Show TELEGRAPHIC HEWS IMPOSITION The readers of the Salt Lake daily newspapers observed during April very limited and imperfect telegraphic reports There were days when only a few lines of telegrams tele-grams appeared and at no time within the month were the dispatches dis-patches anything like as full as they had beep previously The failure of the report to come through was due to the prostration of the telegraph lines by storms I I This of course could not be helped I the company doing all in its power to give good service But the general gen-eral thinness and shortening of the reports are due to an entirely different cause and it is one that it I is feared fine weather will not remedy rem-edy For years past the Salt Lake papers have been buying from the Western Union Telegraph Company the telegraphic reports that were sent to a California press association made up of the San Francisco Call Bulletin Alta Sacramento Record Union and other of the Pacific coast journals The dispatches were made up with no special reference refer-ence to the wanta of the Utah press or people but as our readers are aware they were fairly good reports and generally full They compared com-pared favorably with the reports re-ports supplied by eastern press associations and while they were not all that might have been desired there was comparatively little complaint concerning them Last winter the Western Press Association Asso-ciation with headquarters in Chicago Chi-cago assumed control of the press dispatches to the Pacific states and territories An agent was sent out here and the newspapers were politely informed that beginning with April they would be required to pay about 25 per cent more for their dispatches than they had been doing the advance following close onto the heels of a similar one a few months before However in return for the increased charge the newspapers I news-papers were told that the reports were to be made up with special reference to the wants of the territory terri-tory covered would be fuller and altogether better The expense of gathering and forwarding the report would be greater in keeping with the improved service hence the necessary ne-cessary advance iu price The same song had been sung before and aLways aL-ways failed of fulfillment hence little confidence was placed in the agents refrain However nothing could be done but accept the situation situa-tion and conform whateVer new rules and requirements the l powers that be saw fit to impose The Salt Lake papers I are completely at the mercy of the press association and telegraph company They are not in condition condi-tion to gather and have transmitted special telegraphic reports They must buy what is offered them and pay the price asked Grumbling does no good They are given to understand that they are not obliged ob-liged to take the dispatches that are sent but they must take them be they little or much good or bad or go without This is the situation they are in and the press association and telegraph company know it Well we have been receiving and publishing for just one month the 1 new improved and more expensive expen-sive telegraphic news service and never since there has been a telegraphic tele-graphic news service for the city have there been louder or better grounded complaints on the part of both press and public The report has been so short as to be insignificant insignifi-cant and a large portion of it has been made up of stuff that is of no I possible interest or value to newspaper news-paper readers anywhere between Omaha and San Francisco The fact that anybody pretending to be a newsgatherer can be so stupid as to send much of the truck that comes over the wires and call it news excites wonder if not disgust As remarked the Salt Lake papers are powerless in the matter They understand better even than their readers do the imposition that them and know is practiced upon being robbed and how they are cheated but at present their hands I are tied and they cannot defend themselves or protect their patrons The time may come when they cant can-t the force fair and honest dealing on taking advantage who are now part of those vantage of circumstances to rob the defenceless But we need not expect ex-pect that time until monopoly ceases to rule and the strong lets upon up-on the weak We can however protest against the imposition which we earnestly do at the same time explaining to the public that which are the Salt Lake papers among the most progressive and enterprising en-terprising in the west are not to blame for the meagre uninteresting and stupid telegraphic reports theY are now publishing |