nevertheless both daily and less-than-daily 251 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
