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Looking Back

1896 | ‘News, Not Nausea’

Times Insider shares historical insights from The New York Times.

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When a motto is so well known, the newspaper’s name is almost not needed on a delivery truck (here sending papers off to Los Angeles in the early 1950s).Credit...The New York Times

Go ahead. Laugh at our motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Or scowl. You won’t be the first. But remember, it could have been worse.

“News, Not Nausea,” was one suggestion offered 121 years ago by readers who thought — mistakenly — that they could improve on the phrase.

“Truth Without Trumpery,” was another.

So was, “Fresh Facts Free From Filth.”

In late 1896, “All the News That’s Fit to Print” was an advertising slogan on an electric billboard overlooking Madison Square.

Adolph S. Ochs had recently purchased the failing New York Times at what amounted to a fire sale. On the billboard and elsewhere, he tried to distinguish The Times from its competitors by stressing its gravity, thoroughness, accuracy and decorum.

But he was a showman, too. He knew that a reward of $100 for a new motto would generate far more than $100 worth of publicity. He invited readers to coin “a phrase of 10 words or less which shall more aptly express the distinguishing characteristics of The New York Times.”

He probably had no idea what a sensation his contest would cause. Hundreds of responses began arriving at The Times’s headquarters on Park Row, near City Hall, in Lower Manhattan. Then thousands.

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Some entrants in the 1896 motto competition showed more graphic than literary imagination.

Some were disarmingly candid. “In One Word, Adequate.” “You Don’t Have to Apologize for Reading It.” “All News When Fit, When Not We Wait a Bit.” “It’s Safe to Read The Times.” “We Propose to Demonstrate That Journalism Is a Decent Profession.”

Some were a little too boastful. “The News That Isn’t Here Is Not Worth Knowing.” “You Do Not Want What The New York Times Does Not Print.” “What We Do Not Publish ’Tis Better Not to Know.” “What It Doesn’t Print, You Don’t Care to Read.”

For whom was The Times? “For the Old, the Young, the Classes and the Masses.” “Cheap Enough for the Poorest; Good Enough for the Best.” “For Patriot — Simple, Good and Great; Not for the Degenerate.” “Clean News for Clean People.” “A Decent Newspaper for Decent People.” “Honest News for Honest People.” “Sensible News for Sensible Folks.” “The American Gentleman’s Newspaper.”

Many entrants’ minds seemed to have been on food. Maybe they hadn’t eaten yet when they sent in their post cards.

“Full of Meat, Clean and Neat.” “The Wheat of News Threshed of Chaff.” “Choice Cuts From Life’s News Mart.” “Bread of Sifted Wheat; News of Sifted Truth.” “Treasures From Earth’s News Harvest.” “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” “What Is Good Luck? Three Square Meals and The Times.”

Our competitors came in for trolling. “Out Heralds The Herald, Informs The World, Extinguishes The Sun.” That motto would be almost meaningless today, as would “The Roentgen Ray of Journalism” and “The Sapolio of the Press!” and “As Clean as New York Under Col. Waring.”

A few terse entries cut cleanly through the Victorian fog. “Brainy, Not Harebrained.” “News Without Noise.” “Paper, Ink, Brains and Conscience.” “Nothing Indecent, Nothing Inane.” “A History of Today.”

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This announcement drew thousands of responses.

Others raised more questions than they answered. “The Times Dares to Print What People Dare to Read.” “Our News Is News As Is News.” “The New York Times, All That’s ‘L’ in Journalism.” What?

Readers did not yet have a fix on The Times’s politics under Mr. Ochs, as it gradually drifted from the Republican column into the Democratic camp. “Courageous, Conscientious, Conservative,” one entrant suggested. “Liberal, Reliable, Patriotic,” another wrote. “Clean, Conservative and Consistent.” “Broad, Liberal, Bright.”

For some readers, The Times was more Little Miss Sunshine than Gray Lady.

“Yours Neatly, Sweetly and Completely.” “Clean as New Fallen Snow, It Covers the Whole Ground.” “Cleanliness Is Honesty! Give Me a Bathtub and The New York Times.” “All the News Compiled in Language Undefiled.”

Rhymes with “news” were too lame to use. “All the News to Instruct and Amuse.” “Such News and Views as Reason Would Choose.” “The World’s News That’s Fit to Peruse.”

Acrostics were popular, if not too successful:

Treats Honestly Every Topic Interesting Men Except Scandals.”

The Information Mankind Earnestly Seeks.”

The Times. Honest, Enterprising, Temperate, Independent, Moral, Elevating, Scholarly.”

Truthful, Instructive, Moderate, Educational, Successful.”

Terse, Interesting, Moral, Entertaining, Sure.”

Truth Told. Indispensable News. Morality Maintained. Education Spread. Sensationalism Spurned.”

Truthfulness, Independence, Modesty, Energy, Science.” Huh?

Editors’ heads must have been close to exploding after reading hundreds of entries like these. “None of the phrases submitted in the competition is, in the judgment of The Times, so apt and expressive as the motto it now has,” they wrote. But there was still the matter of a $100 reward.

The pile was winnowed to 150 mottoes. These were forwarded to Richard Watson Gilder, the editor of the Century Magazine and one of America’s foremost literary figures. He awarded the prize to “All the World’s News, but Not a School for Scandal,” by D. M. Redfield of New Haven, Conn., even though The Times said the phrase would not be adopted.

Instead, it was “All the News That’s Fit to Print” that first appeared in the upper left corner of The Times’s front page on Feb. 10, 1897. In the upper right corner, the weather box (or “ear,” as we call it) also made its debut. Remarkably, that layout is almost unchanged, 120 years later.

And even though these mottoes won no prize, they also endure:

“A Light in a Dark Place.” “The Public Press Is a Public Trust.” “Make Much of Me — Good Papers Are Scarce.”

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On Feb. 9, 1897, there was neither a motto nor a weather “ear” at the top of the front page. The next day, they appeared, as they have ever since.
A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: The Motto That Won Out. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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