The Press: The Common Touch

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It is read in foxholes in Korea, in the cockpits of transatlantic planes, by Swedish farmers, Brazilian housewives, Japanese coal miners, Igorots in G strings.

The Reader's Digest is one of the greatest success stories in the history of journalism. It is also a unique proof that circulation alone can turn the trick, with no help from advertising revenue. In its 30 progressively successful years, the Digest has run not one line of paid advertising in its domestic edition (9,500,000 copies). This year the Digest should gross between $25 and $30 million, and net about $1,500,000.

The Digest's world circulation is now 15,500,000.

In France and Belgium, the Sélection du Reader's Digest is the biggest (936,070) of all monthlies. In Sweden, Det Bästa ur Readers Digest (circ. 268,184) is the biggest monthly, as Selezione dal Reader's Digest is in Italy and Valitut Palat koon-nut Reader's Digest is in Finland. The Portuguese-and Spanish-language Digests are tops all over the continent of South America; the Japanese edition is now 651,000. The Digest is printed in eleven languages, read in 58 nations. In the U.S., 31,000 U.S. blind read it in Braille or hear it on Talking Book editions.

And the Digest is still growing. This week it added a 59th nation to its list, when Spain agreed to let in 20,000 copies a month of Selecciones, the Digest's Spanish-language edition. The magazine hopes for approval soon on its application to the Spanish government to print in Spain and step up circulation. Plans are afoot to start editions in The Netherlands and India.

By world circulation standards, DeWitt Wallace, the Digest's founder, owner and boss, is the most successful editor in history. Wallace and his wife, Lila Bell Wallace, the Digest's co-editor, between them seem to have discovered a magic formula. What is it?

The Formula. Wally ("I gave him that name," says Lila Bell, "and allow others to use it") claims that there is no hard & fast recipe. Says he: "I simply hunt for things that interest me, and if they do, I print them." One of his frequent contributors, Author Louis Bromfield, puts it differently. He thinks the magazine's main appeal is to "intellectual mediocrity" and that Wallace's own "strictly average" mind "completely reflects the mentality of his readers," who like the Digest because "it requires no thought or perception."

The formula has changed somewhat over the years, but it is still essentially the one Wallace hit on in 1920; simplified, condensed articles, most of them striking a note of hope, the whole interspersed with pifhy saws or chuckly items. It tries to minimize the negative and accentuate the positive. The Digest has always been careful not to burden its readers with somber or brain-taxing articles. But the Digest is no longer really a digest. More than half its articles now are written by Digest authors; some of these are "planted" in other magazines so that the Digest can later "reprint" them. Overall, the Digest leans heavily on the chatty, the cheerful and what it considers the spiritual side of life. Since both Wallaces are the children of Presbyterian preachers, this homiletic flavor is not surprising. But Wallace, who likes certain kinds of jokes, adds spice