CHAPTER XVII

THE NEWSPAPERS OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN


There are seven hundred and fifty-one newspapers and periodicals in
Sweden, including fifty-two dailies. Stockholm has twelve dailies,
seven published in the morning and five in the evening, which is a
large number for a city of three hundred and ten thousand inhabitants,
and the wonder is how they all manage to exist. None of them is as
large as the ordinary dailies in the United States. It is the practice
of the Swedish editors to waste very little room in headlines, and
to condense as much as possible. They state facts without padding or
comment, and manage to bring the daily allowance of news within ten
or twelve columns. There is usually a continued story, three or four
articles of a literary character, a couple of columns of clippings and
miscellany, and the same amount of editorial. The balance of the paper
is given up to advertising, but with all that it is seldom necessary
to print more than four pages. The morning papers stick to the blanket
sheet.

Most of the Stockholm papers have a good advertising patronage, which
runs to display at times. The Swedish business men have learned that
it pays to advertise. The rates are much lower than in the United
States. The ordinary want ad. costs from seven to ten cents, and for
display advertisements the rates run from two and one-half to twenty
cents a line, according to the location. In the semi-weekly edition