Sign In
Free Newsletter
Phoenix too used to subsidized and ‘collared’ press
Arizona Capitol Reports Staff//August 25, 2006//[read_meter]
Phoenix too used to subsidized and ‘collared’ press
Arizona Capitol Reports Staff//August 25, 2006//[read_meter]
Lead paragraph from a page two article in the Saturday, June 24, 1916, issue of The Messenger, a precursor of the Arizona Capitol Times: “Ever since the present management of The Messenger put in a plant at 37 W. Jefferson St., Phoenix, Arizona, and began the publication of a real newspaper without a string on it, the silly gabblers and pot-house politicians have been busy guessing who owns the darned thing.”
The article mused that rumors of the paper’s ownership ranged from Governor Hunt to liquor interests (both incorrect), and that Phoenix was “so used to the subsidized and collared press that the idea of an editor writing without going to the office of the boss to get instructions is quite an innovation.”
The author of the article went on to sum up the newspaper business in Arizona in 1916, and The Messenger’s place in it: “…the three old papers are busy trying to hold up and rob the city, county and territory. I have stood in with the people. In that field there is no competition.”
The plant that produced the paper was owned by A. S. Mills and Frank Loveitt, but, the article emphatically stated: “it is the people’s newspaper.”
