Title: The Young Man and Journalism
Author: Lord, Chester S.
Language: English
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_VOCATIONAL SERIES_

  EDITED BY
  E. HERSHEY SNEATH, PH.D., LL.D., YALE UNIVERSITY

  THE YOUNG MAN AND JOURNALISM



_VOCATIONAL SERIES_

  EDITED BY
  E. HERSHEY SNEATH
  PH.D., LL.D., YALE UNIVERSITY

  THE YOUNG MAN AND THE LAW. SIMEON E. BALDWIN.
  THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING. HENRY PARKS WRIGHT.
  THE YOUNG MAN AND CIVIL ENGINEERING. GEORGE FILLMORE SWAIN.
  THE YOUNG MAN AND JOURNALISM. CHESTER S. LORD.



THE YOUNG MAN AND JOURNALISM

  BY
  CHESTER S. LORD, M.A., LL.D.

  For forty-one years a member of the staff of the New York _Sun_
  and for thirty-three years (1880-1913) its managing editor

  New York
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  1922

  _All rights reserved_



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  COPYRIGHT, 1922,
  BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

  Set up and printed. Published November, 1922.

  Press of
  J. J. Little & Ives Company
  New York, U. S. A.



EDITOR’S PROSPECTUS


One of the most important decisions a young man is called upon to
make relates to the determination of his life-work. It is fraught
with serious consequence for him. It involves the possibilities of
success and failure. The social order is such that he can best realize
his ends by the pursuit of a vocation. It unifies his purposes and
endeavors--making them count for most in the struggle for existence
and for material welfare. It furnishes steady employment at a definite
task as against changeable effort and an unstable task. This makes for
superior skill and greater efficiency which result in a larger gain to
himself and in a more genuine contribution to the economic world.

But a man’s vocation relates to a much wider sphere than the economic.
It is intimately associated with the totality of his interests. It is
in a very real sense the center of most of his relations in life. His
intellectual interests are seriously dependent upon his vocational
career. Not only does the attainment of skill and efficiency call for
the acquisition of knowledge and development of judgment, but the
leisure that is so essential to the pursuit of those intellectual
ends which are a necessary part of his general culture is, in turn,
dependent, to a considerable extent, upon the skill and efficiency that
he acquires in his vocation.

Nor are his social interests less dependent upon his life-work. Men
pursuing the same calling constitute in a peculiar sense a great
fraternity or brotherhood bound together by common interests and aims.
These condition much of his social development. His wider social
relationships also are dependent, in a large measure, on the success
that he attains in his chosen field of labor.

Even his moral and spiritual interests are vitally centered in his
vocation. The development of will, the steadying of purpose, the
unfolding of ideals, the cultivation of vocational virtues, such
as industry, fidelity, order, honesty, prudence, thrift, patience,
persistence, courage, self-reliance, etc.--all of this makes
tremendously for his moral and spiritual development. The vocationless
man, no matter to what class he belongs, suffers a great moral and
spiritual disadvantage. His life lacks idealization and is therefore
wanting in unity and high moralization. His changeable task, with its
changeable efforts, does not afford so good an opportunity for the
development of the economic and social virtues as that afforded the man
who pursues a definite life-work. It lacks also that discipline--not
only mental, but moral--which the attainment of vocational skill and
efficiency involves.

But notwithstanding the important issues involved in a man’s vocational
career, little has been done in a practical or systematic way to
help our college young men to a wise decision in the determination
of their life-work. Commendable efforts are being put forth in our
public schools in this direction, but very little, indeed, has been
done in this respect in the sphere of higher education. To any one
familiar with the struggles of the average college student in his
efforts to settle this weighty question for himself, the perplexities,
embarrassment, and apparent helplessness are pathetic. This is due
largely to his ignorance of the nature of the professions and other
vocations which appeal most strongly to the college man. Consequently,
he does not know how to estimate his fitness for them. He cannot advise
to any extent with his father, because he represents only one vocation.
Neither can he advise advantageously with his instructor for he, too,
is familiar with the nature of only one profession.

For this reason, a series of books, dealing with the leading vocations,
and prepared by men of large ability and experience, capable of giving
wise counsel, is a _desideratum_. Such men are competent to explain the
nature and divisions of the particular vocations which they represent,
the personal and educational qualifications necessary for a successful
pursuit of the same, the advantages and disadvantages, the difficulties
and temptations, the opportunities and ideals; thus, in an adequate
way, enabling the student to estimate his own fitness for them. They
are also able to make valuable suggestions relating to the man’s work
after he enters upon his vocation.

Fortunately, in the present Series, the Editor has been able to secure
the services of some of the most eminent experts in the country to
prepare the respective volumes--men of large knowledge and experience,
who have attained wide recognition and genuine success in their
“callings.” It is a pleasure to be able to place at the command of the
many thousands of students in our American colleges the wise counsel of
such experienced and distinguished men.

       *       *       *       *       *

The “Vocational Series” will consist of twelve books written by
representatives of different vocations, as follow:

   1. The Young Man and the Law
        Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, LL.D., Professor of Law, Emeritus,
        Yale University, ex-Governor and ex-Chief Justice of
        Connecticut

   2. The Young Man and the Ministry
        Rev. Charles R. Brown, D.D., LL.D., Dean of the Divinity
        School, Yale University

   3. The Young Man and Teaching
        Professor Henry Parks Wright, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor
        Emeritus and formerly Dean of Yale College

   4. The Young Man and Medicine
        Lewellys F. Barker, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Medicine and
        Chief Physician, Johns Hopkins University

   5. The Young Man and Journalism
        Chester Sanders Lord, M.A., LL.D., formerly Managing Editor,
        New York _Sun_

   6. The Young Man and Banking
        Hon. Frank A. Vanderlip, M.A., LL.D., formerly President
        of the City National Bank, New York

   7. The Young Man and Business

   8. The Young Man and Mechanical Engineering
        Lester P. Breckenridge, M.A., Eng.D., Professor of Mechanical
        Engineering, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University

   9. The Young Man and Electrical Engineering
        Charles F. Scott, Sc.D., Eng.D., Professor of Electrical
        Engineering, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University

  10. The Young Man and Civil Engineering
        George F. Swain, LL.D., Professor of Civil Engineering,
        Harvard University

  11. The Young Man and Farming
        L. H. Bailey, M.S., LL.D., formerly Director of College of
        Agriculture, Cornell University, and Editor of Cyclopedia of
        American Horticulture, Rural Science Series, Garden Craft
        Series, Rural Text-Book Series, Cyclopedia of Agriculture,
        etc.

  12. The Young Man and Government Service
        Hon. William Howard Taft, D.C.L., LL.D., ex-President of the
        United States, and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme
        Court
                                                 E. HERSHEY SNEATH.



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION


The sole object of the following chapters is to tell a young man what
is likely to happen to him if he goes into the newspaper business.

Many young men think of entering journalism, but journalism is to them
a maze of mystery. What does it offer as a profession or a vocation?
they ask. What is the nature of the business? What are its rewards?
Naturally enough they continue to wonder what kind of preparatory study
is desirable. How does a young man make a beginning and how does the
beginner make progress? What are the recognized standards of newspaper
success? How is news collected and prepared for the public? How is
a newspaper conducted? What are the duties of each member of a big
newspaper staff? What goes on in a newspaper office, anyway?

The book was begun with the intention of answering some of these
queries, but it gradually drifted into talk about various phases and
features of the business. The original intention has not been lost
sight of, however. The purpose is to indicate what journalism offers to
a young man as a means of livelihood. It seeks neither to glorify nor
to disparage the newspaper.

The book is elementary: not intended or expected to interest or inform
newspaper editors of experience.

                                                           C. S. L.
  Brooklyn, New York,
  Nineteen hundred and twenty two.



CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                       PAGE

     I. BEGINNING IN NEWSPAPER WORK--THE REPORTER’S FIRST
            EXPERIENCES--HIS PROGRESS--UNPLEASANT TASKS            1

    II. THE COLLECTION OF NEWS AND ITS PREPARATION FOR PRINT      29

   III. NEWSPAPER COMPOSITION--THE ART OF WRITING IN SIMPLE YET
            ENTERTAINING FASHION                                  51

    IV. THE FASCINATION OF WRITING FOR THE EDITORIAL PAGE         74

     V. WHAT TO PRINT--THE PROBLEM OF HOW TO INTEREST AND
            INFORM THE READER                                     87

    VI. THE PLEASING EXPERIENCES OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT    106

   VII. THE TECHNICAL PRESS                                      115

  VIII. THE VILLAGE NEWSPAPER’S IMPORTANT PLACE IN AMERICAN
            JOURNALISM                                           125

    IX. THE DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE SMALL CITY                    138

     X. THE REWARDS OF JOURNALISM--THEY ARE FOUND CHIEFLY IN
            CONGENIAL EMPLOYMENT                                 144

    XI. NEWSPAPER INFLUENCE--WAYS OF PERSUADING THE
            PUBLIC--COMMUNITY SERVICE AND SERVICE TO
            THE GOVERNMENT                                       159

   XII. THE STUDY OF A SPECIALTY--GREAT ADVANTAGE FOLLOWS THE
            MASTERY OF TWO OR THREE SUBJECTS                     179

  XIII. THE ACTIVITIES AND PATRIOTIC SERVICE OF NEWSPAPERS IN
            TIMES OF WAR                                         185

   XIV. NEWSPAPER HISTORY--THE MODERN NEWSPAPER                  197



THE YOUNG MAN AND JOURNALISM

CHAPTER I

BEGINNING IN NEWSPAPER WORK--THE REPORTER’S FIRST
EXPERIENCES--UNPLEASANT TASKS


The beginner in newspaper work usually starts as a reporter of the
simplest and most unimportant kind of routine news. The city editor
tells him what to do and how to do it. The start is made easy for him.
The prevailing supposition that reporters go out into the streets and
hunt for news is far from fact. They do so in the small cities but not
for big newspapers.

Newsgathering has become vastly systematized. Nineteen twentieths of
the news comes through established channels of information and this
explains why nearly all newspapers have the same facts. The sources of
information are known in all newspaper offices. If a man falls dead in
the street, or a fire starts in an important building, or an automobile
crushes a child, or anything unusual happens in any street, it is known
to every city editor within a few minutes; for a policeman reports it
to police headquarters immediately, and reporters grab it. Similarly,
shipping news is sent to the ship-news office; cases of sudden or
unexplained death must be made public by official physicians; public
parades and demonstrations are anticipated through the permit bureau,
and so on. All day and all night this kind of news pours in to the city
editor. With almost instant judgment he decides on its news value,
discards it or hustles a reporter for the details. The new man gets the
least important of this kind of work.

The city editor keeps a future book--like milady’s engagement
calendar--in which under proper date he records the events to be of
that day: business meetings, conventions, adjourned cases, public
dinners, everything and anything requiring the presence of a reporter.
It is one of the important factors of the newsgetting system. Its
proper keeping involves constant drudgery and painstaking care in
the reading of newspapers for announcements or for clews to anything
that is to happen. He reads, for instance, that an important business
meeting has appointed a special committee to report at the next
meeting; but no date of the next meeting is given. So he asks the new
reporter, maybe, to ascertain and record it in the future book. The new
man does many such errands, verifies many statements of fact, chases
down many rumors.

In the great blizzard of March, 1888, when all transportation lines
in New York City were abandoned came the story that several funeral
processions were snowed under in Greenwood cemetery. A new reporter was
sent. He toiled through storm and snow waist deep to the burial place
and back, a task requiring something like six hours to accomplish,
and ended the day’s experience by thawing out his frozen feet in a
bucket of water. And what he wrote was: “The rumor that three funeral
processions were snowed under in Greenwood cemetery was found on
investigation to be untrue.”

The city editor has many sources of information similar to those just
mentioned. In the big cities he is responsible for getting the news
of the urban district, a task that involves almost every kind of
newsgetting. This is especially true of New York City, for taken all in
all nearly everything happens in New York that can happen anywhere. It
is of metropolitan reporting that we are speaking just now.

The new reporter is asked to make news reports of the simplest of
happenings. The narration of ordinary events is the easiest of all
newspaper writing. Any intelligent high school boy can catch the knack
of it and many a bright newspaper office boy has gone on to better
things by absorbing that knack. It is easy to acquire because it may be
largely imitative--that is, almost all routine news reports are written
in the same groove of construction and in very much the same language,
year in and year out, for news topics constantly repeat themselves.

By routine reports are meant accounts of public meetings, conventions,
legislative proceedings, trials in the courts, market reports,
accidents, fires, suicides and petty crimes. These things are of the
utmost importance to the newspapers. They constitute a large proportion
of the news of the day. They are the very life of the news columns
as presenting a record of the day’s events. They are easy to write
because they are written in the same manner day after day for they are
constantly recurring. The puzzled young writer cannot go far astray if
he turns back in the newspaper files to a similar meeting or accident
or event and imitates that report. But let him be warned that if he
continues to work in that way he becomes a routine writer, a hack
reporter, and his advancement ceases.

It is in this deadly dull routine writing of routine news that we have
our poorest and most slovenly newspaper results. The indifferent work
done in this direction is more conspicuous in the London newspapers
than in our own for there news reports have been reduced almost to
formula.

We have said that the dates of fixed events to come are accumulated
in the future book--meetings of all sorts, lectures, balls, sporting
contests, celebrations, ceremonials, excursions and the like, of which
the number and the variety are innumerable. To each of these a reporter
is sent. Usually he is told before he starts about how long an article
is expected of him. But he is charged to note especially anything
unusual, odd, strange, or queer that may happen or be said. And always
he must report to the desk, before he begins to write, for instructions
as to the exact length of his article. Often two or three reporters are
sent to a big meeting, one to write the introduction, another the first
half of the speaking and a third the remaining part of the proceedings.
This is to save time; and often the first half has been written and is
in type before the last man has quit the meeting. Likewise in cases of
big disasters, big celebrations, big sporting events, six or eight men
are sent, each with a definite part to cover. Each writes his part and
the copy reader dovetails them together into one continuous article.
Team work of this sort is common enough in big offices.

The new reporter gets his fling at all of this kind of work. If he has
the genuine newspaper spirit he is fascinated by his every experience.
He searches the paper eagerly for the bit he has contributed. With a
glow of satisfaction he contemplates his little record of a news event
standing out in clear type, and he reads it again with those shivery
gusts of emotion sometimes called “the thrill of authorship.”

After a time, from the writing of petty paragraphs, he finds himself
contributing articles a third or a half a column in length. The
older men begin to notice his work, speak to him in praise of a
well-constructed sentence or a nicety of verbal expression, ask him to
come along with them to the beanery for a taste of coffee and cakes
before going home for the night. He begins to participate in that
most helpful and stimulating thing--the comradeship of the office. He
comes daily in contact with forty or fifty men--garrulous veterans,
and middle-aged marvels, and youthful geniuses who are doing all kinds
of newspaper stunts from constructing ponderous editorial articles and
criticisms to exploiting The Stiletto in Stanton Street or The Bludgeon
on the Battery. These men are good-natured critics of each other’s work
and not less ready to praise than to condemn or question. They take
interest in a new man of promise and help him. They read the newspapers
and the periodicals, and the new books--for an intimate knowledge of
contemporaneous events is essential to their progress. There are few
dullards among them, few without positive opinions and a vocabulary to
express them. Our young man greatly enjoys their explosive comments and
their ferocious conclusions. They are so alert, so alive to everything
that is going on. Their conversation is so interesting to him. The
atmosphere is surcharged with good fellowship. Nobody is taking himself
very seriously yet everybody is doing something in a businesslike way.
Somehow things are different in the newspaper office from what he had
expected.

The business of reporting becomes more fascinating as the reporter,
gaining in skill and in ability, achieves to higher grade work. To
write of big and important events becomes his ambition. It gives him
prestige among his fellows, for it is the management’s testimonial
of confidence in him. Not until after careful consideration does the
managing editor name the men who are to report a national political
convention, or the inauguration of a president of the United States,
or a great celebration. The very best members of the staff are summoned
to write of such events and the assignment comes to be considered as an
office reward of merit.

To do the big thing of the day is one of the prizes of the reportorial
business. Indeed, it may be said of the newspaper man, that from his
earliest beginnings always there is something higher to be attained
until he becomes the editor in chief.

In the newspaper offices of cities of the larger size, reporters
develop into desk editors, city editors, managing editors, music or
dramatic or book critics, or editorial writers. Many prefer to do
outside work rather than become editors or critics--prefer to write for
the news columns, to mingle with the outside world and take part in its
stirring events rather than face the routine and the monotony of desk
work.

They are especially interested in taking an out of town commission
for the investigation of a subject of wide importance--a rebellion
in Mexico, an uprising against the government in Cuba, a crisis in
Canadian politics, a conflict between labor and capital in Colorado, a
socialistic struggle in Schenectady.

Such assignments call for thorough investigation at first hand on the
spot, call for an acquaintance with the leaders of the movement that
frequently becomes familiar and lasting, call for practical intimate
study of the convulsion itself. Information thus gained may, after its
publication in the newspaper, be used again in magazines, in books of
record or in fiction. The special writer, for instance, who spends a
month with the striking miners in the Michigan copper district comes to
know much about life and labor there, about the copper industry, mining
methods, the relation of the price of copper to miners’ wages, the
smelting of ore, the transportation of the raw and the finished product
and a thousand other details of the business.

The newspapers do a vast amount of this kind of work. Its proper
exploitation necessitates intelligent treatment by the writer. His
information forms the basis for editorial comment, not only by the
editors of his own newspaper but by those of other sheets, the
periodical press, magazines and reviews; and also frequently it leads
to government investigation or interference or regulation. Two or three
years of this kind of work give a large fund of information to the
writer. It is of immeasurable service to him as long as he lives.

Likewise the man who writes for the news columns on national politics
finds himself most agreeably employed. In reality he is a specialist.
All of his time is required to keep apace with the kaleidoscopic
changes of American political life. He must be familiar with the
important politics of every state and every big city, for they have
immediate relation to the politics of the nation. To that end he makes
many journeys. His most valuable asset is personal acquaintance with
public men--the men who make politics and political history--and the
more intimate the acquaintance the more interest and confidence he may
be able to inspire. The political writer seeks to meet public men on
every possible occasion, seeks to keep in touch with them and with the
politics they represent.

If a conspicuous political leader in a Western state goes East it will
be a part of his routine to see the political writers. With them he
goes over the political situation of his region, tells them just what
is going on and what is contemplated. Some of the talk is confidential,
and the writer keeps the confidence. In turn the writers interest him
in what they know of the politics of the East and of other states.
In this way--so briefly indicated--the political writer comes to
comprehend the politics of the nation. He must read all obtainable
political literature and must absorb political information from any
source at hand.

As said elsewhere in this book, you cannot learn politics from a
textbook; you must absorb the politics of the day by a study of the
events of the day, and great mental ability is required to keep apace
with them. Political conclusions made to-day are upset by the events
of to-morrow. The issues of one election are forgotten in the burning
questions of the next. The newspapers and the periodical press are
great sources of information, but greater than these is association by
the newspaper writer with the men who are making politics.

The writer of national politics makes frequent trips to Washington. He
goes to the national political conventions and to many of the state
conventions. He is called on to write sketches of important candidates
and obituary notices of statesmen. His opinions and his information are
sought by editorial writers and by public men themselves. The magazines
ask him for special articles. The political managers pay him for
campaign literature. The greater his experience the more his services
are in demand. Not infrequently he is called into party councils or
is entrusted with delicate political missions. Candidates and leaders
seek his advice and his influence. Presidents, cabinet officers,
senators, governors and mayors tempt him to quit newspaper writing to
become their secretaries--and these places are usually stepping stones
to higher public life. Several presidents of the United States have
chosen newspaper writers to be their private secretaries, half of the
governors of New York State, in the last thirty years, and nearly every
mayor of New York City have drawn their secretaries from the ranks of
newspaper writers.

Moreover writers on national politics frequently are called to the
post of Washington correspondent, and here too, in yet greater degree,
are these same requirements essential to success. Washington is the
headquarters of national politics. Nearly every congressman is a
political leader in his home district as well as in his state, and his
activities and ambitions are quickened in the national capital. It is
the place of all places to study political movement. The correspondent
enjoys the personal acquaintance of presidents, cabinet officers,
foreign diplomats, the makers of party policies, the framers of
administrative measures, and from them he comes to know what they are
doing. Many state secrets are told to him in confidence; to betray
that confidence is to make him _persona non grata_ and to destroy the
possibility of getting additional information. The supposition that the
newspaper writer prints everything he hears is silly. Indeed, public
men have come to know that a safe way to keep a political secret is to
tell it to the newspaper correspondents with the injunction that it is
not to be printed.

In addition to the gathering of political information the Washington
correspondent writes of the doings of Congress. This of course involves
study of public questions, the burning questions of the day. It
furnishes a volume of information to the young man who is to continue
his career as a journalist or who may turn to public or professional
life, involving, as it does, study of engineering triumphs like the
Panama canal, public improvements like the development of Western
irrigation, tariff changes, taxation, national banking systems, the
problems of domestic shipping and foreign commerce. The correspondent
comes to know about diplomacy, the making of treaties, the relation
of labor to capital, railway management, government regulation of
traffic--and so on almost without limit.

The correspondent must know about these things if he is to write
intelligently about them. He must be familiar with the business of the
departments, must understand the army and the navy, should know the
whereabouts of every regiment and every ship of importance. He should
know the name and the politics and the post of every American diplomat,
should know government finances--indeed, should know everything the
government does. These things constantly are recurring in new and
unexpected ways and they must be treated as important news of the day.

Not less fascinating to the young reporter is his daily contact with
men of affairs whom he meets in the course of his news collecting;
not less interesting his intimacy with the events of the day that
pulsate and inspire. His work becomes so varied. It all is so new. His
experiences are so interesting; and they become the more so as he gains
in experience and is asked to do higher grade work. In his book on
_Newspaper Reporting_ Mr. John Pendleton of London says:

  The reporter is the collector of news for the circulation of
  which the paper really exists. On his report of the Premier’s
  speech the editor bases his leading article. He records
  the splendor of the Queen’s drawing room, and the want and
  wretchedness of the poor. No festival is complete without him;
  and he turns up at every calamity. He chronicles the deeds of the
  hero and the crimes of the miscreant. He tells how the pulse of
  commerce beats in every market of the world. Science and art are
  beholden to his pen; and even religion itself has to thank him
  for some of its spread. He has become a necessity to newspaper
  production and no inconsiderable figure in national life.

The reporter is not sent out haphazard; he is out for a purpose and
that purpose is the collection at first hand of facts and information
that are supposed to interest a multitude of readers. If they are
interesting to those who read them, how much the more so to the young
man who, after investigation and verification to his own satisfaction,
puts his conclusions on paper!

And note, if you will, how important is the work. Since the first use
of printers’ type the great events of the world, the events that have
moved and influenced mankind, that have made the history of the world,
have been announced first of all in the newspapers. They have been
proclaimed to the world not by clergymen from the pulpit, or lecturers
from the platform, or orators in legislative halls, not through the
medium of books or magazines or pamphlets, or by the writers of
editorial articles, or by critics--but in burning type by reporters.

It seems but yesterday, that midnight hour, when a reporter burst into
the working room of a morning newspaper with the exclamation: “He’s
got it--we are going to have the electric light in every part of every
house and over every desk in this room.” He had hurried from Edison’s
first big test of the division of the electric current: had seen a
hundred electric bulbs glowing in all their fascinating brightness by
electricity transmitted over wires. And the people marveled at what he
wrote about it.

Within the span of my own newspaper experience, reporters have given
first information to the world of the discovery and development of
electric lighting, heating, cooking and propulsion; of Roentgen rays;
of the telephone; of the phonograph; of the automobile; the player
piano; of the typesetting machine and the multiple page printing
press; the shoe-making machine; of breech-loading guns, machine-made
cartridges and diabolical explosives; of the airplane and the zeppelin;
of wireless telegraphy; of steel construction in big buildings; of the
marvels of construction in gigantic locomotives and steamships, in
subways, and elevated railroads, bridges, and aqueducts; of bacillus
treatment in medicine and the wonders of abdominal surgery; and
hundreds of other developments of science. We have seen the declaration
of a dozen wars and the signing of a dozen peace treaties; the
announcement of the death of monarchs and the birth of princes, the
assassination of rulers and the inauguration of their successors.

Some reporter has announced the discovery or the fact of every one
of these things. He has been compelled to study the subject enough
to write about it understandingly, and that study has brought him in
contact with the men who have caused or invented it.

The reporter mingles constantly with the men who control the affairs
of the world. This not only is fascinating, but it gives him
confidence in himself, gives him personal address, ease of manner
and of conversation, manliness of presence. It sharpens his wits. It
takes away that paralyzing emotion so often felt by youth when in the
presence of greatness. Nothing can be more stimulating to the intellect
than association with intellectual men.

The reporter who writes of an important event usually is asked to
continue on the case as long as it is of public interest. The man
who wrote the narrative of the murder of White by Harry Thaw wrote
of Thaw’s publicities for a long time afterward. The man who reports
a big labor strike is called on to report the next strike. He gets
interested in the subject, makes it a study, and becomes authority on
the relations between labor and capital. In this way as time goes on
the reporter comes to be a sort of specialist in several topics and
the knowledge thus acquired is of great value to him when he comes to
editorial writing, or magazine work, or authorship of any kind, or if
he goes into the law or into the public service or any other business.
There is not any other employment probably in which a young man may
gather so extensive a general contemporaneous knowledge as in newspaper
reporting in a big city.

The speakers at a public banquet may drone on for an hour or so without
saying anything or giving utterance to a sentence worth reporting and
then something of supreme importance may be said. The good reporter
recognizes its worth instantly; the poor one does not.

Colonel William Rockhill Nelson, who won fame as editor of the Kansas
City _Star_, had this to say in an address to the students of a School
of Journalism:

  There is just one point I wish to emphasize to the young men who
  are expecting to engage in newspaper work. That is, that the
  reporter is the essential man on the newspaper. He is the big
  toad in the puddle.

  Young fellows looking forward to a newspaper career often have in
  mind an editorship of some sort. They want to guide and instruct
  public opinion. The trouble is that the public doesn’t yearn to
  have its opinion guided and instructed. It wants to get the news
  and be entertained.

  Consider who are making the real newspapers and magazines to-day.
  Not the grave and learned publicist who is giving advice on the
  state of the Nation from the seclusion of some hole in the wall;
  not the recluse with a bunch of academic theories.

  It is the reporter with the nose for news. He is the only fellow
  who has any business around newspapers or magazines. In general
  his job is not to produce literature, but to do reporting.

  Often a good pair of legs makes a good reporter. The newspaper
  man must always be on the job, always hustling, always ready to
  go to any inconvenience or suffer any fatigue to get the news.
  And above all, so far as routine reporting goes, he must be
  honest and accurate.

Charles Dickens, who was a reporter before he became a writer of
novels, says of some of his experiences:

  I have often transcribed for the printer, from shorthand notes,
  important public speeches in which the strictest accuracy was
  required, and a mistake in which would have been to a young man
  severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the
  light of a dark lantern in a post chaise and four, galloping
  through a wild country and through the dead of the night, at the
  then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour.

  The very last time I was at Exeter, I strolled into the castle
  yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot
  on which we “took” as we used to call it, an election speech
  of Lord John Russell at the Devon contest, in the midst of a
  lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division
  of the country and under such a pelting rain that I remember two
  good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a
  pocket handkerchief over my notebook after the fashion of a State
  canopy in an ecclesiastical procession.

  I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of
  the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet by standing to
  write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where we
  used to be huddled together like so many sheep--kept in waiting,
  say, until the Woolsack might want restuffing.

  Returning home from political meetings in the country to the
  waiting press in London, I do believe I have been upset in almost
  every description of vehicle known in this country. I have been
  in my time belated in miry by-roads, toward the small hours,
  forty or fifty miles from London, in a wheel-less carriage, with
  exhausted horses and drunken post boys, and have got back in time
  for publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments
  by the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest Scotch from the
  broadest of hearts I ever knew.

Of the reporter’s familiarity with limitless phases of life it has been
said:

  The reporter of to-day has to be courageous, sharp as a hawk,
  mentally untiring, physically enduring. He comes in contact with
  everybody from monarchs to beggars, from noblemen to nobodies. He
  sees the tragedy and the comedy of human life, its cynicism and
  toadyism, its patient struggling and feverish ambition, its sham
  and subterfuge, its lavish wealth and deepest poverty, its good
  deeds and most hideous crime.

Mr. H. G. Wells says of writers that “they meet philosophers,
scientific men, soldiers, artists, professional men, politicians of
all sorts, the rich, and the great.”

As illustrating the high place a man may make for himself while writing
for the news department of a newspaper, let us quote from an editorial
article in the Brooklyn _Daily Eagle_:

  Of Saxon stock though of Irish birth, a Royal scholarship
  graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, William Crooke, for forty
  years of the New York _Sun’s_ staff as a news writer and nearly
  all that period in charge of the Sun’s Brooklyn news, came to
  be known to every police and fire department official, to most
  of the clergymen and all the big politicians of either party in
  old Brooklyn as “Billy Crooke”; always respectfully and often
  affectionately regarded, trusted by every one because he never
  betrayed a confidence and never misrepresented any communication
  or interview.

  Mr. Crooke, qualified by high education for the writing that
  analyzes and illuminates the world’s happenings, and a keen
  incisive stylist in his reporting work, was satisfied to be a
  reporter. He felt to the full the dignity of what he was doing;
  he realized that it is news that makes a newspaper, not features
  and not comment. He was a newspaper-maker in the best sense.
  Kindliness, dry humor, accurate observation, integrity, and
  dignity made “Billy” what he was.

In most of the college publications one may find under the heading of
Alumni Notes, an item such as this:

  “’18, John F. Jenkins has accepted a position on the editorial
  staff of the New York _Star_.”

This means that Jenkins has got a job as a reporter. But Jenkins did
not have the easy time getting it that the paragraph in the college
paper would lead one to suppose. Nor did he “accept” the post: the
_Star_ accepted him. Before Jenkins landed on the _Star_ he visited
five newspaper offices, reached the assistant city editor of two, the
city editor of one. He did not get beyond the office boy guarding the
portals of the others.

Jenkins left four of the offices with a definite feeling that New
York was none too cordial to a budding newspaper man. But he failed
to consider, because he did not know, that two or three young men
visit the city room of a metropolitan newspaper every day on an errand
similar to his. And he failed to realize, because he did not know, that
in normal times a conservative newspaper hires about one new reporter a
month.

The city editor of the _Star_ happened to need a man when Jenkins
called. Jenkins was a college man; that was in his favor. His manner
of approach was pleasing to the man who was thinking of hiring him. If
the impression was good to the city editor it would also be good to
the men to whom Jenkins might be sent as a reporter. His conversation
was direct and to the point. He didn’t make extravagant talk about his
ability; he was frank in saying that he didn’t know anything about the
newspaper business, but wanted to learn and was willing to work hard to
make good. He would be glad to take twenty dollars a week at the start
and asked only for a trial.

“All right, report to-morrow at one o’clock,” said the city editor and
Jenkins left the office in a daze with a job. He had been trying for
three days to get one and the interview that landed it had consumed not
more than three minutes.

Jenkins got the job because he was clean, intelligent and looked like
good material. He had not made the mistake of thinking that impertinent
aggressiveness would impress the man who was to hire him. He had not
made the mistake of failing to remove his hat when he sat down beside
the city desk to make his appeal. Several men had made that mistake
with the city editor of the _Star_. A man who did not know enough
to remove his hat even in an office, did not have manners enough to
approach many of the men to whom the _Star_ would send him. Jenkins did
not waste the time of the city editor on nonessentials, and it was to
be presumed that he would be as businesslike with those with whom he
came in contact later as a reporter. Jenkins also had personality. He
acted as though he meant business and realized that newspaper work was
pleasant but not play. He had no letters of recommendation and the city
editor didn’t ask for any. Letters are easy to get and as a rule do not
count for much. Personality, such as Jenkins’s, counts a lot.

The reporter must be prepared to meet the active men of the world:
the men who are doing the constructive work of the world. He must
have presence and address to attract their attention. Usually he is a
stranger to them. His presence is unwelcome to them. Experience has
attested that the college boy is better fitted for this task than
any other kind of beginner. He is familiar with the ways of society
and has some notion of the public questions of the day and the vital
problems of life. The green young man of uncouth appearance, of clumsy
presence, of faltering, stammering speech makes a mighty poor reporter.

Many newspaper office boys become good reporters. In constant contact
with the editorial force they absorb knowledge of the business.
Noneducated or partly educated youths may and do become excellent
reporters of routine news, but they rarely get beyond the imitative
stage. In the race for higher journalistic honors the college boys
easily outstrip them.

A welcome addition to the staff is the man who comes from a country
newspaper. Many of the ablest of American journalists began their
careers in rural offices. The country boy usually knows something of
the technical side of the business. Likely enough he has learned to set
type or run a typesetting machine, has lent a hand in the mailing room
or the delivery department, has mastered many details that, though not
essential, have given a comprehensive notion of how newspapers are made.

Nor should the young man from the country, ambitious for city
experience, stay away from the city through fear of competition or
through timidity. Do not be afraid. The newspaper men of the city are
not smarter than those in the country. I recall the youngster from a
small up-state daily who with fear and trembling accepted a chance to
work a few days on trial, in a big city office, as reporter. He went
smashing around town for routine news and found the work not difficult.
In a week confidence had conquered timidity. He observed the other
reporters and workers and said to himself, “I can compete with these
men”--and he did compete with them to his gratifying success.

Fascinating as the reporter’s life may be, it nevertheless has its
unpleasant moments, its many hardships. The hours of work are irregular
and unlimited. Men on the big metropolitan morning newspapers report
for duty at noon, one or two o’clock; those of the evening staffs at
seven or eight, A.M.; and all are supposed to work as long
as their services are required--not infrequently for fifteen hours.
Newspaper-making is a continuous performance, especially for reporters.
Frequently those employed in it suffer great discomforts through
physical fatigue, lack of food and sleep, and exposure to weather
conditions.

One of the court reporters of a morning newspaper in New York was
finishing his work in the late evening. He had been on duty some ten
hours and his work had been hard. Suddenly came the big explosion of
the great munitions plant at Morgan, New Jersey, and the weary young
writer was told to hustle out there. At Perth Amboy he encountered the
military guard thrown out to prevent approach to the burning buildings.
In his attempts to get along he was arrested six times and detained. He
phoned his facts to the office and was told to stay on. He could find
no place to sleep--couldn’t have slept if he had--could hardly find a
place to sit down even, could get nothing to eat or drink. Explosion
after explosion followed hour after hour. And when at length he reached
the office he was too exhausted to write a word. So they sent him to
bed for six hours and then he wrote his report.

Very many other men had a similar experience that day and night. They
were in constant danger of their lives, badly fed and without rest.
They were driven from place to place by the military guard, and most of
them were arrested over and over again. It was one of the most trying
disasters to report of which we have record.

Several reporters nearly lost their lives while crossing Great South
Bay in a tempest to the scene of a shipwreck on the beach. They
capsized in a sail boat and the life-saving guard barely gave rescue.

Men sent to the Johnstown flood found the town wrecked, scantily
provisioned, and with no sleeping accommodations. They were compelled
to stay there a week under most distressing conditions while the search
for the dead continued.

The reporting of the great national political conventions requires
unceasing effort for a week or more, the utmost vigil through night
and day. Important committees are reaching decisions, new pacts and
combinations are being formed, and the entire situation may be changing
from hour to hour. There is no sleep for the unfortunate correspondent;
he must be awake to the instant. The reporting of what is done in the
public sessions of the convention is the least of his labors.

When a man of importance falls mortally ill a reporter is detailed to
watch him--to obtain the earliest announcement of his death. The vigil
is constant. In scores of instances reporters have sat on the man’s
doorstep waiting for him to die. This sort of work involves all the
monotony of sentry duty. It is disagreeable in the extreme.

The newspaper boys are asked to do many unpleasant things. They are
compelled to invade private homes and to ask agonized parents why a
son or a daughter has committed suicide or has done a disgraceful
act; to ask a husband whether it is true that his wife has run away
with a neighbor, or ask a wife whether her husband is a fugitive from
justice. The assignments that take a writer into a family that has been
disgraced by one of its members are the most unpleasant, probably, of
any that fall to him.

Indeed there is little of joyousness in any search for information that
some one wishes to conceal. Yet every editor knows that in very many
important cases to be chronicled some one is interested in concealing
the real facts. The people who want their affairs screened from public
gaze constitute a multitude. Diplomats are reticent. Government
officers are evasive. Political plans are kept in the shadow, for
publicity has ruined many a political plot. Bank officials seek to
conceal defalcations. Insurance companies try to hush great losses.
Society leaders wish to minimize society scandals. Usually in these
cases the inquirer is lied to deliberately and calmly, or the door is
slammed in his face, or the person sought refuses to be seen, or the
reporter is sent on a fool’s errand elsewhere--anything to be rid of
him. Some one has said that the newspaper man is asked to lie about
people almost as often as he is asked to tell the truth.

To obtain exact truth always has been surrounded by difficulties.
Almost every historian complains of the task of establishing the
truth of history. He finds the literature of the time at variance
with the facts; public documents and records absolutely contradicting
one another; while the recollections and reminiscences of the oldest
inhabitants are fanciful dreams. It was Talleyrand who said of a treaty
that if it contained no ambiguities some should be inserted.

The young newspaper writer finds his task of telling the truth quite
as difficult, not only because so many persons seek to conceal the
truth but also from the well-known fact--recognized and constantly
commented on in our courts of law--that two persons rarely see or hear
or comprehend alike. Honest witnesses give different versions.

But the newspaper manager expects the reporter to get the exact facts,
and frequently the unfortunate writer finds himself compelled to
resort to trickery and all kinds of subterfuge to do so. If he fails
to get the facts his advancement in the office is checked. Inquiry is
made into the cause of his failure and if good reason for it appears
it may be forgotten. If it is through carelessness or indolence he
is discharged, and the reason for dropping him is known within
twenty-four hours in every other newspaper office in the city. It is
all very unpleasant.

If the new reporter be so unfortunate as to begin his career on
a dishonest or an extremely sensational sheet he may suffer an
experience yet more disagreeable, for he may be asked to distort
the truth deliberately. Fortunately this is not a frequent request:
Very few newspapers seek to print falsehoods or ask their men to pen
untruths. Much less of that sort of thing prevails than disgraced
the press of twenty-five years ago; yet a few editors remain who
seem to think that exaggeration and falsification attract more
readers than does the truth, and they demand that all news reports be
colored with spectacular embellishment. This is unpleasant as well as
unprofessional. It is demoralizing to a young writer. It is disastrous
to his reputation for serious, trustworthy work. Yet more serious
as well as more repulsive is the necessity occasionally imposed by
dishonest editors on the reporter of blackening a man’s reputation or
exalting the deeds of a scoundrel. But this does not happen often.

The confusion and noise of the office often annoy the young writer and
lessen his ability to do himself justice. The news is usually written
and handled in one large room. Twenty or thirty reporters, subeditors
and office boys are doing rush work. A noisy reporter blows in, as
though carried on a whirlwind, talks all the time, shouts for an office
boy, calls for reference books and newspaper files and drinking water
all in one breath, and keeps it going. Hurry-up telephone bells are
jingling and men are bawling through the transmitters. Typewriters
resound their staccato clicking. Call bells are striking and reporters
are tapping their desk tops for office boys, and the boys are tumbling
over one another in response, and are darting from desk to desk with
copy. Persons are coming and going all the time, talking and laughing
and shuffling. The old hands are used to it; but the young man
accustomed to the silence of the study room sometimes develops symptoms
of insanity.

Of serious consideration, also, is the fact that morning newspaper
work sadly interferes with social and home life and with a host of
amusements and entertainments and pleasures enjoyed by day workers. In
the big cities members of news staffs seldom dine at home. The news
writers go on duty early in the afternoon if not before; the news
editorial staff at six o’clock or thereabouts, all to remain until well
after midnight. Dinner parties, theater parties, dancing parties--all
evening social life may be enjoyed on the one day only of the seven,
known as the day off. The newspaper man toils while others play--and
his night’s work ends somewhat dismally by his dragging home at two
o’clock in the morning, maybe through storm or sleet or tempest, to a
cold, cheerless, silent, dark home--a home unattractive under these
conditions despite every effort to make it otherwise.

To the hard-working man of ordinary occupation there comes a certain
sense of enjoyment in the relaxation following business effort.
He does not want to go immediately and stealthily to bed. The
morning-newspaper man is compelled to do so. The day worker enjoys his
homecoming, his leisurely evening repast, the diversions of the few
hours preceding sleep. It is the bright spot in the day. The newspaper
man rolls off the editorial bench into bed.

This demoralization of home and social life constitutes a very great
objection to entering the newspaper business. It affects nine-tenths
of the morning-newspaper staff. If the young journalist chances to
marry it imposes hardships on the young wife. Usually she begins her
married life by loyally and cheerfully trying to sit up until long
after midnight to greet him on his return--but not for long. The coming
of children and the establishing of a home compel normal rest and
other attentions, and she reluctantly ceases her long waiting vigil.
Instead of greeting him with a daintily prepared bit of warm food she
now puts out a plate of cold stuff left over from the day before, which
he mechanically masticates or not as his mood suggests; and a little
later on it is decided that he might stop at a night restaurant for a
bite, if he is hungry. As she cannot go out in the evening with him she
misses many of the social pleasures to which presumedly she had been
accustomed and which she had expected in her new life. But most of all
she misses his presence and his attentions.



CHAPTER II

THE COLLECTION OF NEWS AND THE PREPARATION OF COPY FOR THE READER


The young man just beginning a newspaper career gets a violent shock
almost immediately. He discovers that some one is revising his
articles, changing his words, shortening his sentences, omitting entire
paragraphs. It gives him much anxiety.

All newspaper copy is revised. Very little news or general matter
is printed as written originally. It undergoes “editing” by copy
readers, of whom there are twelve to twenty in the big city offices.
The editorial articles are revised by the editor in chief. Other
copy for the editorial page--letters to the editor, communications,
verse, comments from other newspapers, and the like--is prepared by
his assistants. “Editing” copy means preparing it for the compositor,
putting it in the exact language in which it is to be printed.

Systematic, careful revision of all copy is necessary not alone to
correct error of fact, of judgment, of good taste, but also to regulate
the volume of matter. The notion that newspapers print articles “just
to fill up” is as absurd as the intimation that they “print anything
they can get.” Every newspaper of any account receives, daily, double
to four times as much news matter as can be crowded into its columns.
The news value of each article or paragraph must have quick, alert
consideration. If the reporter has written half a column about an event
that is worth twenty lines only of newspaper space the report must be
reduced to twenty lines. If an unusual rush of news or advertising
compels the order to “cut everything rigidly” it is reduced to ten
lines. Just what to print and what to omit are burning questions and
the quality of judgment exercised in the decision largely measures the
copy reader’s ability.

The men who revise news copy for morning editions get to work at about
six o’clock. For convenience they group around large tables, those
handling telegraph matter at one desk, the readers of city copy at
another, the sporting department workers at a third, while at other
desks are the cable editors, the financial and commercial and the real
estate men. It is of advantage to have as many as possible of these
desks in one room.

How to handle the great volume of matter that pours into the office
gives the managing editor much concern. It must be done with a minimum
of confusion, for confusion surely creates error and disarranges
system. The edition must be put to press on the instant and always the
news pages are closed at the last moment, under great stress, with all
hands in a rush. The work is well systemized, but no system has yet
been invented that can anticipate or provide for the unexpected event
that so frequently upsets newspaper offices.

In normal times the managing editor directs how the articles of
considerable importance are to be treated and likewise the city editor
instructs his men how and to what length they are to write their
articles. The size and the quality of the edition may be planned and
carried to conclusion with comparative comfort if nothing unforeseen
happens. But not infrequently big news breaks out unexpectedly that
upsets all calculations and compels a change of all plans. It is the
unexpected that drives the news editors frantic and adds to their
labors and creates confusion and chaos in spite of everything. Let us
recall the Roosevelt attempted assassination, in illustration.

Things were proceeding peacefully in the newspaper office on that
evening in October, 1912, when, about nine o’clock, a telegraph flash
came from Milwaukee: “Theodore Roosevelt has been shot and killed by a
crazy man.”

Here was the biggest news for many a day. Roosevelt was perhaps the
nation’s most spectacular citizen. He had been our President. He was
known throughout the world. He was running for the presidency as
an independent candidate against Wilson and Taft. He had split the
Republican party. The election was only a few days away. The political
consequences of his death were stupendous.

It is quite impossible to describe what followed in the newspaper work
room. The managing editor began dictating telegraph orders:

To the Milwaukee correspondent he said: “Wire with all haste every
word you can get about Roosevelt’s visit, what he has said and done
since his arrival, every possible detail of the shooting, full
description and history of the assassin, where he has lived, so we can
run him down. Send every word he utters. Hire a dozen men to help. You
can’t wire too much.”

To the Washington correspondent: “Wire 1500 words Roosevelt’s chief
acts as President, 1000 on his personal popularity and social life.
Interview everybody effect of his death on the election, get White
House comment, wire 1000 general effects of the news. You can’t send
too much.”

To the Chicago correspondent: “Hurry to Milwaukee. Take two or three
men with you. Find our man in the _Sentinel_ office. Hire a special
train if necessary. Hire some one to get all he can out of the Chicago
newspaper offices.”

Having wired a dozen or so such telegrams to other parts of the country
the managing editor summoned the city editor and said to him: “Get your
entire staff here, the men who are off to-day and all the emergency
men. Put on three or four more copy readers. Find out where Mrs.
Roosevelt is and have a man stay right by her: also the rest of the
Colonel’s family. Have four or five columns of his obituary prepared.
Have interviews with a lot of prominent New York men and politicians
of both parties. Have a column written on the effect on the political
campaign and also a column of Roosevelt’s reasons for running as an
independent candidate. Send to the hotels and theaters. Don’t forget a
big portrait of Roosevelt--better have pictures of the entire Roosevelt
family and the Oyster Bay home. Keep everybody here until three
o’clock.”

To the night editor he said: “The editorial page is full of campaign
stuff. Have some one go through every line of it and cut out everything
intended to influence a voter against Roosevelt--everything that could
be thought unseemly. You will have to leave out two or three of the
articles and some of the letters to the editor. Find another editorial
or two that will do, on the standing galleys. Get the full force into
the composing room. Tell the stereotype men there will be no end of
editions all night long--they will want full force. Tell the press room
men too; the circulation will be double. Be sure to look out for any
slur on Roosevelt. You must get the mail edition off on time. We can’t
afford to miss a mail to-night.”

The foregoing indicates a part--_and only a small part_--of the
preparations made for an edition announcing Colonel Roosevelt’s death
by assassination. Within fifteen minutes enough matter had been ordered
to fill five or six newspaper pages. The entire news staff jumped into
the work.

The machinery for that edition began to move promptly in the lines
indicated. But in half an hour came this wire from Milwaukee: “Colonel
Roosevelt is not dead but has been shot near the heart. Surgeons are
making examination.” And through some unexplained cause not another
word came from Milwaukee for an hour and a half.

With this second announcement it was necessary to change the plan of
the edition to conform to the situation that the Colonel was not dead
but possibly was mortally wounded. In the hour and a half of suspense
thousands of words came pouring in to the copy readers all written
under belief that the attack had resulted in death and all had to be
edited to fit the new situation.

Then came word that the Colonel had not been seriously hurt--slightly
wounded only--and that he had started for Chicago. It was now nearly
midnight and a complete overhauling of the paper was necessary. A new
set of instructions had to be sent to everybody. Everything had to be
reëdited. What was practically a new edition must be made with very
little time in which to make it. As it was, the newspapers printed from
three to five pages of matter about the attempted assassination, but
they killed many columns relating to the Colonel’s life, the effect
of the supposed death on the campaign, appreciations by public men,
and so forth. The writers and copy readers were reminded that the
Colonel was still a candidate, and that a new issue had been injected
into the campaign, that of martyrdom. “Better minimize the martyrdom
business,” was the suggestion. The copy readers did a tremendous
excess of emergency work that night that went for nothing; so did the
correspondents, the reporters, the printers, the telegraph operators,
the directing editors--everybody who had to do with getting out the
edition.

From reporting to copy reading is a natural step in the progress of
the young man in journalism. Copy reading has the advantage of fixed
hours, of permanent salary, of a minimum of emergency or extra work
and of permitting daily a few hours for recreation or study. It has
the disadvantage of being routine work not especially interesting or
inspiring, without pecuniary reward of importance (salaries are from
forty to sixty-five dollars a week in big newspaper offices and as
low as twenty-five dollars in small ones) and of having the attendant
danger of getting a man in a rut. Every office has its veteran copy
readers who for years have been content to do this work. To perform the
service acceptably requires absorbing attention, unceasing vigil, a
familiarity with current events, accurate judgment as to the news value
of every article and a genius for detecting errors of fact, or grammar,
or of any kind.

Colonel John W. Forney said:

  No man is competent to edit newspaper manuscript or reprint
  unless he has been an extensive and analytical reader. He
  should, moreover, have a quick and keen perception, as well
  as a retentive memory of notorious facts, of celebrated names
  and important dates. If he is in doubt he should never fail to
  consult reliable encyclopedias, technical books, pamphlets and
  like granaries of information and knowledge.

How does the copy reader exercise his ability? All news copy goes to
the readers, telegraph copy to the telegraph desk, the city copy to
the city desk and so forth. The head reader glances at each article
long enough to absorb a notion of its nature and make a note of its
length and passes it to one of the other readers. This man edits it
into the form in which it is to appear in the newspaper. If it is too
long he reduces it by stripping it of its verbiage and unimportant
facts, cutting out entire sentences and even paragraphs. Unconsciously
he questions every statement made by the writer, so keen becomes his
search for error. If an article on an important subject is inadequate
he sends it back to the city editor for amplification or explanation.
If the article is unimportant he kills it. Always he has in mind
that the sheet is crowded, that there isn’t room for half of what is
offered. He acquires the knack of condensation, of making one word
express the meaning of half a sentence. He eliminates superfluous
statements and obvious explanations and dull conclusions. If he be
wise he rereads the article to confirm his own work. Always he seeks
to improve the article, to insert a snappy word, to give it life, to
smooth the diction or make it more rugged as befits the subject.

When reading news the copy reader must be alert for clews to additional
information, for side issues to be added. “The assassin has lived in
Canal street, New York” said one of the Milwaukee dispatches--and
instantly the copy reader informed the city editor and a reporter was
soon on his way to Canal street to learn of the crazy man’s record
there. “Mrs. Roosevelt is at the Manhattan Hotel” said another message.
A reporter was sent to her.

The copy reader must steel himself against the reporter who tries to be
funny and isn’t, against those persons so well known in every newspaper
office who seek notoriety by getting their names in print, against the
social climbers, against the men who want puffs and free advertising,
against the wiles of the press agent and the preposterous stories about
the people he is exalting, against the schemers whose success depends
on newspaper publicity, the fake charity organizations, the spurious
reform agitations, the organizations started merely to give salaries
to the people who run them, the multitude of movements created to give
some one notoriety, the constant attempts to fool the public--the list
is endless.

The copy reader must be familiar with the big events attracting public
attention for he may be called to revise their next chapter. Many big
cases drag on for months. Above all he should take sympathetic interest
in every article he revises and in its writer. His every effort should
be to improve the article. My own experience as a copy reader for five
years was of utmost usefulness to me. Careful editing of copy fixes the
subject matter of the copy in memory almost as securely as though you
had written the original.

Surely the copy reader fills an especially important post. It is
poor policy to intrust this work to incompetent men. Nevertheless,
because of its requirements, it is a post not eagerly sought. It is
thought to be a thankless task with little to show for results, with
maximum opportunity for error and minimum for praise. The copy reader
is unlikely to be sought for promotion. He does not mingle with the
outside world as does the reporter. He sees no office visitors as do
the editors. His work attracts little favorable attention. If he
improves a manuscript the author, not the copy reader, gets the credit.
But if you intend to follow the newspaper business, by all means take a
turn at copy reading, for it gives valuable experience and information
and the practice greatly improves your diction.

As the night advances the avalanche of copy increases, some nights
in greater volume than others. It is a curious fact that news volume
seems to ebb and flow like the ocean tide, although irregularly, not
steadily. For days the news world will be calm, little of interest
develops, nothing but routine news offers. And then for days at a time
news breaks out from all directions, overwhelming the writing and the
revising staffs, upsetting all plans and creating confusion. It is then
that the managing editor admonishes: “Gentlemen, the paper is already
filled; you must cut everything rigidly”; and the head copy reader,
pushing a column manuscript article toward an assistant, commands: “Put
it in a quarter of a column”; and the perspiring night editor shouts
from the composing room through the telephone: “Can’t take another
line except must stuff.” “Must stuff” means matter that simply must
be printed. “Stuff” is the common newspaper office vernacular for
all copy, whether it be the profound article of the editor in chief
or the incident of a crap game on the pavement. The amateur writer’s
sensibilities are shocked sometimes when his production is called
“stuff.”

But whether the tide of copy is at ebb or flood always there is too
much of it and the copy reader’s night ends in the contemplation of a
mass of discarded manuscript and a ruin of reportorial reputation.

And on the morrow comes an awful hour of reckoning. The editor in
chief misses from his own paper a bit of Washington political news
that some other paper had printed. He speaks to the managing editor
about it, and the managing editor knowing that the news was in the
office and was not printed, damns the copy reader for throwing it away.
The city editor who had gone home with visions of two fine fat news
features each of an embellished column in length finds in their place
two emaciated paragraphs containing naught but cold news facts with no
juice in them--he damns the copy readers. The reporters who wrote the
column stories, reduced to shreds, surcharge the place with spectacular
profanity and damn the copy readers. The men who wrote twelve dollars
worth of stuff at space rates and had it cut down to three dollars
worth, damn the copy readers. The reporters who wrote reams of routine
stuff that did not appear at all, damn the copy readers. Everybody
damns the copy readers!

The respectable newspapers of America strive sincerely for accuracy of
statement. Reporters are instructed constantly to be accurate. Copy
readers and every one else in the place are urged to vigil in the
detection of error. The news rush and the consequent confusion in the
last half hour before getting to press contribute to the danger of
mistake, but for the most part every newspaper article is carefully
considered and repeatedly scrutinized.

A news report of importance, for instance, is written by an
experienced reporter. Usually it is scanned by the city editor. It is
then revised by a copy reader who is supposed to be expert in preparing
manuscript. The compositor puts it in type and the proof reader
searches it ostensibly for errors in typing, but always must he note
any error. He is expected to call to the attention of the night editor
any misstatement of fact or violation of newspaper usage or of practice.

Then, too, in almost every office is “the learned proof reader” who
bothers himself not with typographical errors but who reads from
revised proof sheets in searching quest of anything wrong--misused
words, verbal or grammatical slips, misspelled proper names, distortion
of any fact--and it is curious what a lot of errors he digs out that
have passed everybody else. Likewise in many editorial rooms sits
another all-wise man who in a semi-editorial capacity reads proof
sheets of all matter in the same search for the undesirable. The
managing editor, the night editor, and the night city editor also
have proof sheets of all matter which they read devoutly for a dozen
reasons. Nevertheless there appeared in one of our especially learned
and correct New York newspapers a sentence written by a reporter and
passed by the copy reader, the proof reader _ordinaire_, the learned
proof reader, the editorial proof reader _de luxe_, the managing
editor, the night editor and the night city editor--a sentence that
read: “He had fractured her skull by hitting it with an empty bottle of
beer.”

The same newspaper’s music constituency was moved to emotion one
morning on reading that applause followed the singing of “The Soldiers’
Chorus by Faust.” Whether the writer intended to say that Faust sang
the chorus, or the chorus was written by Faust, or that it was from
the opera of Faust probably never will be known, but the chances are
that he inadvertently wrote “by Faust” when he intended to write “from
Faust.”

Truth is, that human intelligence has not yet devised a way of keeping
error out of printed publications. The public does not understand
the painstaking care with which news is presented by well regulated
newspapers, nor are the difficulties or the unfavorable conditions
under which newspapers are made at all appreciated by people who read.
Men of other professions have almost unlimited time for consideration.
The lawyer may devote months to the preparation of his case. The
clergyman may take seven days to perfect his sermon. The physician at
times is called to quick action, but usually he may ponder for hours or
days over the condition of his patient.

But quick judgment and quick action are a daily necessity in the
newspaper office. The biggest event of the month may explode an hour
before time for going to press. The news must be prepared with frantic
haste with half the staff tumbling over each other, so to speak, in
the rush to be on time. In afternoon sheets all news received after
one o’clock and in morning editions after midnight are subject to
this acceleration of mind and movement and persons who have not
participated in the spasm can little appreciate the opportunity for
error.

In these hours a man’s experience, his general knowledge of the
business, is of great assistance. It is then that his confidence or
his distrust in the source of the information governs. Rumor is the
busybody of the business and her moments of greatest activity are just
before the time for going to press.

It is true, also, that first accounts of great events are likely to be
exaggerated; almost always are greatly exaggerated. The cable flash
announcing the blowing up of the _Maine_ in Havana harbor said that
not a man remained alive. The first brief telegram telling of the San
Francisco earthquake reported that not a building remained standing.
With the first report of the assassination of Colonel Roosevelt came
the statement that he was dead. First reports of losses of life in
great disasters, of losses in big fires, are usually double the actual
loss.

It is a vital part of newspaper vigil to question all unusual or
extraordinary statements and news editors by habit come to doubt
every statement made. This is meant to be said of honest editors; the
dishonest ones seek to exaggerate the original exaggeration.

The preparation of newspaper copy in the last hour before going to
press gives supreme test to the writer’s powers of concentration,
his self-possession, and his agility of mind. It happens frequently
that the managing editor says to him, “You have just eight minutes
in which to finish that article” and a little later the night editor
may cry out: “Close everything for this edition in five minutes.”
It is exceedingly disturbing to the young man who is beginning. The
experienced men are unmoved. It is common enough for a man to write
in an hour after midnight a column or more about a murder, a fire, a
calamity, or the obituary of a distinguished person. Men who do this
rapid work at the last instant may have been on duty for ten or twelve
hours and the climax to the day’s labor calls for greater intensity
than anything that has preceded. Physical endurance is involved as well
as mental celerity.

The invention of the typewriter has helped vastly to speed up newspaper
composition. The reporter may dictate his narrative. In the old days
frequently he had to make a long journey to the newspaper office before
beginning to work with pen or pencil. Nowadays, if need be, he dictates
his report through the telephone to a typewriter in the office.
Newspaper correspondents five hundred, and even one thousand, miles
away do this kind of emergency telephoning.

Indeed, it may be said that modern invention has revolutionized the
process of speeding up newspaper making. When I first went to New York
the capacity of the improved newspaper press was eight pages. If a
larger paper were wanted the extra pages were printed separately as a
supplement many hours before the main eight sheet was put to press.
To-day, thanks to the inventor of the multiple printing press, the
news editor may decide fifteen minutes before going to press whether
to make a twelve page newspaper or a twenty page newspaper or even a
thirty-four page newspaper.

The big modern newspaper is made with a speed that is almost
bewildering. For, in place of the old laborious journeying to the
office, the writing of the news with pen or pencil, the typesetting of
the same by hand and the old style stereotyping process requiring half
an hour, the printing of sheets limited to eight pages on presses that
produced only about fifteen thousand copies an hour--in place of these
clumsy processes, news reports are dictated over the telephone, the
matter is set by machinery in a fraction of the time formerly required,
is stereotyped in six minutes and set going on half a dozen presses
with a capacity each of more than thirty thousand copies an hour.

The reporting of big events that may be anticipated, like the
inauguration of a president, a great festival in honor of a martial
hero or in commemoration of peace, or a popular demonstration of any
sort--anything that is scheduled to happen, is carefully arranged for
in advance.

It is conceded that the biggest and most important single piece of news
handled up to that time in a newspaper office was the story of the
loss of the _Titanic_. The finest steamship that ever had been made
struck an iceberg on her first voyage and sank with a loss of fifteen
hundred persons, including scores of our well known residents--and that
was all we knew of the disaster until the survivors were landed on a
New York pier. The wireless had sent a partial list of survivors but
not a word of detail about the disaster itself. Public interest was
tremendously excited. It was known that the survivors were to land at
a given hour in the evening and city editors had plenty of time to
arrange for getting the great narrative but limited time for writing
it--for newspapers must go to press on the minute in order that mail
and express bundles of the edition may catch outgoing trains.

Thirty or forty reporters were sent by each New York newspaper to
meet the rescue ship. Each man had a definite thing to do. One man,
for instance, was to write a column of just what had been going on
in the ship for the twenty-four hours before she sank. Another was
to write of the warnings to the _Titanic’s_ officers that ice fields
were ahead. Another was to explain just how the ship struck, how she
was damaged and how and when she filled and sank. A fourth was to
describe in detail how the life boats were manned and launched and who
went in them. A fifth was to tell of nothing except what the commander
of the ship was doing up to the moment he was lost. Six or eight
reporters were instructed to get as many narratives of the experiences
of survivors as possible--and so on preparations were made to the
completion of every detail that possibly could be anticipated--every
man instructed exactly what to do and warned not to attempt anything
else.

The preparations for printing this great narrative--and doing it in a
hurry--occupied many hours of the time of managing and city editors.
The organization of forces was necessary to prevent duplication and
confusion, useless running about and tumbling over each other by
reporters.

As an additional precaution to save time of reporters in going from the
pier to the newspaper office, a dozen telephones were set up in a shed
on the pier and a dozen of the reporters were instructed to dictate
their reports into the transmitters and a dozen typewriters were ready
to take them in the newspaper office.

The first sentence of this big story was written at 10:20 in the
evening, and copy for the first edition was shut off two hours
afterward. The first edition presses were started on time to the minute
with four pages of the disaster. A second edition one hour later
had seven pages of disaster matter--the narrative complete--about
equivalent in amount to the reading matter of the usual edition of the
_Scribner_ monthly magazine.

In doing this task neither the writing force nor the mechanical
department was extended or distressed or overworked. They could
easily perform the same feat every night in the week under the same
organization and loyal staff teamwork.

It is the business and the duty of the managing editor to oversee all
of these details. He is the executive officer of the newspaper. His
first duty is to carry out the policies of the editor in chief or the
owner. He is responsible for what goes into the paper. He is supposed
to know what is going on in every hemisphere and in every island of the
sea and to have it properly presented in the news columns. He must read
the other newspapers and periodicals to know what they are printing
and what of their contents should be printed in his own next edition.
He hires the staff, except the editorial writers, fixes the salaries,
obtains and directly supervises the matter for every column except the
editorial page. He must, indeed, keep a sharp eye on that page as well,
for it happens frequently that after an editorial article is ready for
printing, along comes later news that entirely changes the situation
and calls for revision of the article.

He decides questions in dispute. His best asset should be good
judgment: judgment what not to print as well as what should be printed;
judgment as to proper news values, whether to give one, two, or three
columns to an unexpected piece of news that explodes in Washington,
Dawson City or off Montauk Point; judgment whether to chance a libel
suit on one article or the infringement of copyright in another;
whether to minimize a social or a political movement or boom it. And
when these questions are flashed on this unfortunate man just as the
edition is going to press it must be a quick as well as a decisive
judgment.

The managing editor has to deal with men of all ages and of all
experiences. A big staff includes cranks, and enthusiasts, students
and philosophers, men of every race and religion whose illuminated
intelligence reflects every phase of eccentricity, every degree
of sanity, as well as every perfection of common sense--men of
intelligence, earnestness, sensitiveness, filled with ambition and
alive with interest and seeking above all to succeed in the business.

The managing editor needs the coöperation of all these men. A loyal
staff is full of suggestions, will go to extremes in support of its
leader; an indifferent staff is silent. It depends largely on how the
staff is treated by the management, whether it is loyal or indifferent.

Now you cannot manage a newspaper staff as you might a section gang
building a railroad. It is not to be expected that intelligent,
sensitive writers will spring to their work, will do better work, while
smarting under severe reproof or constant nagging. If they do it is
because they fear to lose their jobs, rather than from zeal. Not much
good newspaper work is done under an uplifted club. Little else than
resentment results from angry words.

One reason for Mr. Charles A. Dana’s success may be found in his fine
leadership. He inspired the confidence of his helpers by his surpassing
knowledge of the business. He encouraged them by his recognition and
appreciation of superior work and his absolute justice toward them. He
fascinated them by his genial ways. Everybody loved him and would do
anything for him. The editor of ability that endears himself to his
staff will surely make a great newspaper. The editor whose ability is
not respected, who does not recognize good service, who is constantly
nagging and complaining and finding fault, and arousing resentment--he
will see his circulation slipping away and his influence diminishing.
A newspaper staff is made up of delicately constructed, sensitive,
self-respecting men and women.

The managing editor hires the staff. And, as the success of the
newspaper depends on the writers, it behooves him to be careful in the
selection. The staff changes somewhat rapidly, its members drop out to
go to better posts on other newspapers or into other businesses and new
men are called to their places. Methods of recruiting the staff differ
in different offices. Many of the most successful newspapers have a way
of hiring young men to join as reporters and gradually advancing them
through a continuous process of growth. Thus a man is available always
to fill a vacancy and the staff in general is always complete. The real
vacancy is at the bottom of the list. Three months’ trial usually tests
out a beginner.

The newspaper is overrun with applicants. Every graduating college
class includes some men who wish to try the business. The schools of
journalism in the United States are turning out about four thousand
students yearly who want to go to work immediately. Many broken-down
clergymen and discarded school teachers think they can write and they
apply along with professional men, clerks, salesmen and others who
have failed to make good. A swarm of high school boys come along after
graduation. Very many men who have succeeded in country or small city
newspapers want to get going in the big cities. Bright newspaper office
boys seek to become reporters and go on to success. It is from all of
these that the staff is recruited. The managing editor of experience
comes to know almost by instinct whether an applicant will make a good
newspaper man, and while few of those who come are selected, it is
also true that a large proportion of those who are taken make good.

The supervision of the modern newspaper is much more difficult than it
was forty years ago for the reason that the staff is four or five times
as large. The size of the sheet has been more than quadrupled. The
managing editor no longer finds it possible to read every paragraph in
proof sheet before its publication; he must trust to his helpers. The
increased volume of matter compels increased labor in originating it,
increased attention to its consideration and preparation for printing.
The managing editor’s work literally is fourfold what it used to be.
The tendency of the hour is toward yet larger editions.



CHAPTER III

NEWSPAPER COMPOSITION--THE ART OF WRITING IN SIMPLE YET ENTERTAINING
FASHION


The young man just starting in journalism is asked to write in the
simplest words and the shortest sentences at his command. He is told
that the reader wants facts rather than elegances of expression and
that the plainest language is the best newspaper style.

By plain language is not meant the language of the child’s primer,
but rather the use of good Saxon concrete nouns and active verbs in
sentences not embellished with verbose phrases. Nevertheless, when
editors tell the young reporter to use the plainest language they mean
usually that they will be satisfied with it in his routine reporting.
But they encourage the study of “how to produce rich effects by the use
of familiar words,” how to write not only with steadiness and strength,
but also with those little embellishments of incidental word and phrase
that lift the work above the commonplace. And they unceasingly urge the
necessity of good writing--for not anywhere is good writing appreciated
more than in a newspaper office.

To write the simple language requires much study and practice--more,
indeed, than to write the other kind. It is natural for people,
children especially, to use simple words, but the schools and
colleges have taught, until within a few years, the writing of
rather high-sounding prose. Textbooks have reflected Dr. Johnson’s
ornate paragraphs, Macaulay’s massive profundities, Washington
Irving’s beautifully rounded florid sentences, and Sir Walter Scott’s
superlatives. For years and years they were commended to students
of literature for imitation. The effect of this teaching remains.
We find it difficult to write in the same simplicity with which we
talk. It does not come natural to us. The editor gave fine advice to
the cartoonist from whom he wanted an article. Said the cartoonist:
“He just offered me one suggestion--inasmuch as I was not a regular
writer--that I refrain from trying to write and simply tell in my own
words as though I were telling it to my wife.” That’s it: refrain from
trying to write if you wish to write in simple language and simple
style.

It is well enough to write as you talk if you are a good talker.
Hundreds of articles of advice in the last fifty years have urged
young men to write as they talk. But almost all talk is without
study, is commonplace, is not the expression of consecutive thought,
is disjointed construction. It is recognized that dictated articles
have less finish than those penned. Nevertheless, the direct way, the
simplest way is undoubtedly the best way of writing. Emerson says: “The
speech of the street is incomparably more forceful than the speech of
the academy.” Lafcadio Hearn says of Kipling: “No one has managed to
produce great effects with so few words.”

But why speak of it as “newspaper style,” when there isn’t any such
thing? Almost every kind of writing is used by newspapers. All kinds
of literature are printed in them--the scholarly essay, the article of
argument, the expository editorial paragraph, the story of fiction,
the language of verse, the consideration of art, music, the play,
all sorts of description of all kinds of happenings in every part
of our old earth--and all are written without uniformity of diction
or construction. There is no style that the newspaper rejects. The
experienced editor seeks diversity of writing and of topic in every
column. He studies to that end.

Some style of writing is so plain that you do not notice it. It is
like the well dressed man whose clothing is so simple and appropriate
that it is not attracting attention wherever he goes. Merimee said of
Stendhal that he despised mere style and insisted that a writer had
attained perfection when we remember his ideas without recalling his
phrases. Of George Saintsbury, the English critic, it was said: “He
always thought it of more importance to utter the thought than to care
about the form of utterance.... If he had given more attention to style
we should have been deprived of some of the benefits of his knowledge.”

Indeed, some great newspaper narratives are of such absorbing interest
in themselves--great disasters like the sinking of the _Lusitania_ or
the _Titanic_--that the reader’s attention is entirely concentrated
on the facts and he does not notice the diction or the construction.
No matter how disjointed or horribly written the narrative may be he
finishes it with the impression that he has read a great article.
Nevertheless, every article is the better for good telling. And
probably no greater newspaper accomplishment exists than the ability
to write well. It is of increasing value as the young man goes on to
higher grade work.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in a lecture to the Cambridge students urges
them to study writing and to practice writing, to write and rewrite
with intent to gain facility in diction and in the fashioning of
sentences, and especially to seek to make their prose “accurate,
perspicuous, persuasive, and appropriate.” He would insure greater
accuracy by the study and practice of the use of words. Thought and
speech being inseparable, it follows that we cannot use the humblest
processes of thought--cannot resolve to take our bath hot or cold, or
decide what to order for breakfast--without forecasting it in some form
of words. Words, in fine, he urges, are the only currency in which we
can exchange thought even with ourselves. Does it not follow, then,
that the more accurately we use words the closer definition we shall
give to our thoughts? “And by drilling ourselves to write perspicuously
we train our minds to clarify our thought, since language is the
expression of thought. The first aim of speech is to be understood
and the more clearly we write the more easily and surely we will be
understood. Not to be understood is to be a sloven in speech.”

Lafcadio Hearn urged the students of the University of Tokyo to study
the construction of sentences--to write them over and over again until
they were nearly perfect, saying:

  A thing once written is not literature.... No man can produce
  real literature at one writing.... To produce even a single
  sentence of good literature requires that the text be written at
  least three times.... For literature more than for any other art
  the all-necessary thing is patience.

He advised the students to write a practice piece and put it away for
a week. Then to revise it and put it away again, and to continue the
process of revision until they could improve it no more.

Tolstoy rewrote his important work three or four times. Rossetti
revised “The Blessed Damosel” in many editions until the last was quite
unlike the first. Tennyson changed his productions over and again. Gray
was fourteen years in perfecting the “Elegy.” It is notorious that Sir
Walter Scott’s later novels, written at great speed, are much inferior
to his earlier more leisurely work. Samuel Butler’s masterpiece “The
Way of All Flesh” was under construction for twelve years.

All literary history furnishes examples of great authors who toiled
long over their manuscripts. Macaulay devoted more time to revising
his essays than to writing them. Their superiority over his history,
as literary products, is revealed by study of them. The history was
written more hurriedly. The essays are the product of nearly one
hundred years ago, but they serve to illustrate the possibilities
of our language and the beauties of thoughtful writing and intense
thinking. We look elsewhere in vain for such adroit phrasing and such
thunder-claps of climax. Study them, young man!

Some present-day writers criticize Macaulay for his long-drawn
sentences, his reiteration and his wanderings from the narrative into a
confusion of details. Yet Macaulay was imitated by essayists for fifty
years. His style was the vogue. And Macaulay in turn had both praised
and criticized in no feeble fashion his great predecessor, Dr. Samuel
Johnson, who had been the vogue for nearly a hundred years.

The men of greatest reputation as critics, Sainte-Beuve, Edmund Gosse,
Macaulay, Saintsbury and others, put intensive study into what they
wrote. If they were to review a book they made a study of the subject
of the book and of the life and mentality of the author: and sometimes
their production was of more use to the world than the book itself.
Their works are not so much read in this money-making age, but they are
among the great contributions to thoughtful literature and the student
of journalism will read them with great profit to himself. For your own
work is to be thoughtful work--work intended to persuade and influence
readers to your own way of thinking.

Writing for newspapers differs from other literary work in this: the
newspaper writer has little opportunity for revision. Almost all
articles for daily sheets are written at a single sitting. The writers
of editorial articles have several hours in which to compose and
usually they get a proof sheet for revision. The writers of short news
articles may read and correct their manuscript. But in the big offices
as soon as the reporter who is writing an article of any considerable
length has finished two or three pages they are grabbed by an office
boy, hurried to a copy reader who revises them as best he may and
rushes them to the composing room to be typed. The writer does not see
his pages again, does not read them over, even, after writing them. All
big reports--stories of great disasters, of football matches, of public
meetings or demonstrations are prepared with this haste.

The play house and opera critics compose under these same trying
conditions with no opportunity for leisurely thought or revision. It is
difficult, indeed, to write of a great performance in a whirlwind of
hurry, with less than two hours for deliberate and consecutive thought.
The French critic’s way of presenting a news paragraph in the edition
following the performance and reserving a carefully prepared review for
a later-date publication commends itself; but the American newspapers
continue to print exhaustive comments on first-night performances two
or three hours after the fall of the curtain. The opera critic has the
advantage of attending rehearsals of new operas and he may prepare
parts of his article in advance, but rehearsals are spiritless, for
performers have not the inspiration and response of the audience.

Intensity of thought and concentration must engross the newspaper
writer. He must prepare himself by study and practice to throw every
atom of his mental vitality into the work, to write immediately and
without expectation of revision exactly what should appear in the
newspaper. Mind discipline is a powerful factor. The man must school
himself to work under conditions of mental anguish, physical distress,
heart sorrow or unhappiness of any sort. He cannot surrender to moods,
whims, or to physical sensations. He must continue hour after hour, day
after day, with the same hurry-up speed. As in crowded Broadway, if you
cannot keep up with the procession you must be trodden on or take to a
side street, so must the active newspaper man everlastingly keep going.
It is largely a matter of mind discipline, of study and of practice, of
intense mental concentration and of swiftness of thought.

Please do not undervalue the priceless benefits of practice--of
practice that will give skill in saying exactly what you want to say
the first time you say it. In leisurely writing you may rewrite and
change and make perfect, but in newspaper writing you have one dash
only at it without much opportunity for change or revision. Your
reputation as a newspaper writer hangs on that one attempt. You can
cultivate the gift of ready speech in writing just as many a finished
orator has cultivated it in speaking.

It is said of President Woodrow Wilson that early in his youth he
appreciated the advantages of ready speech and set about to improve
himself in its use. He practiced speaking long and constantly. In
the seclusion of his room he conducted imaginary debates, talking to
himself on first one side and then the other of some public question.
On his walks, while a student, he addressed the crags and peaks, the
winding rivers, the peaceful meadows--all for practice in the quick
use of language, the shading of sentences and the putting of emphasis
on climaxes of thought and conclusion. And he became one of the most
interesting and convincing and scholarly public speakers this country,
or any other country for that matter, has ever known.

The young writer should seek to rise above the commonplace. It was said
of Machiavelli that “having adopted some of the maxims then generally
received he arranged them more luminously and expressed them more
forcibly than any other writer.” The young writer should cultivate the
art of making his words and sentences exude the very spirit of the
occasion--the art of describing joyous events with joyous words and of
shadowing melancholy happenings in the language of gloom. He should
seek the faculty of “making obscure truth pleasing, of making repulsive
truth attractive.” Let him follow the counsel of a distinguished critic
who says:

  Choose concrete nouns rather than vague, abstract woolly ones.

  Use straightforward speech rather than circumlocution.

  Remember that the first virtue, the touchstone of masculine style
  is the use of the active verb and concrete noun. When you write
  in the active voice, “They gave him a silver teapot” you write
  as a man. When you write, “He was made the recipient of a silver
  teapot” you write jargon.

Avoid overworked words is common advice to young journalists. An
article in the _Writer_ has much to say of ways by which the constant
use of the word “said” may be prevented. “Said” sometimes becomes
monotonous, especially in the dialogue of fiction; but almost always
another verb may be found to express the author’s meaning. The _Writer_
printed a list of three hundred and eighty-two verbs, found in about
fifty magazine stories, which had been used instead of “said.”
Frequently the use of a verb helps to make more concise as well as
to avoid the word “said.” “‘It hurts,’ said John, in a complaining
tone,” is not so good as “‘It hurts,’ John complained.” Again, “‘Please
help me,’ said the beggar in pitiful beseeching appeal,” is better
expressed by “‘Please help me,’ the beggar pleaded.” The language is
rich in verbs.

Another greatly overworked word, and a slow word as well, is the word
“show.” It does seem as though the average newspaper writer cannot
think of any other word when he writes that “this action”--or “this
event”--or “this conclusion”--or “this computation shows that”--etc.,
when he might say, attests, evinces, betokens, bespeaks, implies,
indicates, proves--or any other suitable verb of the twenty-five or
more he may find in a thesaurus.

Constant looseness of speech is found in the use of explanatory phrases
that might be expressed by a single verb. The verb is the heart of
language life, the soul of expression. Why, for instance, do we write,
“He reflected on the situation” when “he cogitated” would express all?

Let us illustrate a bit more:

  He spoke reprovingly to the boy. He chided the boy.

  He spoke in a mocking, deriding manner. He jeered.

  His breath came convulsively and brokenly. He gasped.

  They exchanged idle words and gossip. They babbled.

  He gave utterance again to the thought. He echoed the thought.

  He was filled with wonder. He marveled.

  He busied himself with the affairs of his neighbors. He meddled.

  He thought over the situation. He meditated.

  He uttered a suppressed groan. He moaned.

  She spoke in low indistinct words. She mumbled.

  His was an exhibition of empty talk. He palavered.

I am aware that these things are elementary--exceedingly elementary,
but they are of utmost import to young newspaper writers. Slovenly,
disjointed, confused diction must retard your progress.

It was constant study that made Dana and Greeley the great journalists
that they were. Neither of them wasted a minute. If at the close of
the day’s work Dana’s final proof sheet was promised to him in seven
minutes he withdrew from the little revolving book-rack on his desk a
copy of the Greek Testament and utilized the seven minutes by reading
it. Never was a question of fact raised but he joined in the search
for the truth of it in the most enthusiastic manner. His zeal and his
interest were a source of inspiration to the staff. With him study was
the key to every problem.

When in 1880 he asked me to be the managing editor of the _Sun_, the
answer was:

“Mr. Dana, I do not know enough to be your managing editor.”

“What do you mean by that?” was his question.

“I mean that the managing editor of your newspaper should have wide,
extensive, general information. I know very little about politics, or
finance, or art, for instance. A managing editor should have expert
knowledge of them.”

“What is the objection to your devoting a little time each day to the
study of these things in which you feel yourself deficient,” was Mr.
Dana’s calm reply. “I did not know so much about them myself, when I
first came to the city as I do to-day.”

I now appreciate that whatever progress I afterward made in the
business came largely from this suggestion; and I feel like passing it
along to the young man who aspires to newspaper honors. How true it is
that to achieve you must study to the limit of your resources; you must
think to the limit of your intelligence; you must strive to the limit
of your endurance--then you have done your best and that marks the
measure of your success.

Study--persistent, laborious, intelligent study--is the key to
success in writing. Occasionally a genius startles the public with a
spontaneous facility for the use of words and sentences, but the other
nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine of us newspaper plodders
must achieve our purposes by the hardest kind of hard work. We must
study the derivation of words, the varied uses of words. And if we are
to keep up with these snappy times we must hunt for strong masculine
nouns, and rapid-fire verbs, and staccato adjectives, and sudden
adverbs. Almost always we can find a better word than the one that
first suggests itself, if we hunt for it. Almost always we may shorten
and simplify a sentence if we study it.

The word spoken may be forgotten. The word written stands for all
time. The orator may move his hearers by eloquence, by gesture, by
facial expression, by the tricks of public speaking, even though his
actual words be feeble or not well chosen, or his conclusions be
not convincing. His words may be forgotten--certainly will not be
remembered unless preserved--but they have been reinforced by his arts
of eloquence, maybe by his audacity of speech, by his personality, and
the net result is favorable. The orator’s bluff may at times serve him
well, but the words of the writer must stand on their own merit for
all time. Type inspires little emotion. There are few typographical
tricks that cause heart-flutter or mental spasm. Just plain words
alone--words, words, words, nearly every one of which is already
familiar to the reader, must make the writer’s success or failure. How
important that every word be studied.

The young journalist cannot be urged too strongly to study the use of
words. Every word in the language has its correct use; a vast number
are used incorrectly. You will find it a most interesting study. If
you doubt its interest, be so good as to open your dictionary to any
haphazard page and read intently for fifteen minutes. You will find
words the existence of which you had not known, the meanings of which
you had not understood. Observe the derivation and the primary meaning
of the word and you cannot miss the proper use. You cannot put time to
better purpose, if you seek for excellence in English composition, than
by studying the English dictionary a few minutes every day.

When a writer is sure of his information, is sincere in his attitude,
and is eager and enthusiastic for its presentation, the words and the
sentences usually come to him with ease. It is when he is shaky over
his facts, or insincere, or dishonest, that his words become feeble,
and lack convincing quality, do not ring true. It is curious how often
dishonest journalism convicts itself through timidity of diction.

The English language is reaching afar. Those there are who predict that
eventually it will be spoken everywhere. Already it is the language
of more than two hundred million persons. It will carry the tourist
all over the globe by the established routes of travel,--through the
streets of Japan, and the bazars of India, and the South Sea islands of
the Pacific. Tennyson said to Sir Edwin Arnold: “It is bad for us that
English will always be a spoken speech, since that means that it will
always be changing and so the time will come when you and I will be as
hard to read as Chaucer is to-day.”

Indeed, the English language is changing constantly. We are eliding
letters, lopping off terminations, cutting out phrases and abolishing
circumlocution. It is not so old a language as a score of others and
every opportunity for improvement exists. It is, indeed, “an improvable
language.”

Compare, if you please, any modern narrative with the beginning of
Chaucer’s “The Tale of Melibeus”:

  A young man called Melibeus, mighty and riche, begat upon his
  wif, that called was Prudens, a doughter which that called was
  Sophie. Upon a day byfel, that for his disport he is went into
  the fields him to play. His wif and his doughter eek hath he laft
  in-with his hous, of which the dores were fast shut. Thre of
  his olde foos have it espyed, and setten laddres to the walles
  of his hous, and by the wyndowes be entred, and beetyn his wyf,
  and woundid his doughter with fyve mortal woundes in fyve sondry
  places, that is to sayn, in her feet, in her hondes, in her
  eeres, in her nose, and in her mouth; and lafte her for deed, and
  went away.

Or imagine if you can to what small space a modern newspaper copy
reader would reduce the following bit of Washington Irving prose that
was printed in school readers sixty years ago as an example of graceful
writing and felicity of expression:

  In one of those somber and rather melancholy days in the latter
  part of autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost
  mingle together and throw a gloom over the decline of the year I
  passed several hours rambling around Westminster Abbey. There was
  something congenial to the season in the mournful magnificence
  of the old pile; and, as I passed its threshhold, it seemed like
  stepping back into the regions of antiquity and losing myself
  among the shades of former ages.

Usage is amplifying the service of many words whose primary meaning
is obvious from their Latin derivation. _Dexter_ is the Latin word
meaning the right hand, and strictly speaking “dextrous movements”
should mean right hand movements. But usage has brought dexterity to
mean readiness, skill, adroitness, aptitude, both physical or mental.
Macaulay uses it constantly in all of these meanings. “Manufacture” is
easily traced to the Latin origin _manus_, the hand, and _facio_, to
make--to make by hand. But we have come to use “manufacture” for the
making of anything, by machinery, or chemical processes, or in any way
other than with the hand. And who shall say that these usages, these
enlargements of the meaning of dexterity and manufacture, have not
improved the English language?

More than ever before is there present-day need for the use of
plain, understandable English. We live in a money-making age--an
age of industrial development, in which machines are doing the work
that brains used to do, in which vocational and technical education
are demanded of our schools and colleges, and in which the cry for
technical literature is insistent. Experts only understand the
technical words and the language of their specialty, hence the cry for
writers who can translate technical language into plain English that
any reader may understand. Dean West, of Princeton, has deplored the
inability of many professors to teach orally or in writing in any other
language than the dialect of their specialties. Lacking in literary
training they are unable clearly to say what they think.

Some one asked William T. Stead, the English journalist, whether he
would have an astronomer or a newspaper writer prepare an article on
sun spots, and Stead’s instant reply was that the astronomer would
write it for astronomers in language that no one else would understand,
but the reporter would tap the brain of the specialist and so serve out
his knowledge that the ordinary reader would understand.

All the tendency of present-day writing is to translate technical
language, scientific terms, professional formula, and medical terms
into plain common sense English. Let the good work go on!

And let not the young man contemplating a journalistic career be
persuaded that newspaper English is not good English. The men who
wrote for the newspapers of the Spanish-American War, of the great
political movements of Europe of later years, of our great industrial
developments, and of the World War in particular, are the very men
who have rewritten these things into history for magazines and for
book publishers. When they wrote this information for the newspapers,
distinguished college professors and learned critics called it
“journalese”; when it appears in the reviews and in books they speak of
it as “literature.”

In praise of newspaper writing as good training for writers, Anatole
France has this to say:

  It is an inveterate prejudice to believe that one spoils his pen
  in writing for the newspapers. On the contrary one gains in that
  way suppleness as also ease and that readiness without which the
  phrase does not move gracefully and never smiles. It is a good
  school say what one will.

Some of the modern English seems very practical and easy to understand.
The use of the words “scrapped” and “junked” as verbs seems to have
been put permanently into the language by the Washington Disarmament
Conference. A well known journal says, “The newspapers were kidding
him,” and very likely we will have to accept “kid” as a verb. The
entire Navy now says of a man who goes from one place to another that
he “shoves off.” It is proper to say of a dissatisfied man that he
is “peeved,” according to the dictionaries, but its use is new. Food
is now known as “eats” and the pleasures of the pipe or cigar are
called “smokes.” A recent head-line said, “Flivvers furnish booze
to soldiers.” Another newspaper transforms “hokus” into a verb:
“Complained that she hokused him,” while the scholarly _New Republic_
says of some occupation of youngsters that “it gives them no time to go
on the loose.”

A new invention brings out a new crop of words. We have “automobile,”
“garage,” “speedometer,” “limousine,” “taxi,” “taximeter,” “motorboat,”
“motorcycle,” “chauffeur,” all useful and necessary additions to our
elastic language. The airplane has brought as many more. Our slang goes
on apace.

Make your sheet easy to read, as well as easy to understand. The other
day a morning paper in a London cable said, “Wheat sold at 60 shillings
a quarter in the corn market to-day.” That sentence gave the mind of
the reader a jolt and a pause, in the attempt to translate shillings
and quarters into cents and bushels. Few American readers are familiar
with foreign languages, hence all words, as well as quotations, in the
French, German, or other tongues, should be made into English. Pounds,
marks, and francs should be computed into dollars and cents, kilometers
into miles. And who knows where in New York State the Thirty-fifth
Congress District is? Why not call it the Syracuse district? Or who can
tell where in New York City the Sixteenth Precinct police station may
be? Why not identify it as the Mercer Street station?

On the first Sunday of President Wilson’s stay in Paris he went to
church and the Associated Press report said the clergyman preached from
Isaiah ix. 9. Naturally the words of the text were not transmitted at
full cable rates; and naturally, too, a certain curiosity was felt as
to what they were. Yet of six New York daily newspapers examined, one
only had taken the pains to dig out the text and print it. That sheet
certainly served its readers better than did the others.

A little discreet exuberance of expression may be tolerated in
newspaper writing. Sensational newspapers do no harm as long as they
stick to the truth. You may print your editions in red ink, with job
type, with headlines a foot high if you like, without other offenses
than to exaggerate the importance of your announcement. Typographical
eccentricity merely attracts attention. It serves the same purpose
as does the orator’s violent gesture or the messenger’s breathless
announcement. It excites curiosity, arouses interest.

Now, there is such a thing as harmless exaggeration. It enters largely
into our private life. Our dreams of wealth, of success, of happiness
are usually far beyond the fulfillment. We exaggerate our prospects,
ambitions and promises to ourselves. But this form of exaggeration is
most beneficial for it is a spur to ambition and a prod to effort.

The editor is tempted to exaggeration because a little exaggeration
makes it a little more interesting. He sees that the exaggerated novel
sells while the novel true to life is unnoticed; that the actor who
gesticulates and shouts has the loudest applause; that the painter
who outdoes nature outsells the artist who is true to fact. Indeed,
some philosopher has said that an easy road to success lies through
exaggeration. The man who exaggerates his own importance attracts
more attention than the modest man. The merchant who exaggerates his
wares sells more than the man who does not. Sensational clergymen fill
churches while prosy ones preach to empty benches. It was Sidney Smith
who remarked: “It is not the first man who says a thing who deserves
credit for it, but he who says it so long and so loud that at last
he persuades the world that it is true.” Macaulay remarked: “The best
portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of
caricature, and we are not certain that the best histories are not
those in which a little of exaggeration, of fictitious narrative, is
judiciously employed.”

But the editor must use exaggeration with great discretion, must not
pervert the truth. Gross exaggeration becomes downright lying.

Man’s language cunningly adapts itself to man’s thoughts. Sixty years
ago writers were under the influence of what may be described as a
literary age--that so-called golden age of the intellect that marked
the early years of Victoria’s reign. It was a period of intellectual
uplift. People were thinking of literature and talking of literature.
Men hurried through their suppers to read to the family circle the
stories of Dickens and Hawthorne and Walter Scott. The literary lecture
was popular and people went to church for the literary pleasure the
sermon afforded. The newspaper editors were writing literature and were
urging their staffs to renewed literary effort. The magazines were
conspicuous for literary excellence. The theaters were instructive. The
writers of poetry and prose sought a nicety of literary expression, a
daintiness of diction, a legato of language. Courses of study favored
instruction in literature and literary topics, in language and history,
in science and philosophy.

And now, if you please, mark the contrast. We are living in a business
age. War has blunted our sensibilities, has made us callous, has
coarsened civilization. We care little for so-called polite literature.
We want the rugged kind. The family circle does not meet for literary
exercises. We are thinking of commercialism, of money making, of
gigantic locomotives, of immense bridges and tunnels, of aqueducts
a hundred and thirty miles long, of skyscraping buildings, flying
machines, telephones, typewriting machines, typesetting machines,
electric devices. We are thinking of them until we are thinking of
little else.

It is the age of the machine. Mechanical processes are doing the work
that formerly demanded mental skill. The village blacksmith no longer
commands admiration by his picturesque and intelligent forging of
the nail and shoe--he buys them ready made by machinery. The learned
shoemaker no longer artfully fashions my lady’s dainty slipper--the
shoe machine punches it out. We bawl letters and dinner invitations
through that mechanical device, the telephone, instead of writing them
in the old fashioned courtly way. Time was when men put brains into
what they did with their hands; but to-day, machines rather than brains
are doing the work of the world.

Our language and our literature cannot escape the influence. Instead
of the sweetly gliding words and sentences of the men who translated
the Bible, the deliberation of Thackeray, the ornate embellishments of
Washington Irving--instead of the soft speaking poetry of 1850 and the
flossy velvet prose of 1860 our present-day writers are using whirlwind
sentences and words in staccato that bite and scratch and explode. We
are changing our diction from the niceties of literary expression to a
blunter and a coarser form of expression.

There can be no harm in it, however. The net result is to improve
the language. It is taking on the additional strength and agility
and brevity that come of our industrial activity. The very magnitude
of our undertakings, the very dimensions of our ambitions inspire to
greatness of thought and forcefulness of speech. The red blood of war
is nourishing the vitals of our language.



CHAPTER IV

THE FASCINATION OF WRITING FOR THE EDITORIAL PAGE


Our young man who has just entered journalism begins soon to look
longingly toward the editorial page. He wants to become an editorial
writer. He longs to get into the world’s controversies, to thump
Presidents, to crush cabinets, to pulverize politicians, to rebuke
rulers, to sandbag ignorance, sin and superstition whenever they raise
their swollen heads. His immature notion of editorial writing is to
smash into somebody or something. He has a lot to learn.

The editorial page is the most important part of the newspaper. It
gives the sheet its greatest distinction, its widest influence, its
chief reputation--gives the editor his proudest satisfaction. It is
here that the editor shows to the public the true measure of his
ability and inspires the confidence and the respect of his community,
if at all.

The editorial article is a little essay on a current topic. You may
glorify the topic by giving it conspicuous importance in the strongest
language at command, or you may minimize it by inane flabby comments on
its weakest features and by ignoring its essentials. You may give it
fine literary flavor, or you may drool over it. The tricks of the trade
come with practice.

Editorial writing is fascinating. To wield influence always gives
satisfaction. For centuries it has been the ambition of orators and
writers to influence men’s thoughts, to direct men’s actions.

Creative work is perhaps the most enjoyable of all work. In the
newspaper it has come to be the most important. An original editorial
article summons all the creative ability of the writer. It is the
product of his years of study and experience. The news department may
be conducted without an access of book learning, for news getting has
become so systematized and its principles so easy to learn that it is
difficult to invent a new way of treating the news. But before you have
been an editorial writer many months you will have called into precious
use all of your reasoning powers, all of your philosophy, all of the
principles of life and of conduct you may have observed.

These modern days are big with new discoveries and they are first made
public through the newspapers. They give glorious opportunity for
special study, for mastery of the subject; not necessarily a profound
finality of knowledge of it, but a knowledge comprehensive enough to
write about it, a knowledge fascinating in itself as a study--enough to
give its possessor advantage in social conversation and receptiveness
of mind for any new development of the subject.

And it astonishes to discover what a lot of information may be had from
just a few hours of acute mental concentration on a given subject. In
these modern times the literature, even the textbooks of everything
new, are quickly available. The book publishers never were so alert or
so spry to furnish technical knowledge. Such facilities for practical
study never were known. Mere mention to the modern librarian of the
nature of the information sought brings you volumes on the subject in a
twinkling.

In large cities where the newspapers are opulent and large staffs are
employed, the editorial writer is expected to produce one article only
each day. If it be for a morning sheet he has a few hours in which
to prepare it; if it be for an evening edition it must be written
quickly. But the number of opulent newspapers is few in comparison
with the number not able to have large staffs. In almost all American
daily newspapers the editorial writer is expected to furnish several
articles every day. Always he is hurried. He has little time for study
or for proper thought. His task tempts to a condition of routine
thought; tempts to the utterance of the obvious, to imitation and the
reproduction of the thoughts of others. Hurried writing usually is
slovenly writing and that is a reason why nine-tenths of our editorial
writing is mediocre.

The editorial writer should devote much time to study. Not in any other
profession is there greater necessity for study, greater use for the
knowledge that is power. The editor whose cranium is crammed with facts
has great advantage over the editor whose cranium is empty, for the
mind, especially the editorial mind, feeds on facts. The editor must
furnish information and comment on a multitude of facts widely diverse
in themselves, topics treating of every phase of human life, every
shade of animate or inanimate condition. He must study the topic enough
to write on it skillfully. He must convince the reader of his mastery
of the subject. Bulwer Lytton’s reiteration that “Knowledge is power”
finds constant verification in newspaper editing.

Almost all newspaper editorial articles, critiques of the drama or
of music, and all news articles are written at a single sitting and
under the constant admonition to “hurry up” both mind and movement.
The writer must acquire the art of instant concentration of thought
on the one subject, of instantly recalling precedents and of quickly
foreseeing results. This everlasting hurry is a serious drawback to
good newspaper making; but it is a powerful incentive, also, to quick
thinking. What has been said of the politician, that often he must
act before he has read or thought, is singularly true of the editor.
The editorial writer must understand the political and commercial and
social questions of the hour and must be prepared to hop right into a
discussion of them at a moment’s notice. He must train himself to use
quick judgment and to arrive at quick conclusions.

News intelligence may be so presented that it will have quick influence
on the reader. Often it may produce flash conclusions that may be
reversed by next day’s news. Many readers glance at headlines and
quickly scan news columns and are influenced by what they see without
giving it a scrap of intellectual reflection.

But the editorial writer must have real merit to influence other men.
He must possess the art of composition, of ready speech, of carrying
conviction. He not only thinks for his reader, but he seeks to persuade
the reader to his way of thinking. But always the editorial article
should be a help to the reader, should inform, interest, explain,
elucidate as well as influence.

The modern headline artist has solved the problem of attracting the
reader’s attention. The editorial writer has not the advantage of
typographical eccentricity to help him; he must attract and convince by
what he says.

It is difficult to indicate, even much less to advise the student of
journalism, how to study for editorial writing--so vast is the field
of desirable knowledge. But first of all he must read the newspapers
and the periodical publications, for he must understand the topics
that are engaging public thought. The editor must absorb and remember
a mass of current facts that will not be recorded in textbooks and
histories for months or years to come if indeed they ever are recorded.
The newspapers are the first to record great events, the weekly press
is next, and the magazines then follow. Histories and textbooks come
along later. No other way of keeping up with public events has been
discovered. The process is easy and interesting, however.

There should be thoughtful study of the great principles that govern
human conduct. All history is useful. And obviously the editor cannot
know too much of the fundamentals of government, of law, diplomacy,
politics, and political causes, of finance, taxation, philanthropy,
the relations of labor and capital and so on--the list is endless. The
schools of journalism give much attention to these essentials. Their
courses are prepared with great wisdom for the attainment of practical
knowledge. Young men who would be journalists will profit greatly by
study in these schools.

In almost all of the large newspaper offices there is a daily editorial
council composed of the editorial writers, the managing editor, the
city editor, the foreign editor, and sometimes the Sunday editor,
and the special writers. This council meets at the beginning of the
newspaper day. The events of the moment have informal discussion and a
general conclusion is indicated by the editor as to what must be the
editorial attitude toward them. Thus the editorial policy of the sheet
is understood by all. The editor assigns to the writers their topics
for discussion.

The editor indicates the paper’s policy toward all public questions and
the editorial page is just what he makes it. The newspaper does not
rise above its editor. His assistants write as he directs and wishes,
without question, regardless of their personal convictions as to the
wisdom of the policy or their personal attitude toward it. But an
assistant is not often asked to write contrary to his convictions.

The editor usually revises all editorial page articles and his staff
does not return for night work as was the practice of morning
newspaper editorial writers fifty years ago. One editorial writer
remains to comment briefly on any extraordinary news that may develop.
This change in general newspaper practice was inspired by the late
Charles A. Dana who urged that all editorial comment should be prepared
with great deliberation and thoughtfulness, that hastily written
articles were perfunctory or were expression of the obvious. He wanted
not the editorial expression written at midnight for publication at two
A. M. and the other editors came to his way of thinking and
doing.

Little change has been made in the appearance of the editorial page
in the last fifty years. The make-up remains about the same, the most
important article or “the leader” occupying first place, the other
articles tapering off in the order of their supposed goodness or
importance. Few new features are seen. The column or two of letters
to the editor appear with the same regularity and in the same place
as they did fifty years ago, written, as then, for the most part by
persons who delight to see their names in print, who like to find
fault or criticize, who seek to exploit a hobby or a precious project
for reforming something. Nevertheless, many letters to the editor
are of great value, informative, suggestive, original. Some of the
newspaper controversies in which the public takes part are amusing
and instructive. Many of the letters to the editor are written by
the editor himself--an easy, convenient device for avoiding personal
responsibility for the sentiment exploited.

The increase in the size of newspapers has been that more pages of
news and department features may be added. The editorial page has
remained unchanged. Indeed, instead of additional editorial articles
following increase of the sheet’s size the tendency has been to print
less comment. We have quadrupled the volume of space devoted to general
news, to sports, to financial reports, but have actually lessened the
number of columns carrying editorial articles.

But we note decided change in the editorial articles themselves, in the
choice of topics for comment, in the character, the quality, the spirit
of discussion, in the diction. The old time editorial page was devoted
almost entirely to politics. It was the expression of a strongly
partisan editor and was surcharged with vituperation and abuse of his
personal and political enemies and of the opposition candidates. “You
lie, you villain; and you know you lie” was one of the gentler forms
of argument in common use. The ability of the enemy candidate and the
quality of his political principles were treated with unfairness and
contempt. This unfairness flavored news reports as well. I distinctly
remember a meeting of three thousand howling, shouting, partisan
lunatics alive with vim and bursting with enthusiasm all honestly
interested in their cause; and they were described next morning by an
opposition newspaper as a handful of silent, melancholy, dejected,
drooling curiosity seekers and vagrants who had crawled into the hall
to keep warm.

But the modern newspaper has ceased to be a rigid partisan organ. It
is much more moderate of discussion. There is less acrimonious attack
on public men, less political misrepresentation, less unfairness toward
any opponent. Indeed, it is common enough nowadays for an editor to
make a fair and honest presentation of the opposition argument before
undertaking to demolish it. It always has been a question whether
excessive vituperation and venomous attack have as much influence
as temperate reasoning and the moderate expression of righteous
conclusions. It is easy to call names--to call a man a thief or a
liar--and the personal journalism of fifty years ago rang with such
language. The editorial writing of to-day is moderation itself compared
with the old time kind.

Even more conspicuous is the change in the choice of topics selected
for editorial discussion. Politics dominated four-fifths of the old
time page, day after day. The stirring events preceding and succeeding
the Civil War aroused great interest in political principles and in
political leadership. It was a continuous performance of political
strife involving the issues of secession, the extension of slavery
to the new states, the conduct of the war, and the multitude of
complications and consequences attending reconstruction. The period
between 1850 and 1870 was perhaps the most important politically in
American history after the Revolution. The American editor was in his
glory.

Just at that time the Victorian era of literature was at full growth.
It was a literary age. We are living just now in a commercial age and
commercialism engrosses public attention. It is changing our processes
of thinking, changing our choice of editorial topics from political and
literary topics to commercial topics, changing our diction from the
smoothly flowing ornate sentences of the Victorian era to a blunter,
more robust form of expression that tells what it wants to say in a
staccato of fewest, shortest words.

Nevertheless, in the plain robust writing of the day we miss much
of the pleasure of reading. In the everlasting hunt for fact, for
practical information, there is less food for the imagination, less
suggestion on which we may enlarge the imagination. Our thoughts are
directed in mathematical lines, in practical directions. There is less
of the sentimental.

Politics we must have with us always, but the routine politics of
ordinary times do not especially interest the public. It is in the few
months of a presidential campaign only that we find the American people
approaching political excitement. An Edison test of political knowledge
would bring many of us to grief. How many readers of these lines, for
instance, can name the officers of their state chosen at the latest
election, or can name the state’s delegation in Congress, or can give
even the name of each member of the President’s cabinet and the post he
occupies?

Always there must be love for good literature among the cultured, but
the mass of the people care less for literature than they did fifty
years ago when the literature of the Victorian period was uppermost in
thought.

In the larger offices there are from six to ten editorial staff
writers who go to the editorial rooms daily. The editor has at
command always a number of editorial writers who contribute in the
line of their specialties--the writer on medical topics, the army
and navy experts, the mechanical engineer, the man who is authority
on geographical research, the expounder of financial and commercial
topics, and so on. These men are useful adjuncts to the staff and they
are in constant demand.

It is quite the practice for editorial writers to specialize on a few
topics, to become office authority on them, to be able to explain,
elucidate, construct, with that authority and conviction which expert
knowledge alone can inspire--to assure the orator confidently that he
has evaded the main question, to riddle the pretension of a dishonest
promoter, or the fabrications of a fake explorer, or the vaporings of
a scrubby scientist. The newspaper has to disclose the humbug of the
world as well as its realities.

Just at the moment (1922) the world is in confusion in consequence of
the great war and the expert writer is in demand to solve the problems
growing out of a vast reconstruction. The writer who understands the
fundamentals of diplomacy, or of trade and commerce, of government,
of international law is welcome in newspaper offices. Moreover, it is
cheering to recognize that you know as much about a given topic as does
any one else.

To do editorial page writing is the ambition of nearly all young
journalists. The office hours are fixed and short when compared with
those of the rest of the staff. The writer has more time for study
and recreation. He has the satisfaction of doing the highest grade of
newspaper work. His responsibility is not excessive for his articles
are subject to revision and to criticism in advance of publication. It
is clean, wholesome intellectual work with a minimum likelihood for
mistake or error.

But, in the larger cities the editorial writer’s work is anonymous. He
is little known except by his associates, for the practice of signing
editorial articles has not become common. The names of other writers
are made conspicuous. The man who describes the financial situation,
the bridge whist savant, some of the book reviewers, the playhouse
critics, even the writers of base ball games and prize fights,--these
are permitted to print their names at the head of their columns. Not so
the editorial writers although they perform the highest service for the
newspaper, doing the work requiring the most brains and the severest
study. If one of them writes an especially noteworthy article the
editor in chief quite likely gets the credit for it from the public.

Editorial writing requires a different literary touch from that of
plain narration. It is harder to catch the knack of it. The special
article or news report gives information only; the editorial article
seeks to persuade, or explain, or amuse. It must attract the reader’s
attention and it is the writer’s art of combining chat, information
and opinion that accomplishes this result. Its opportunities for
literary perfection are limitless. Every possible conceit, or trick
of language, argument, invective, ridicule, sarcasm, humor, frolic,
pathos, every element that enters literature, may be indulged in, and
the more striking the more successful.

Always the editorial article should have a purpose. Always exists the
opportunity for nicety of language, for that use of words to befit
the thought that constitutes good composition. The editorial writer
must not forget that almost all readers seek to be amused rather than
instructed.

“I had not thought of that before” is a common comment of the newspaper
reader. But the editor had thought of it because he had been taught to
think. He must be informed of the world’s events and be prepared to
tell the reader exactly what they mean.

Let it be impressed on the young man in journalism that he must learn
to explain as well as to record. And let it be repeated that he must
expect to think for that very large proportion of his readers who
from lack of time and from force of habit and from inability because
they have not practiced it, are unable, unaided, to diagnose and draw
conclusions from the burning questions of the day. You cannot give
better service than by explaining the alpha and the omega of important
events.



CHAPTER V

WHAT TO PRINT--THE PROBLEM OF HOW TO INTEREST AND INFORM THE READER


In his meditations over newspaper possibilities the late Joseph
Pulitzer found himself reasoning that the existing newspapers were
written above the understanding of the multitudes and consequently were
not read by them. Hundreds of thousands of the metropolitan district
population read no daily newspaper because the prices of the sheets
were high and because editorial utterances were “over their heads,”
were too profound, too argumentative, too scholarly. Mr. Pulitzer
pictured to himself a newspaper so simple of speech and so simple of
editorial expression that this vast population could understand it.
He purchased the New York _World_, reduced its price, tried to make
it appeal to the masses, and before long he had attained a very great
circulation and a very great fortune.

Now, Mr. Pulitzer accomplished this result by contemplating his
newspaper from the viewpoint of the reader rather than from that of
the editor. He gave the people something they had wanted. Giving the
public what it wants is the surest way of securing a horde of readers.
His reading matter was mild; the typography spectacular. He attracted
attention with headlines a foot high and with letter press that looked
like thickly woven barbed wire fence. One half the page was daubed with
blotches of black type and the other half was smeared with red ink. But
typographical eccentricity alone does little harm; it’s a question of
taste.

Mr. Pulitzer had made his great success on the lines indicated above
and was breathing easily. It was not until another man came along who
outdid Mr. Pulitzer in multiple exaggerations of the same game that
the country saw the most riotous journalism ever known anywhere. Mr.
Pulitzer’s early efforts at sensationalism were as a smoking ash barrel
when compared with the Vesuvius of volcanic flame and melted lava that
followed. That Mr. Hearst would collect a bigger mob of readers was
inevitable, but Mr. Pulitzer lost no readers and gained many. Both
establishments kept up the contest as long as circulations continued to
grow; but with the pause of the rocket rise things began to simmer down
to a less spectacular splendor of insanity. The inflammation of the
imagination subsided and gradually they approached the routine and the
respectability of the other newspapers.

It was the same old story--the story so familiar to every journalist of
ripening years--of building up a newspaper circulation by spectacular
methods and then relapsing into ordinary goodness with a deliberation
so gradual that the reader does not notice the change. For every editor
knows that the more details of sin, vice, and crime he crams into his
newspaper the more copies of that newspaper will be sold; and every
editor knows that the most subtle temptation that besets him is the
temptation to print the things that should not be printed and that
temptation is the more acute because he knows that the people want to
read them. Aye! there’s the rub! The people want the sensational stuff.
The very sensational newspapers sell three or four times as many copies
as do the conservative ones. The proportion is even larger in London
and Paris. In our large cities almost all the newspapers of great
circulation began the building up process by audacious sensationalism;
as they became prosperous they became moderate.

Joseph Addison of long-ago literary fame recognized the public liking
for sensation. He says in _The Spectator_: “At the same time I am
very sensible that nothing spreads a paper like private calumny and
defamation.” And the Rev. Lyman Abbott, in rebuking the sensational
press, was moved to remark: “Is the defense of the newspaper that
it must give the public what it wants a good one? Most certainly
no!--no more than the selling of whiskey, opium, stale fish or decayed
vegetables. The editor is or ought to be a public teacher.” The popular
taste that demands this sensational sort of newspaper stimulant
attracted the notice of Lafcadio Hearn, who remarks: “Everywhere
there is a public of this kind to whom lachrymose emotion and mawkish
sentiment give the same kind of pleasure that black, red, and blazing
yellow give to the eyes of little children and savages.”

Conversely, the _Christian Science Monitor_ is read by thousands of
persons for the reason not so much that it represents a religious
emotion as that it prints wholesome news free from spasm. “It reflects
the true balance of the world’s work and refuses to see only the
evil and morbid happenings in it and let it appear that they are the
preponderant forces of the world’s efforts. Thus it emphasizes the
decent things, the heroic things, the things worth while.” With fairly
good service the _Christian Science Monitor_ presents the news of the
day, and it especially appeals to parents who wish to keep the tart
news reports of the secular press from their children.

What to print? That is a query that has disturbed many an editor’s
nightcap. So much depends on the editorial purpose. If the editor seeks
to have a wholesome influence, seeks to do good, seeks a reputation
for honesty of purpose and honesty of community service he naturally
will stick to a conservative course; for somehow, exaggeration and
sensationalism, not to mention falsehood, do not seem quite to
harmonize with moral precepts; nor do they inspire confidence in the
editor’s influence. The conservative sheets are duller, but they are
trusted the more--and public confidence is a mighty fine foundation on
which to build a healthy circulation.

Many persons read the same newspaper for years and years. They become
used to its ways, to its arrangement of news and topics; and they
have confidence in its integrity. It comes to be almost a spiritual
consolation to them. They swear by it and they believe in it just
as they believe in their pastor or their family physician. This is
especially true of readers in the smaller cities and villages although
it prevails everywhere. Now, it behooves the editor to nurse this
attitude, for once it gets hold on a community it is hard to dislodge.
It grows like a river after spring rains, slowly but surely increasing
in volume and in strength. The people bought Greeley’s _Tribune_
because they believed that Greeley was honest. They were willing to be
influenced by what he said. For the same reason Bowles’s Springfield
_Republican_ became popular and prosperous. Throughout the country we
have repeated instances of newspapers having the confidence of the
community because they are honestly conducted.

The New York _Times_ is perhaps our most gratifying exhibit of a
newspaper advanced to supreme success by conservative methods. Free
from exaggeration of statement, or typographical appearance, or
hysteria of any sort, it has grown to great circulation and influence.
Mr. Ochs planned this result on the theory of giving to each reader the
things in which he was personally interested, printing the news in such
volume as to attract a great variety of interests. The lawyer found the
full court calendar, the real estate man a record of every sale, the
sporting enthusiast the result of every game.

Reversal of political policy has damaged the prosperity of many a
newspaper. In 1872 the New York _Tribune_, the Chicago _Tribune_,
and the Cincinnati _Commercial Tribune_, that had built up large
circulations and had secured a profitable business as Republican
newspapers, bolted the nomination of the Republican candidate,
President Grant, and supported Horace Greeley, the Liberal Democratic
nominee, for the presidency. They lost more than half of their readers.

In 1884, the New York _Times_, that always had been unflinchingly
Republican, bolted the nomination of James G. Blaine and supported the
candidacy of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic standard bearer. It lost
half of its readers. In the same campaign, the _Sun_, of New York, that
heretofore had favored the Democratic cause, bolted Cleveland. It lost
more than half of its readers.

Many other instances of loss of circulation in consequence of change
of political policy might be given. Newspaper editors of long memories
expect popular resentment of a turn-coat policy and they give great
consideration to any change before making it. No amount or degree
of caressing talk or pussy-paw argument seems to soothe the man
whose politics or religion has been attacked. Also, if you attack a
man’s politics or his religion you are likely to make that man your
enemy--and almost every man has a trace of politics or religion in
his makeup. He regards it as a personal assault on himself. He also
resents criticism of a friend or of the object of his hero worship. The
newspaper that attacked General Grant when Grant was the idol of the
nation, when he was worshiped because he had led our armies to victory,
that newspaper lost thousands of readers and its editor lost a host of
his personal friends. The newspaper that attacked the Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher with more violence than did any other newspaper, at the time of
the famous Beecher trial, lost three or four thousand of its readers a
day while the attacks continued. The public had become greatly excited
and divided over the question of Mr. Beecher’s guilt or innocence.
Neighbors shook fists in each other’s faces on Brooklyn street corners
and the angry controversy spread all over the country. The church
people in general championed the pastor and their defense of him came
at length, in a way, to be regarded as a defense of religion as well,
and the newspaper assaults as an attack on religion.

We have said that it behooves the editor who has the confidence of his
constituents to nurse that confidence--that a circulation based on
confidence is not easily lost. Nevertheless, it is fatal to mislead the
public. It is dangerous to circulation to go against public sentiment.
A knowledge of public sentiment and the ability to anticipate public
sentiment are brilliants, indeed, in the editor’s jewelbox of sagacity.

The absolutely fearless editor who values his opinion more than he
values his income, will slam into the public’s most cherished notions
if he thinks he is right. He will take a violent attitude on all
public questions. The timid editor shuns controversy. His policy is
to praise rather than to condemn. He fears unpopularity. He knows
that to lambaste the city government is to lose the city printing. He
strives to please everybody, to avoid antagonizing any large part of
the community. The fearless editor disregards consequences; the timid
editor avoids them.

Mr. Dana used to say: “We must make the paper talked about. We must
make it more interesting. The people will not buy it if it is dull.”
Concerning a piece of inconsequential news that he had clipped from
its columns he wrote: “This is not good. It is too commonplace. There
is no poetry in it. A blockhead might have written it.” He abhorred
the commonplace. He urged constantly that minor routine news be put
aside for anything bright or unusual, that verbal tediousness be hooted
out of the place. He loved literature. He appreciated and praised
good writing and he inspired his staff to enthusiasm for it, and to
superexcellence of workmanship. Mr. Dana chose to lead public opinion
rather than be led by it. He wrote with extraordinary forcefulness and
with entire disregard, with absolute unconcern, as to the effect of
his utterances on the circulation of the paper. Repeatedly he printed
articles that he knew must cost him thousands of readers.

Greeley’s idea was to print a newspaper of national importance and
national influence; and that meant of course the printing of a lot of
national politics. He sought to be a great political leader, to be the
champion of his party. He was little interested as a journalist in the
ordinary run of news.

Whitelaw Reid, who succeeded Greeley as editor of the New York
_Tribune_, once said: “The thing always forgotten by the closest
critics of the newspapers is that the newspapers must be measurably
what their readers make them, what their constituents call for and
sustain.” Reid wished the _Tribune_ to be of national importance.
His remark naturally recalls the continuous performance discussion
as to whether the newspapers lead the people or whether public
opinion leads the newspapers. But we must agree, I am sure, that it
is useless to give the people what they do not want.

How can we best interest the reader? People enjoy reading about the
things in which they have participated. If you have attended a public
meeting you follow with pleasure the newspaper report of that meeting.
You are grateful to recognize things you remember the speaker to have
said. If you have been to the theater you want to read a report or
a criticism of the performance. You are pleased especially if the
critic mentions some good or poor feature that you had noticed. It is
a sort of verification of your judgment. You feel a sense of personal
participation in the article. The same is true of the opera or a
music event. All these things are constantly recurring, and reporters
and critics are likely to become so familiar with them that their
importance becomes obscured. This is true of opera and theater notices.
The opera critic who has been listening to Faust for thirty years
ceases to write much about it; but the young person who hears the opera
for the first time is disappointed because so little is printed about
the performance.

We are much more interested in accounts of the ball games, the prize
fights, the contests of any sort that we have seen than we can be in
those not seen.

To the man or woman in society the news of society is infinitely more
than mere gossip. The society man of any pretension must know what
society folk are doing, must be informed of their every movement.
His newspaper gives the hint for many letters. He must congratulate
the family whose daughter’s engagement is announced. He must
sympathize with the bereaved. Society news has the personal note, and
personalities sell newspapers. Cram your sheet with them, young man!

We are living in a commercial age, a money-making age. People are
thinking as never before of money accumulation and business expansion.
The journalistic tendency of the hour is to exalt the practical and
minimize the sentimental. War has made us money mad. We note a growing
fascination for articles of the practical, of how great fortunes are
developed, of how money is made and lost, of how the poor become rich
and the rich become poor--stories of business construction involving
millions, of the application of invention to everyday needs. This
kind of narrative includes the recital of personal successes, how the
quick-witted boy becomes a captain of industry, how Nature’s forces
are utilized and Nature’s secrets are turned to practical account. The
details of how great success or great wealth has been achieved never
have failed to fascinate mankind.

All fiction has been saturated with stories of money-seeking because
the topic is so interesting. Nevertheless fiction can but feebly
compete with the realities of the present. The tales of great gambling
in Wall Street, of card conquests at Monte Carlo, of new gold
discoveries, of money made in real-estate speculations, of gigantic
swindling operations, of big winnings on the racing track, of mental
smartness in money-getting, of big success in any quest for cash--you
cannot give the public too much of this kind of matter if you wish to
sell your sheet.

But, if you ask me to describe the kind of news for which the people
surge and struggle around the bulletin boards--the most popular kind of
news printed anywhere--I must reply that it is found in the details of
a conquest, a fight, whether between men with their fists, or dogs, or
armies, politicians or polo players, football teams or racing horses,
church choirs or kitchen cabinets.

I remember so well that in my boyhood days my own little village held
its breath to await details of the world’s champion prize fight between
John C. Heenan, of America, and Tom Sayers, of England. Not since that
day has interest in prize fights languished. The fist fight between
John L. Sullivan and James Corbett quadrupled the circulation of
next-day newspapers. Repeatedly the big New York Madison Square Garden
has been crowded to its roof with enthusiasts who paid from fifteen to
fifty dollars to see two men batter each other. Fifty thousand persons
see the big football games, and fifteen millions read about them.

So great is the interest in baseball contests the newspapers are
compelled to print from seven to ten columns a day in description of
them. The same conditions exist to a triflingly less degree only with
contests in tennis, rowing, polo, yachting, horse racing, golf--any
event, especially in athletics, involving a fight for supremacy. I
know of one New York newspaper that confidently counts on an increase
of eighteen or twenty thousand in circulation with the opening of the
baseball season. There seems to be no limit to popular interest in the
details of any kind of contest, especially one that has been lavishly
advertised.

Business usually languishes every four years while the fight for the
Presidency proceeds, and the newspapers print hundreds of columns about
it. The squabbles, the encounters, the fights in sports, in business,
in politics, in the courts, among doctors and educators, in the
churches even--they all absorb the people almost to the limit of human
interest. The young man in journalism should get wise to this interest.

Whatever is nearest the heart, whatever is uppermost in mind--that is
what we want to read about. We are changeable creatures in thought, in
purpose, and in habit. The new always is fascinating. The smart editor
recognizes the love of change; accordingly he exalts the new. More than
that, he anticipates interest that is to develop, foresees changes in
government policies, the introduction of new methods, the outcome of
scientific discovery. He prepares his readers accordingly.

Man’s great interest is in his business, in his money-making.
Frequently the newspapers are of especial service to him. In many
lines of business they are a necessity. The manufacturer of goods,
for instance, searches every column for information bearing on
the raw product that enters into them, the price, the supply, the
demand, weather conditions that may influence, the condition and the
cost of transportation, the effect of legislation, the menace of
competition--anything that has influence on the making and delivery of
his product. Quick information is priceless to him.

But interest in war surpasses all other attention, as it has from
the beginning of man’s mastery over man. It is difficult to recall
any condition of human existence not affected by war. War is supreme
as an agent of destruction. It destroys not only nations and
governments, life and property, but also it blunts civilization,
coarsens refinement, stops study and progress, prevents the fulfillment
of life-cherished plans and ambitions, changes the life purpose
of millions of men. It is entirely impossible to comprehend the
multitudinous effects of war or to appreciate the condition of mind in
which a stricken people emerge from war. The study of war gives the
journalist exalted opportunity. His readers are interested in war more
than in anything else.

Some folks delight in reading criticisms of their neighbors, attacks on
public men or complaints of the conduct of mankind in general. This is
a species of jealousy that rejoices in the discomfiture of others. They
gloat over disclosures, get cynical over the downfall of public idols
and the reversals of popular beliefs. Nothing pleases them more than
to have a clergyman go astray or a church member get in jail. They
are fond of investigations. Their pinhead perceptions find nourishment
in the mistakes of others. They always take the negative side. They
question. They doubt. They lament. They scold.

It is easy for an editor to acquire this attitude. Many editors have
assumed it, beginning with the notion of catering to people who like
this sort of reading; then they gradually absorb the flavor. We have
had the examples of ill-natured newspapers nicknamed by the public the
“Growler,” or the “Scold,” or the “Old Pessimist.” Not long ago several
magazines sought fame and circulation by a conduct of criticism of
public men called muckraking. The sale of thousands of copies attested
general greed for that kind of reading. This public attitude certainly
tempts the editor; but experience has taught that the public scold is
vastly unpopular, be he editor, preacher, teacher or oracle of any sort.

And many are interested in reading about the weather. It is a universal
topic of conversation. It governs our agricultural prosperity. It
influences every kind of business. It stops the ball games. It parches
our soil, interferes with our plans, disturbs our comfort, upsets
mental processes, compels us to change our clothing when we do not
want to. It makes us wear clumsy things on our feet. It raises the
very mischief in a hundred different ways. Everybody thinks of it or
speaks of it twenty times a day. The wise editor will print a fine fat
paragraph about it, describing the weather over all this broad land,
giving the practical, the scientific reasons for its varied changes,
and explaining the indicated effect on trade, travel, and temperament.

What shall we print? A California newspaper sought through a
questionnaire to learn from its readers how much of the sheet they
actually read. It summarized the eighteen hundred replies. Seventy-five
per cent attested that the reader looked at the headlines and rarely
finished the article; only twenty-five per cent ever read an article
through. One answer said, “I go beyond the headline once in ten
times, perhaps, but when I do I read it through.” Still another, “I
usually find all I want in the first paragraph.” The net result seemed
to indicate that almost all simply scanned the sheet in search of
something to interest them, and found little. The chief criticism was
that the articles were too long.

The Paris daily publications before the war minimized the news and
in its place presented discussion and comment, sketchy description,
much fiction and literary matter. They achieved enormous circulations.
The most successful were exceedingly well written, were distinctly
literary; and they prospered greatly without the aid of news features
of the American and English journalistic sort. They were made
attractive and interesting by their excellence of workmanship.

The New York _Evening Journal_ was carried to enormous circulation by
editorial presentation rather than news exploiting. For many years
it had neither the Associated Press nor any other news association
service. Its editorial utterances attracted far reaching attention.
What news it had was emphasized by exaggeration and breathless
announcement, and typographical monstrosity.

The _Evening Sun_, which never had the Associated Press dispatches,
attained great popularity and circulation through cheerful, bright, and
witty illumination of things, and a minimum of profundity.

In a newspaper address before the Convocation of the University of the
State of New York, Mr. Don Seitz, of the New York _World_, said:

  Talent was the thing in the old days, but we have gotten over
  that, alas! Energy has taken the place of talent and the sudden
  fact has taken the place of the news. The modern editor has been
  misled somehow into using a great deal of display type to handle
  the few words he uses, and at first I had the thought that this
  was wrong. But somehow I have changed my mind. It is necessary
  to arouse interest. The vast number of readers are rudimentary
  in thought. They do not take easily to a dull solid column no
  matter how interesting it may be. In trying, therefore, to catch
  the largest number of readers the editor conceived the idea of
  putting in larger type. It has shown what the people wanted, and
  that they must have some quick way of learning what was going on,
  and mind you, we have shortened up our reading time a great deal,
  which is another fact.

With many people newspaper reading becomes a fixed habit. They come to
enjoy their favorite publication just as they enjoy food and sleep. It
gives them topics for thought and conversation. They become interested
in its features, in the “colyum” of fun and chat and josh that has
become so popular, in the illustrated comic strips that started with
Foxy Grandpa and have come to include Percy and Ferdie, Bringing up
Father, Mutt and Jeff, and the rest of the jolly folk. Constant reading
about them brings a feeling of personal acquaintance with them and the
habit of seeking for them. They help amazingly to draw readers and to
retain them. The newspaper habit is to be encouraged and these features
help to fix it. There can be no doubt of the popularity of the medical
column, of the puzzle department, of the question and answer feature,
and of the other like things that serve to amuse the reader.

Parents seek topics, also, that will interest the children, simple and
childlike though they be. It is amusing to note how interested older
people get in articles on important subjects written down to a child’s
understanding. Somebody is going to make a fortune sometime by printing
a children’s newspaper giving the news and the questions of the day in
language and thought that children can understand. “Grown-ups” will
appreciate it quite as much as will the youngsters.

Just how much of exaggeration and feverish language and typographical
eccentricity to inject into the sheet always puzzles the editor. He is
tempted by public demand for it, yet he does not want a reputation for
sensationalism.

The hysteria of the sensational newspaper may not be of harm to a
young person who reads it casually. But suppose she, the shop girl
for instance, acquires the habit of reading it every day. Because of
her employment, or her environment, she has not time or opportunity
to read anything else. She comes to think and to talk in its
exaggerated, inflamed, feverish language. Its typographical, breathless
announcements startle her--fill her with feverish emotions. She becomes
a pessimist, for in the sensational sheet the true, the good, the
normal are ignored. “Virtue go hang; vice is the thing that attracts
attention” is the motto. The maiden is fed on the abnormal, the
unusual, on mental monstrosities, and fancies. It influences her life.

It was said not so very long ago that ten years of cheap reading had
changed the British from the most stolid nation of Europe to the most
hysterical and theatrical. Be this as it may: habitual cheap reading
must of necessity produce cheap thinking, and cheap expression of
thought, and consequently cheap moral conduct. It is in this direction
that the sensational press and the cheap literature of the day have
their chief influence. Cheap literature produces cheap mentality and,
therefore, a cheap people.

In defense of sensationalism it is urged that you cannot arouse the
interest of the ignorant man by ordinary methods of speech. His mind is
too sluggish to comprehend it as ordinarily spoken. He can appreciate
big headlines and lurid catch words and they attract him.

I have lingered over these things in somewhat prosy manner, perhaps,
but if you are going into the newspaper business I know of little more
important than real study of what to print. The practical newspaper
man thinks of it by the hour. The good newspaper is not the product of
chance. Every phase of life is thought out and its relation to public
interest is weighed. Public interest changes almost daily. It must be
studied, must be anticipated, must be prepared for.



CHAPTER VI

THE PLEASING EXPERIENCES OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT


The post of foreign correspondent is sought eagerly by newspaper men.
The work is interesting and agreeable and the experience is invaluable.
It gives opportunity for foreign travel and for that mental enrichment
through study and observation that cannot be experienced elsewhere.
The correspondent is removed from the constriction of home office
discipline and office tradition and the everlasting admonition to
“hurry up.” In times of war his work is strenuous, of course, and
highly important, and entirely different from his activities in times
of peace.

The more important American newspapers have a representative in
the chief capitals of Europe, some of them in two or three cities,
others in London alone. These men send important news by cable and
correspondence by mail and it is their privilege to select their own
topics, largely. Thus they prove or disprove their possession of that
rare quality of journalistic excellence: the ability to judge what will
be interesting or important to the far-distant reader. In the newspaper
office at home the writer usually writes to order on an indicated
subject and often without regard to his own notion of whether the topic
is interesting or not. The foreign correspondent must judge for himself
what to send. But his field is large, his opportunities are many, and
he comes to love the work because it is so fascinating. He writes of
the great questions that are moving Europe, of the coronation of kings,
the collapse of cabinets, the burial of popes, the birth and life and
death of revolutions, of social life, of political life, of artistic
life, the triumphs of science, invention, and discovery. The treasuries
of the Old World invite his study. Its follies, frivolities, foibles
and fashions tempt to his amusement. He has a mighty good time over
there.

But, when he begins to send cablegrams to his newspaper he encounters
a situation that appeals to his business manager as well as to the
reading public, for the cost of cable messages is great. Seven cents
a word for those that take their time and twenty-five cents for those
that are to be rushed--and columns to be filled. Here is where judgment
as to what to send, cunning in condensing, skill in skeletonizing
combine to reap reward.

For more than twenty years the ordinary press rate for cable messages
ranged between five and ten cents a word. Some little time before the
war the wireless telegraph people delivered reports for five cents, but
without assurance of prompt service. The system had not been made so
perfect as it is now and its operation was not entirely satisfactory.
Then the war stopped its use for newspaper purposes. It has been
resumed recently at the five-cent rate, messages to be delivered within
twenty-four hours. The cable companies made some attempt to meet this
price before the war, but not much came of it. Ten cents a word for
the regular message and twenty-five for the expedited dispatch was
the price for a long time. The expedited message was the message sent
immediately without any delay. The ordinary message was taken without
assurance of quick delivery. During the war rates varied. The cables
were crowded and the newspapers were compelled to use the expedited
messages. At one time the cost of this message was thirty-three cents a
word.

Since the war something like the old rates have been restored. Just
now they are seven cents for the ordinary report. The expedited
message arrangement is no longer offered; but, by making the report
a commercial message, at commercial rates of twenty-five cents, the
newspaper article takes its turn for transmission. This means that the
commercial message is used, commonly, for the newspaper cannot wait.
It cannot risk missing the news through delay. Money is lost on the
news-report delivered after the sheet has gone to press.

Experience has attested that code or cipher messages are not practical
for newspaper purposes. The opportunity for error is too great and too
much time is required for translation. But experience has taught, also,
the use of certain prefixes and suffixes and jugglings by which much
may be expressed in few words. It is a simple system of skeletonizing,
easy of translation into the finished product. The plan depends
largely on complete understanding between the sender abroad and the
cable editor in the home office.

The London man sends newspaper clippings by mail of events that are
likely to figure or reappear in future news, programs of coming
happenings like coronations, or festivals, or ceremonials, descriptions
of ships about to be launched, or buildings to be dedicated,
inaugurations, pageants, with all of the plans, arrangements, and the
names of persons who are to participate, and the like. When the event
happens he cables, for instance: “Madrid Alfonso crowned unchange.”
“Unchange” means that the coronation of the Spanish king was solemnized
without change of program, that the matter sent in advance by mail may
be used with what the correspondent now cables. The cable editor in
America writes from what the correspondent sends, and from the program
slips, a report of the coronation, embellishing it perhaps with a few
lines here and there about the cheering multitudes, the elaborate
decorations, and the other things that obviously add splendor to every
coronation of a king. The cable editor knows right well that if the
crowds were sullen or the decorations were lacking or the soldiers
did not strut and shout, the correspondent surely would say so. The
correspondent is keen to notice any deviation from the program and
to cable details of the change. The editor at this end pads out the
skeleton report into readable narrative with no intention of deceiving
anybody.

Newspaper descriptions of the doings of men in public life, or who in
any manner attract public attention, are mailed to the home office
and they are of frequent use when the man reappears in the news in
any way. A few years ago one Barnard Barnato made fame for himself by
getting a great fortune through South Africa diamond mine operations,
and newspaper cuttings exploiting him were in every office. One night a
cable message floated into New York which ran:

“Barnato homing Unicorn suicided overboard off Gibraltar.” From
these seven words and his newspaper slips and his general knowledge
of Barnato the cable editor constructed an article of a third of a
column or so in length which said that Barnard Barnato, the widely
celebrated South African diamond king, who recently had visited his
famous mines a few miles north of Cape Town, met his death by suicide,
while returning to his home in England, by leaping overboard from
the Royal Line steamship the _Unicorn_ when the vessel was off port
of Gibraltar, etc., etc. And the account included a description of
the victim of self-destruction, his vast operations, his family and
business associations, and other things about Barnato that supposedly
might interest a reader.

Again, there comes a message dated London which reads:

  Reading Readingess New Yorkward safternoon Philadelphia untalk
  peace undenied gravity Russian.

From his knowledge of the diplomatic situation and of current events,
and from his bunch of newspaper cuttings the foreign editor finds it
quite easy to construct a fat paragraph to run something like:

  London--Lord Reading, the newly appointed Ambassador to represent
  Great Britain in the United States, sailed for New York this
  afternoon in the steamship _Philadelphia_. On arrival he will
  proceed immediately to Washington to enter upon his duties.
  This is Lord Reading’s third visit to America. He was sent by
  his government two years ago on a special mission and was in
  Washington for two months or more. He is accompanied by his wife.
  He refused to express an opinion as to the prospects for peace,
  but would not deny the gravity of the situation in Russia.

In the above skeleton dispatch the word “Readingess” means Lady
Reading. The addition of “ess” to a man’s name designates his wife.

Again came one evening a London message that began:

  Pm commons duohours restating aims intended Russian Bolsheviki
  but principally allies position to labor urged ongo warwin quote

“Pm” means Great Britain’s Prime Minister whoever he happens to be.
This message was written out to say that Lloyd George had addressed a
meeting of the House of Commons for two hours that evening restating
the war aims of the allies. Ostensibly he was speaking for the benefit
of the Russians, but it was plain that he was addressing the labor
party of the Empire in particular, and that the Government urged the
labor party to push on and help to win the war. “Quote” meant that what
was to follow was a verbatim report of what the Prime Minister said
and was to be preceded by quotation marks.

Close skeletonizing of this sort is used for short and comparatively
unimportant news announcements. It cannot be used to advantage in
long narration, in explanation of political complications, or reports
of consequence. But in minor messages it is of frequent use by news
associations and by correspondents. It is an entirely legitimate
practice since it involves no misstatement of fact. It is simple,
as may be seen, and the knack of using it is easily acquired. Yet
obviously the more ingenuity and skill employed the greater will be the
saving at seven cents or twenty-five cents a word. The difference in
its skillful and its indifferent use amounts to thousands of dollars in
a year.

In times of war the cost of news transmission by cable is enormous.
Repeatedly in the late conflict it reached thousands of dollars for the
description of a single battle, or a movement. At times these costly
dispatches were sent day after day. In our war with Spain when reports
were sent by dispatch boats to Kingston, Jamaica, for transmission
hence by cable, as much as two dollars a word was paid for sending them
to South American and Isthmus stations, hence north through Texas. The
direct cable from Kingston to Halifax was constantly crowded. The South
American route was the only other available outlet and it was used
freely.

The special foreign correspondent does not concern himself greatly with
routine news: the press associations look after that. The difference
in time permits the sending of all news appearing in London editions
to American newspapers of the same corresponding edition, morning or
evening. The London papers are on the street at two o’clock in the
morning, which is eleven o’clock or before midnight in New York.

The correspondent seeks rather to elucidate the news or to send
exclusive information. He finds the getting of intelligence much more
difficult than in America. Public men are less willing to furnish
information. The newspaper man is not so welcome. Doors are closed to
him that would be flung open here. To a yet greater degree than here
he must gain the confidence and the intimate acquaintance of those who
are original sources of information, the confidence of the men who
are conducting public affairs. The correspondent may not always print
what he learns for he must not make public that which is told to him
in confidence. But sooner or later it is of much value to him. The
ability to secure the attention and the confidence of public men is the
correspondent’s or the news gatherer’s choicest asset. It is absolutely
necessary to success in higher grade reportorial work.

The foreign correspondent, more than any other writer off the editorial
page, is permitted to assume an editorial attitude toward important
events. He may comment and seek to persuade in editorial fashion. His
articles are the more interesting in consequence, for not any newspaper
writing is more attractive to the general reader than that which
contains narrative description with running comment.

The French journalists are adepts at this work. Many of their
publications contain no editorial articles after the English or the
American fashion. They treat an important event rather as a semi-news
semi-editorial review article--an article of news with interjected
comment, with expression of opinion as suits the writer’s fancy or
belief or prejudice.

In American newspapers of high grade the reporter is not permitted to
comment or inject opinion or seek to influence the reader; he must
not depart from the cold facts of narration. No comment outside the
editorial page is the rule. The foreign correspondent is excepted from
this requirement and the Washington man partly so.

Not any other kind of newspaper work gives more useful experience. The
foreign correspondent must understand the great events that are moving
Europe. When it is possible he goes to the scene of the occurrence for
first-hand information. The great disaster by earthquake that destroyed
Messina sent half of the correspondents scurrying from London into
Italy. The election of a new Pope finds them in Rome. A revolution
in Poland discloses them on the spot delving into the secrets of the
leaders. Since the great war they have been constantly in every capital
in Europe as some new development of finance, or a startling revelation
of starvation, insurrection, or political plot demanded their presence.
They watch the activities of a dozen nations. A few years of this sort
of thing gives them valuable knowledge.



CHAPTER VII

THE TECHNICAL PRESS


As our young man in journalism begins to get a reputation among his
fellows for sincere trustworthy work his services may be sought
by other editors. Hundreds of miscellaneous weekly and monthly
publications employ writers and they draw largely from the daily
newspaper staffs. More than one thousand persons employed regularly
in New York City furnish the copy for these miscellaneous journals.
Nearly as many more are occasional or special contributors. There are
scores of magazines of fiction and scores of weekly journals devoted
to literature, religion, fashions, humor, science, art, music and the
play-house, to sports, birds, and beasts, and fish.

There are journals devoted to the learned professions, to medicine,
law, chemistry, engineering, theology, electricity. And there are
hundreds of technical publications and trade papers that cater to the
interests of all kinds of business: banking, insurance, shipping,
manufacturing, railroading, dry goods, textile, grocery, hardware,
wines, spirits, liqueurs, drugs. Almost every occupation has some sort
of a publication to advance its interests. Many of them are prosperous
and some of them are “gold mines” for their owners. Almost all are
very helpful to the trade they represent. They expand in vast detail
the things that the daily newspapers pass by with mere mention or do
not mention at all. They tell the reader what the other fellow is
doing. They cunningly search the entire world for facts bearing on
the business they represent. Their representatives in Washington, and
at every state capital, inform of any proposed legislation hostile to
their clients’ interests--restriction of trade, increased taxation,
regulation of methods, legislative strikes or blackmailing raids.

In the editorial columns are discussed every phase of business that
could affect the readers’ business and the news columns give every
obtainable fact, including columns of routine record such as price list
quotations, statistics of merchandise movement, government reports of
agricultural and metal production, and the like.

A vast volume of technical matter is required to fill these
publications, the writing of which calls for expert and special
knowledge and continuous study. The writer’s task is difficult for
the reason that he is not writing for the general public, but rather
for men who already have comprehensive knowledge of the subject and
who instantly detect misstatement of fact or feebleness of reasoning.
Nevertheless, the writer appreciates that his business-man reader is
keenly alive to know the doings of his rivals who may be smarter and
more successful than himself and who are working to solve the same
problems as himself.

Writing for the technical press is not so fascinating as for the
newspapers, the literary weeklies, or the magazines of fiction. The
imagination has less opportunity to frolic. Facility of literary
expression is not an asset. The embryos of inspiration and ambition are
incubated elsewhere. Constant consideration of the one topic tempts to
routine thought and to imitative writing.

Nevertheless, writing for the technical press involves most careful
and painstaking effort. It will not do to make a mistake. Some of the
accomplishments to be desired in the writer are indicated in an address
delivered by Mr. Charles W. Price, editor of the _Electrical Review_:

  Accuracy in technical statements and simplicity of language
  are two elements of greatness and distinction in technical
  journalism. It is not always easy for the abundantly informed
  technical writer to present his scientific truths in simple
  limpid language to be comprehended by and thus delight and
  enlighten the average reader. I am now referring to editorial
  treatment of such subjects, and not of course to those technical
  contributions in which mathematical figures necessarily must
  appear. The editor or technical writer who can present scientific
  reasoning and its practical application accurately and simply
  without the aid of his algebra, is assured of the largest
  possible audience, and is the producer of the greatest influence
  and information. He is, besides, popular in technical publishing
  circles.

  Another element of greatness is a practical illuminating
  presentation of what an invention in the field of which that
  publication is the exponent, really means to the art to which it
  relates; that when an invention of importance is announced, it be
  told just what it would mean and how it might or will affect the
  art or the industry. But the technical writers who can state a
  scientific fact in a few words and with crystal clearness are not
  very numerous.

The electrical reviews may be mentioned as a fair example of technical
journalism. They are large publications of a hundred pages or so, half
of which are given to advertisements of every electrical apparatus or
machine known to man. The electricians do not advertise in the daily
newspapers, nor do the newspapers print the news of the electrical
business except when some big discovery is made. No way exists,
therefore, for the electrician to know what is going on in his business
except through an electrical review. There he gets not only every
treasure of discovery, but every flash, every twinkle of the business
as well. He may learn what all the electric societies are doing in all
parts of the world. He may read the lectures on electrical subjects
delivered by experts. He may be told just what the great electrical
companies are doing, what new construction they are planning or
finishing. It is a constantly growing and changing business with every
day new application of old discoveries as well as new ones. He simply
cannot be without an electrical review.

In New York City are forty-five publications devoted to drugs, medicine
and surgery. Many of them are for the drug trade only and others
are highly intellectual reviews of progress and practice in medical
science. They are little read except by physicians, surgeons and
druggists; but of late years, so bewilderingly fascinating have been
their disclosure of medical discovery and progress and so absorbing
their illustrations of surgical skill, the daily newspaper editors have
been compelled to read them searchingly for the news they contain,
and they have been generously quoted in the daily press. The medical
press exploits all that is new in surgery or practice, gives elaborate
reports of medical society discussions, descriptions of unique surgical
operations, new uses of drugs. It digs up everything all over this
earth that possibly could interest a practitioner. Obviously the
physician or surgeon who doesn’t read the medical literature of the day
is miles behind the times.

Even the newspaper business has its trade journals, and one of them,
_The Fourth Estate_, was saying the other day that between seven
thousand and seven thousand five hundred persons are actively engaged
in writing for the New York City press; and that thirty-five thousand
are similarly employed in the United States.

It is quite impossible, in this space, to describe these miscellaneous
and class publications. They are numbered by thousands. In New York
City are more than one hundred literary magazines and weeklies. A
recent tabulation attested that in the United States more than eight
hundred publications are devoted to religion, of which about one
hundred are printed in New York. Six hundred are issued to tell the
farmer how to till. Eighty exploit automobiles. How to fly is told by
six sheets. The mouthpieces of the barbers number four and the blind
may learn about themselves in eleven. Eighteen appear regularly in
the interest of the American Indian, and six for bees. More than six
hundred tell about schools and colleges; twenty about dogs; twelve
about confections and ice-cream; twenty-three of dentistry; twenty-six
of the theater; fifty of fashion; ninety of finance, of which thirty
are in New York. The grocers support eighty odd and the insurance men
sixty-seven, while two hundred and fifty are in the interest of labor.
We find devoted to law one hundred and fifty; to liquor twenty-seven;
mechanics and engineering sixty-five; moving pictures twenty; music
trade fifty-four; the negro about two hundred; poultry eighty-five;
soap and perfume three; sports seventy; women suffrage seven;
undertakers ten. One of the newspaper directories recently gave a list
of two hundred and forty-five trades or businesses each of which has
its own technical publications.

The trade papers have come to form a very important and conspicuous
part of American journalism. Their writers may not be so well known to
fame as are other authors, but they have better business opportunities.
Their expert knowledge of the business under consideration and the
acquaintances they necessarily form with the kings of that business,
frequently lead to advantageous offers to engage in business. A larger
proportion of the technical press men quit writing to do other work
than is noted in any other line of journalism.

The business of furnishing information about business has become a
great industry in itself. It has developed amazingly within a few
years, chiefly through the technical journals or magazines, the number
of which has increased greatly, but also through books and pamphlets.

The big banks have their business libraries totalling thousands of
volumes, covering endless topics relating to railroads, corporations,
specific business, systems and methods. They preserve newspaper
clippings in bewildering numbers. The bureau of information is
conspicuous in all big business houses and corporations and all the
literature of business is at hand. Every Wall Street brokerage house of
any account employs a man to furnish information to customers.

The great war so effectively restricted importation that the country
was largely thrown on its own resources. It was compelled to produce
or furnish substitute matter for many products it could not import.
Business facts became greatly in demand. The librarians reported, and
continue to note, a greatly increased demand for business literature.
The book publishers recognize an increasing devouring public appetite
for business books. The managers of business journals and magazines
tell of largely increasing circulations in this period of great
business expansion.

One of the managers of the _System_ magazine series said not long ago:

  The demand for our publications has increased tremendously
  since the war. In the last three years one of our magazines has
  increased sixty per cent in circulation. Blame Germany for that,
  and for the big increase in business literature. We have learned
  suddenly that German business has been studying books all these
  years. We find now that to compete, American business must also
  take to books. And that has brought about one big difference.
  A few years ago when I left college to go into business, my
  employers encouraged me with, “Well, you’ll live down your
  college training.” To-day, a big business man does more reading
  than a student in college--and he has to do it.

Technical journalism is a great feature of the journalism of the times.
Its importance is little appreciated or understood by the general
public. It gives employment to thousands of writers and its rapid
increase indicates demand for thousands more.

Trained newspapermen are in active demand as publicity and general
aids by big corporations. The salaries paid are larger than is paid by
newspapers. These men usually oversee the advertising; likewise they
write pamphlets, collect information for the use of the corporation,
frequently prepare speeches for delivery by the officers, make out
reports, read many publications for any information bearing on the
business. The work requires fine editorial ability and thorough
knowledge of the business. It is far above the press agent work done
to advertise theaters, moving pictures, or hotels. It involves a study
of the principles and condition of other business besides their own,
for in many instances their own business is affected by the business of
others. The literature of business has become very important.

Accuracy is the supreme requirement in business writing. A single
misstatement may involve a loss of confidence in the writer or the
publication--a loss of money to the reader. Simple construction in the
plainest of language is the rule for writing.

Demand for the literature of business has made startling changes in the
newspapers of to-day, affecting daily sheets as well as all journalism.
Ten times as much space is given to market reports as was used forty
years ago. Business news is lavishly exploited. It was little noticed
in the old days.

It is a business age. The educational impulse of school and college
is in the direction of business education rather than classical or
general education. Technical schools are much more popular. Business
schools are conducted by large corporations, by banks, by chambers of
commerce. Banks, insurance companies, the railroad organizations, and
big business concerns maintain statistical and information departments
and publish pamphlets and periodical literature. Men competent to
produce information are in demand and those of newspaper experience are
preferred.

Publishers are putting out an avalanche of books on every phase of
business. The demand for books of reference, books of the practical, in
our libraries is overwhelming. Reports of the New York Public Library
attest that seekers after books of technical information are numbered
by hundreds of thousands.

Nearly all of the men who are furnishing this greatly increased volume
of business information have had daily newspaper office experience.
In looking through the lists of technical journals printed in New
York I see the names of dozens of men as their editors whom I
recognize as former daily newspaper men. They now have permanent and
responsible posts at reasonably remunerative salaries. The work is
not so continuously exacting as that required in the minor places in
the newspaper. The hours of toil are shorter, are in the middle of
the day, and are omitted on holidays and Sundays. These are important
considerations to the man who elects to live by writing information.



CHAPTER VIII

THE VILLAGE NEWSPAPER’S IMPORTANT PLACE IN AMERICAN JOURNALISM


The young man about to start on a journalistic career should give
long thought to the village newspaper. Our schools of journalism are
graduating thousands of boys who intend to be editors. A few of them
only can be taken on the big newspapers for their staffs are full to
overflowing always. It is difficult, indeed, for a young man to get a
place on a big city newspaper and the prizes are few if he does get it.
Let us see what the small town newspaper offers.

In the big cities nearly all writers are employees. The managing editor
is employed to direct the staff and to carry out the owners’ policies.
Editorial writers are employed to write. They have no pecuniary
interest in the property. In small cities the editors are part owners
frequently; in the villages they are the full owners almost always.

For the so-called great newspaper the staff writes to order. The
subjects are assigned and the treatment is indicated by the editor.
The policy of the sheet toward the important questions of the day
is understood and respected by all. Independence of thought is not
supposed or permitted to disport itself from that policy. All articles
are closely revised by some one else after the writer has finished
with them. They are made to conform to established policy, precedent
and practice. This tends to routine treatment rather than to bursts of
originality. It influences to dull writing. The knowledge that his work
is to be revised is repressive rather than stimulating to the writer.
If changes in his article are frequent he chafes and frets, imagines
that injustice is being done to him, gets discouraged and unhappy.

The personality of the general writers for the press in New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, is known to a few of their associates only--is
unknown to the general public. Indeed, it would puzzle even newspaper
men to name the editors in chief and the managing editors of the
morning and afternoon sheets in New York City, although many of them,
of course, are known to almost everybody.

In the small cities, and especially in the villages, these conditions
are in exact reverse. The editor owns his newspaper. He is known
personally or by reputation to almost every member of the community. He
may write as he pleases on any topic, about anything, about anybody.
He may praise his friends or lambaste his enemies; may be brilliantly
original or stupidly conservative or hopelessly imitative. He is
of great community influence and importance. Not even the village
clergyman is more so. He is made much of at all gatherings and is
welcomed wherever he goes. The huntsman brings him bags of game; the
gardener refreshes him with the earliest tender vegetables; his table
is spread with the choicest of juicy fruits.

The writers for the big newspapers discourse on topics of national
importance--topics that are supposed to interest the masses. Rarely do
they write about people they know or have met unless they are doing
reportorial work. The village editor busies himself chiefly with
matters of concern to his community alone. His references to national
topics may be few. Of his own people he may write with a sympathetic
personal interest born of close contact with them, with knowledge of
their whims, their excellences, their deficiencies, and their wants.
His purpose is to interest them. He knows that they are more interested
in themselves and in each other than in anything else.

A considerable proportion of village folks and farmers now take a daily
paper from the nearest city of size. This daily sheet covers national
and world-wide topics so completely that the weekly cannot compete with
it advantageously in these lines. But the daily sheet cannot compete
with the weekly in the printing of those delicious little intimacies
of village life that most of all do interest the villager. The oft
repeated assertion that the daily newspaper is running out the weekly
is untrue.

If the village editor chooses to do so he may achieve a supremely
satisfying influence. He is the spokesman of the community, voicing
its sentiments, explaining its needs, defending its rights. He may
render it extreme service by appealing to outside interests in praise
of its enterprises, its attractions, its prosperity. He may assist
it immeasurably by helping to organize and sustain its protective
associations, its commercial leagues, its welfare organizations, study
clubs and charity circles. He may encourage community pride. If he
praises Deacon Stevenson for the beauty of his lawn and floral effects
the deacon’s neighbors are sure to make rival lawns. The editor may
urge to clean village morals as well as to clean streets and tidy door
yards. He may create public sentiment and ripen patriotic spirit and be
the moral and the intellectual force of the region. He may lead in all
things.

The village editor may make himself beloved by his people. His relation
to them is that of close intimacy. He may print the good things they
say, may reproduce their ideas as well as describe their doings. He
records the important events of their lives, the details of their
successes, the parts they take in public affairs.

He welcomes the babies as they are born and wishes them their full
share of all the good things this Jolly Old Earth has to give. He
joins in congratulations, felicitations and joyful vociferations to
bewildered brides and grinning bridegrooms. And when the hand of death
is laid, he reverently and tenderly recalls that the summons must
come to all sometime; and he sorrows and grieves with those on whom
affliction has fallen.

The city newspaper is heartless when domestic scandals or business
irregularities are under public consideration. It has no thought of
lessening personal sorrow. The country editor reasons something like
this: “I do not pretend to print all the news of this community. My
readers are all known to me and are personal friends. They help me
in my business. Why should I print stuff that will give them pain or
sorrow? I am under no obligation to print anything about anybody. My
newspaper is conducted as a business proposition. I am responsible
for what it says and it is not any one’s business what I print. I am
personally interested in community interests and I wish to advance them
always; but I do not care to mix in my people’s personal quarrels or
their domestic affairs unless community interests are involved. Why
should I? Some people seem to think that I should print everything
about everybody--except themselves. There is a certain element in every
community that rejoices in other people’s discomfiture and I do not
wish to cater to that feeling.”

Not only does every one in the community read the community paper,
but every young man and every young woman brought up there subscribe
for it when going to live elsewhere. It comes as an intimate letter
from the old home, and nothing can be too trivial or too unimportant
to interest them so long as it relates to somebody or something they
have known in the days of their youth--the bursting of the old dam, the
fall of the old chimney, the burning of the old academy, or of the old
mill, the marriages, the deaths, the activities of former playmates in
political, business or social life, anything pertaining to the old home
town, anything that recalls the scenes of childhood, the memories of
youth--all are of absorbing interest.

Not long ago the editor of the Fulton (N. Y.) _Patriot_ made a big
hit by getting a lot of the people who had moved away to write
reminiscences of their early life in Fulton. Almost all of the
writers were remembered by the home readers and the letters made much
talk. Every error was pounced on and letters of correction started
controversy. People involved in the talk were pleased. Members of the
human family like to see their names in the newspapers.

But the editor should have ambitions and missions far beyond mere
village gossip. The small towns of the Eastern states have become
centers in which endless varieties of manufactured goods are turned
out, and it is up to the editor to exploit every new thing connected
with the raw material and with the making and the marketing of the
product in which the community is interested. The middle-state towns
are given largely to manufacturing on a larger scale, to coal and coke
and oil industries, to steel, to the making of machinery. The editor
should furnish all possible information. The South with its cotton,
sugar, and tobacco is an especially interesting field for community
specializing.

But greater than these is that vast industry spreading from the
Atlantic to the Pacific in which one half of the nation’s population
is interested because dependent on it--agriculture. Now, of the sixteen
thousand weekly newspapers printed in the United States more than ten
thousand are published in rural communities--in villages where the
prosperity of doctors, lawyers, merchants, tradesmen, schools and
churches depends on the prosperity of the farmer. Nearly every farmer
takes a journal devoted to agriculture; but farming conditions vary
greatly in different regions, and the village editor who can furnish
real information to the farmer of his immediate neighborhood will
perform the most valuable sort of community service. The average man is
more interested in his business than in anything else. He delights to
read about it.

The editor’s greatest concern should be to serve the interests of his
parish. The people look to him for leadership and help. They want the
community exploited. They want their share of everything going. They
want the prices of their products kept up and their taxes kept down.
They want good roads, good schools, good markets, attractive churches.
And they appreciate an excellent newspaper. There are hundreds of
villages and hamlets, especially in the South and in the West, that are
far removed from any large city. Their inhabitants lose interest in the
doings of the great outside world, but their own needs are sensed with
no shallow understanding.

Village life throughout our country is taking on the attractions of
intellectual uplift and refinement that long have been the pride and
the boast of New England communities. The New England village, made
attractive by its imitation of the beautiful village of Old England,
has spread far across the continent. Poets and story tellers have
idealized its shady streets, gilded its church spires and praised its
intelligence with every felicity of language. It has its libraries, its
study clubs, its improvement associations, its lecture courses, its
high schools, its churches, its every facility for liberal education.
Usually there is a college close at hand.

It is something of a fad at the moment for our young writers of
novels to exaggerate the repulsive features of the American village,
to magnify its unpleasant aspects, to ignore its excellences. But
just as the measure of a man’s greatness should rest on his highest
achievements rather than on his lowest, so should the beauty of a
village be judged by its tidy lawns, its fragrant flower gardens, its
artistic vistas of shaded streets, instead of by its back yards, its
ash and garbage heaps, and its dumps for old tin cans. The degree of
its intelligence and refinement should include the people of education
and culture in the measurement as well as the louts, the clowns and the
vulgar ignorant.

The modern village has many of the essential advantages possessed by
the city: facilities for the development of intellectual life, for
study, for personal ease and comfort, for the enjoyment of social life.
You have a more wholesome existence; live a little nearer to nature;
your friendships are finer and more lasting. Your very environment
persuades to a greater appreciation of community comradeship.

Printing a newspaper here offers a fascinating and a fairly profitable
career to the young man just quitting his studies. Electricity and
gasoline have greatly increased the pleasures of village life, have
literally transformed rural regions by giving quick communication with
business and social and intellectual centers. Modern devices have
bereft life there of much of its old-time drudgery. The people are
wide awake. Their general intelligence is quite equal to the general
intelligence of city people.

Likewise, the newspapers are much improved. Modern printing machinery
and facilities have removed irksome processes. Editorial associations
and the technical newspaper press have inspired to higher ideals. The
business has become standardized on a higher plane of excellence. Many
of our high schools and almost all of our colleges have courses in
journalism. Their educational influences are reflected already in the
country newspapers, especially in the West. The state universities of
Missouri, Kansas and Minnesota, for instance, have sent hundreds of
young men back to their villages to do journalistic work. The leaven of
preparation is working wonders.

Moreover, success in village or small town journalism frequently
leads to success in big cities. The editors of big city newspapers
are overwhelmed with candidates for a place on the staff, but the
applicants usually are unknown beginners, and they are rejected. But
the village editor of real ability cannot hide his light; his good
work attracts attention. The managers of the great journals seek men
of superior quality and ask them to join the newspaper staff. Hundreds
of the finest editors in this country started or matured on our rural
newspapers. Good newspaper work, whether in city or country, attracts
attention and is sure of reward.

The village editor’s task is not easy. He writes almost all of the
edition and conducts the business end as well. His editorial page may
reflect his fancy for little or much comment, but he naturally will
have one article in each edition on a subject of national importance
and two or three relating to community interests. He will compile
from the daily sheets a column or two of the most important news of
the world and will clip from the exchanges interesting miscellaneous
matter, paragraphs and articles. He will encourage his readers to write
letters to the editor for publication, and these he will revise and
prepare. He will have a news correspondent in every neighboring hamlet,
and this news must be revised and made ready to print. His neighborhood
news is of vital importance for his villagers know almost all of the
inhabitants for miles around.

But his chief task is to be found in the collecting and writing of
so-called local news. The very life of his sheet depends on this
information. To gather it involves constant, painstaking toil. He has
to hunt for it, has to mingle with the people in the search for it.
The measure of his success as an editor may be found in his ability
to recognize what is news and what is not. This is an editorial
accomplishment that may be enriched by study and observation. Let him
seek to know what will interest his reader, what his constituents are
thinking about and especially what he can print that will set them to
talking. To make the paper interesting, to make it talked about, should
be his constant anxiety.

The mission of the village sheet is to amuse, to gossip, to reflect
community life rather than to educate. The editor lives in close
intimacy with his people and if he be wise he will assume the attitude
of making their interests his interests. He will make elaborately long
accounts of their public meetings, the social gatherings, the ball
games, the school contests, the things the people do. His constituents
may know of world-wide events from the city papers but they cannot
read about themselves anywhere else than in his paper. Thousands of
Americans never see their name in print except perchance in the village
newspaper and they are grateful, indeed, to see it there.

The village newspaper should not seek to imitate the city sheet. Its
editor should devote his energies to the rural needs and the rural
activities of his five thousand or ten thousand constituents. Let them
get their outside information from the city dailies or the periodical
press.

And our provincial editor’s acute temptation will be to imitate--to
make his sheet like his neighbor’s sheet. He will be tempted to save
time and study by stealing the thoughts of others. He wants a leading
editorial article. What so easy as to rewrite one from the columns of
a distant daily changing not the form of construction or the argument
or the conclusion--changing nothing but the wording. This is a common
practice of the lazy editor. I hope to be forgiven for so constantly
referring to it as a repressive influence, as a serious detriment to
the progress of American journalism. It easily becomes a habit. Its
practice is alluring for, if it produces a more thoughtful article than
the editor is capable of writing, the people praise it thus giving
to the editor the most subtle of all flattery, the flattery that is
undeserved, the flattery that attributes to a man something he does not
possess. The editor enjoys it overmuch.

The village editor usually is deep in local politics. Quite as much as
any one else does he help to name the town officers, the county rulers,
the man to the legislature, the congressman. Frequently, indeed, he is
called to these posts or to the higher honors of the State. He sits on
governing boards and he is a delegate to all sorts of conventions. He
is big in public affairs.

This kind of newspaper life is entirely different from that of the
city. It is a life that may be made exceedingly attractive and that
may be enjoyed to the uttermost because of its independence, its great
influence, its close intimacy with the people and its opportunities for
wholesome service. What the editor writes is read by everybody, the
children as well, and we all know how a child is influenced by what it
reads.

Some one has said of the village editor: “He comes pretty near being
the boss of the entire town.”



CHAPTER IX

THE DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE SMALL CITY


“I had rather be the editor of a daily in a small city than hold any
other newspaper post,” remarked a journalist who had tried almost
every kind of newspaper work--and many will agree with him. Increased
facilities for gathering news and information and the wonderful
improvement in printing office mechanism permit the making of a
complete newspaper almost anywhere. The small cities may have just as
good a daily sheet as the big ones if the owners care to pay the price
of producing it. The news associations and the telegraph companies
deliver news simultaneously in all parts of the country. The newspaper
in the remote Northwest or the extreme South gets the same telegraphic
news as is furnished to New York City or to New England.

Any editor may supplement his news service with syndicate articles--by
which is meant, articles written in New York, Washington, the State
Capital, or anywhere, and duplicated to any number of newspapers.
Syndicate service has come to be an important feature of American
journalism. Its use saves the editor time, trouble, and expense. A few
syndicates in New York and Washington send special news by wire but
most of the matter goes by mail. It consists largely of articles on
national topics, social topics, business, the theaters, music, art, and
sports. At this writing a syndicate is sending from New York a service
of excellent editorial articles on general topics. All sorts of feature
matter also may be had: the medical column, the cookery department,
the fashion show, the question and answer diversion, the short daily
or weekly story of fiction, a daily cartoon or a comic strip or cut.
Entire pages of matter are offered on every imaginable topic for use in
Saturday and Sunday edition supplements. They include even the comic
pictorial broadsides in vivid color. Several of the big metropolitan
sheets sell their miscellaneous Sunday features entire and some of
them furnish a special news service intended to supplement the news
associations’ report. This news service and Sunday syndicate service
sent from the big newspapers furnish the identical articles that appear
in the papers from whose offices they are sent. By their use the out of
town editor may go a great way toward reproducing the big city sheet.
All of this kind of matter is offered at ridiculously low prices, the
profit to the producer being, of course, in its repeated duplication.

The modern multiple printing press, the modern stereotyping process
and the linotype typesetting machine are in general use all over the
country, giving the same mechanical facilities as enjoyed in the larger
cities.

By availing himself of all these things the editor in the small city
may produce a newspaper of any size and almost any quality to suit his
fancy. In all matters of national or state importance or of world-wide
interest he may reasonably compete with the big newspapers if he cares
to spend the money with which to do so.

The chief concern of the provincial editor however will center in his
organization for the collection of home and neighborhood news. This
must be of superior quality and in generous volume, for his so-called
“local” news is vital to his success.

In New York City there is practically no such thing as local news.
Happenings of considerable importance are not printed simply because
they happened in New York. They must possess enough of importance in
themselves to interest a large number of readers, must be just as
interesting to outsiders as to residents of the city. Scores of big
societies and organizations give banquets with three hours of oratory
and reporters listening to every word, but unless something important
or highly interesting is said by the speakers the newspapers print not
a word about the event. An ordinary murder, or suicide, or elopement,
or a celebration like that of a golden wedding, even though it may have
happened in the next block to where he lives does not interest a New
Yorker any more than as though it had happened in Boston or Buffalo. He
does not know the persons involved. The newspapers make very little of
the event unless it has some dramatic features. In New York City there
are between two hundred and fifty and three hundred homicides every
year and not one half of them are even mentioned by the press. The
details of them are known in every office but little is printed about
them because they are not of general interest.

Now, had the big banquet or the murder or the other things happened
in a small city the editor must have printed columns of matter about
them, for the very good reason that in smaller communities everybody
knows everybody else and all are interested in each other. Everybody
who attended the banquet must be especially interested in it for people
like to read about things in which they themselves participate.

The metropolitan press prints nothing of the ordinary happenings in
the scores of cities and villages within fifty or seventy-five miles.
The small city newspaper has a correspondent in every town and hamlet
near by and everything of any account is recorded. In the country, the
newspaper that has the best town and neighborhood news becomes the most
popular sheet.

In the big city the editor and his staff know personally a very small
proportion of the population; in the small city they know everybody
worth knowing. The provincial editor enjoys, if he will, the social
life of the place. He hobnobs with the congressman, with the state
officers who chance to live near, with all those who have to do with
public affairs. He is influential in their selection. He participates
in public functions, takes a lively interest in all that is going on,
sits in councils, is a member of the board of education and trustee of
the nearby college, and by personal interest and activity makes himself
a “leading citizen” of the place.

The journalist in the small city, like the village editor, is in close
intimacy with his readers. He is bound to them by the tie of community
interest. He lives with them as well as for them. He may make himself
the most influential and the most beloved man in the neighborhood if
he cares to do so. Repeatedly in the history of this Republic the
editor of the small city newspaper has been called to the President’s
cabinet, to a foreign ambassadorship, to the national congress, to the
government of his state and to county and town office.

Loyalty to community interests is perhaps as popular and as profitable
an attitude as the provincial editor can take. If the town needs
sewers, or if its pavements are poor, or its streets unclean, or its
educational system is faulty, or any obvious reform is needed, he
easily can effect the change. Some public official is responsible
for the defect and nothing so quickly warms an official into life as
temperate, convincing criticism of his acts. He cannot withstand public
opinion, and he knows that public opinion finds its first reflection in
the newspaper.

The editor may influence as none other can toward the erection of
public buildings, the establishment of high schools or colleges, the
making of parks, and the bringing to town of new enterprises. He may
champion the community needs by addressing legislative bodies, may
defend against unjust taxation, may call for state aid or federal
assistance. In a thousand ways he may influence to great benefits.
There is no denying the fascination, the wholesome satisfaction of well
directed influence. There is no limit to the honest pride a man may
have because he influences the thoughts and the actions of many men.



CHAPTER X

THE REWARDS OF JOURNALISM--CHIEFLY FOUND IN CONGENIAL
EMPLOYMENT--COMMUNITY SERVICE


A broader comprehension than that reflected by mere pecuniary results
is necessary to a proper estimate of the rewards of journalism. Great
pecuniary success has come to a few metropolitan newspaper owners,
moderate success to many owners in other cities; but the number of
successful owners is very small compared with the thousands, in number,
of journalists who are working for salary only--the men who represent
the journalism of the day.

It is difficult to compare the rewards of journalism with those of any
other business or profession. If we consider the pecuniary rewards the
comparison certainly must be unfavorable. Let us see:--

Many successful lawyers have incomes from fifty thousand dollars
upward, a year. Many physicians and many surgeons make fifty thousand
dollars or more by the practice of their profession. There are oculists
and artists who make thirty thousand plus. Our prize operatic singers
have soared to two hundred thousand. The presidents of banks, railroad
companies, insurance companies, steel companies, copper companies--men
who have achieved high success in their business--commonly enough have
salaries of from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars a year
and every opportunity to double the sum if they choose to live up to
their privileges. These are the prizes of the calling to the most
successful men in it; and in a way they measure the success of the men
who have won them.

But there are few prizes in the newspaper business. Nothing like these
big salaries is paid to the men who achieve supreme journalistic
success. In New York City for instance--and New York is the best
newspaper city in the world, pays the biggest salaries, and offers the
best journalistic advantages and chances--possibly ten editors have
twenty-five thousand dollars a year. One brilliant editor has much more
than this sum for the reason that his contract with the owner--made
when the sheet’s circulation was small--was based on the number of
papers to be sold. The circulation increased to phenomenal figures and
so did the editor’s pay. Of the seven thousand newspaper editors and
writers in New York City, a number not exceeding twenty have salaries
of more than twenty thousand dollars; yet those who have achieved
genuine success in the business--success that is relatively as great as
that of the bank presidents and professional men mentioned above--may
be numbered by the hundred. Newspaper salaries are very much larger
than they were forty years ago, double as much in some departments,
yet, despite this, the pecuniary rewards have no comparison with those
of many other professions or businesses.

Since this book’s intent is to tell the young man just what journalism
offers we may say that in New York City, at this writing (1922) the
salaries of editors in chief, for morning and evening newspapers,
range from fifteen thousand to thirty-five thousand dollars; those
of managing editors from eight thousand to thirty thousand dollars;
city editors, four thousand to ten thousand dollars; copy readers,
two thousand to four thousand dollars; dramatic and music critics,
four thousand to seven thousand five hundred dollars; staff writers
on finance and politics, four thousand to eight thousand dollars;
reporters, one thousand to seven thousand dollars.

These then are the pecuniary rewards of the business to the men who do
not achieve ownership. In other cities they are much smaller; in the
small cities not more than half so much.

Prices paid for newspaper work differ materially in different offices.
For reasons of policy or poverty some pay much less than others. The
higher sums just mentioned go to the few only, for it should remain
in mind that there is one editor in chief only, one managing editor,
one city editor, one dramatic critic on each sheet, and the daily
newspapers under consideration number twelve or fourteen only in the
metropolitan district. Three quarters of the newspaper workers on these
journals earn less than four thousand dollars each a year. The man who
earns five thousand dollars a year in a New York office is rated as
highly successful and desirable, and usually his services are in demand
in other offices--for good men in journalism are exceedingly scarce.

To the youngster just entering the business these newspaper salaries
may look attractive; indeed one of the magnets of the calling is the
fact that from the first the beginner is paid fifteen or twenty dollars
a week, or enough to live on. Physicians and lawyers frequently make
comparatively nothing for a year or two after they begin. And many
newspaper men seem satisfied to work along through life on what they
can get. In all offices may be seen the pathetic spectacle of men with
silvered locks who have sat at the same desk for more than a third of a
century.

Newspaper work is fascinating, yet it is sadly ephemeral. In the big
city the life of the newspaper is six hours; in the small city less
than twenty-four. The morning newspaper lasts until toward noon; the
evening sheet ceases to thrill at bed time. Dawn brings a new edition
and yesterday’s is forgotten forever. The bright sayings of the editor
amuse and interest for the moment but they do not live. They are not of
a nature to make a lasting impression or reward.

Greeley is remembered as a vigorous abolitionist and temperance
advocate and a virile writer on national topics, but to-day his
writings are unsought save by a few students of journalism and a few
historians of Civil War times. That William Cullen Bryant was a great
editor is almost forgotten; but his fame as a poet lasts. Samuel
Bowles and Murat Halsted and Joseph Medill and other great editors
of the Civil War period had nation-wide reputations as upholders of
Lincoln and as champions of the Union cause. They are absolutely unread
to-day. Dana, whose splendid scholarship, whose familiarity with all
literature, whose marvelous memory and whose stupendous reservoir of
information must have insured him lasting fame had he devoted himself
to the making of books, was so fascinated and so incessantly busy with
the making of newspapers that he attempted little that might interest
future generations. He must have attained the heights of literary
reputation had he undertaken authorship. Eugene Field toiled in routine
newspaper work for twenty years; his fame rests in his verses. Nobody
remembers John Hay as a hard-working journalist, yet he was one, and
a good one, too. He will not be forgotten as a statesman and a poet.
Walt Whitman’s many years of editorship seldom are recalled: his poetry
lives. Who knows that Edgar Allen Poe was an editor from 1835 to 1847;
who does not know “The Raven?” Noah Webster was one of the founders and
editors of _American Minerva_ in 1793. John G. Whittier was an editor
until he abandoned journalism for authorship. Oliver Wendell Holmes
wrote for periodicals from 1857 until 1891. Thomas Jefferson founded
the _National Gazette_ in 1791. James Anthony Froude was a newspaper
writer. William D. Howells began his career as an editor. These men
must have done fine newspaper work, but little record of it remains.

In France, just at the close of the World War, nearly all the members
of the government had been writers for the newspapers. They will be
remembered as statesmen, not as editors. Of them Mr. Stéphane Lauzanne,
the editor of _le Matin_, says:

  Mr. Raymond Poincaré, the President, formerly wrote articles that
  were remarkable for their clearness, lucidity, and argumentation
  on the greatest economical and political problems that ever
  agitated France. Mr. Georges Clémenceau, Premier, has always
  been looked upon as the first newspaper man in France, the pride
  of the French press, for as a matter of fact, he has been the
  guiding spirit and active head of several important newspapers,
  creating them, making them up, editing them and inspiring
  them--in a word, setting his mark upon them. Mr. Stephen Pichon,
  Secretary of Foreign Affairs, is also a newspaper man. For a long
  time he was on the staff of _Justice_ and afterward publisher
  of _le Petit Journal_. Other members of the French Cabinet, Mr.
  Lafferre, Secretary of Public Education; Mr. Klotz, Secretary of
  Finance; Mr. Georges Leygues, Secretary of the Navy; have also
  written in the great dailies of Paris and Mr. J. M. Dumesnil,
  Under-Secretary of State for Aviation, was at the beginning of
  his career a brilliant and active reporter.

No, newspaper articles, sparkling and spectacular as many of them are,
must be recognized as ephemeral. The editor has no time for leisurely
work. He rarely studies a single subject long enough or intensely
enough to become profoundly authoritative on that subject. He goes on
through life informing, elucidating, explaining, protesting, analyzing,
until overtaken by the infirmities of years he passes from view. In a
hazy sort of a way it is said of him that he was a great editor, but
all that he wrote for his newspaper is forgotten. He leaves little for
future generations to ponder over.

Alas! It is a sickening, saddening thought that the newspaper is for
the moment only and that the editor who leaves behind him a lasting
record of greatness has gained it through some other line of endeavor.

To the ambitious man the average newspaper salary means little. Any
possible savings from it must be insufficient to make him especially
prosperous. They do not insure against a pinch in old age or against
misfortune. They do not permit of the accumulation of much property or
capital. They furnish a feeble inspiration to the ambition that seeks
the comfort of leisurely life, the stimulation of extended travel, or
the luxury of intellectual repose and freedom from physical exertion
that every one hopes may bless his declining years.

And if these conditions be true of metropolitan workers, how much the
more must they befit the writers for newspapers in the smaller cities
and villages. It is not the ideal of the American boy either in country
or city to live forever in a rented house or on a small salary, or,
indeed, to live the simple life. The small-city journalism offers
little else than these if the young man cannot become a newspaper
owner. To the man who owns his sheet the rewards are more abundant. But
ownership involves the possession of capital and usually the young man
just through with student life has no capital except his brains. In
other callings the capital of brains commands success, notably in the
law, in medicine, in engineering, in architecture, but in the newspaper
business, while brains are absolutely essential they advance the young
man only so far, give but feeble reward, unless reinforced with capital
with which to buy a newspaper property. It surely is a discouraging
feature of the calling that, however intellectual or learned a man may
be, he rarely achieves more than moderate pecuniary success, as long as
he remains an employee.

In the big cities the big properties have a money valuation measured
by millions of dollars. They are owned generally by very rich men or
families and ownership rarely changes. To possess one of them has
been the ardent and unaccomplished ambition of thousands of men:
capitalists, statesmen, reformers, philanthropists, cranks. The chance
of the young journalist getting one is infinitesimal. And in the small
city the price put on a newspaper that by chance happens to be for sale
is far beyond its earning value. There seems to be some mysterious
ingredient in newspaper properties that gives them a fictitious value
in the mind of the owner. Whether it is prospective influence, or
prospective prospects, or what, nobody is able to explain; but the
sheet is always “worth much more than it is earning.”

It is a curious fact that, whereas a factory, or a store, or a farm, or
a railroad that has not made a cent for five or six years, will sell
for no more than its old junk represents, nevertheless a newspaper with
the same poverty of profits commands a price based on a prodigality
of profits. The very great success of some newspapers seems to have
inspired the belief that any sheet may be made profitable if properly
managed; but it should not be forgotten that business ability counts
for quite as much as editorial excellence on the newspaper balance
sheet. Indeed, it may count for more, for have we not seen excellently
edited sheets fail utterly, and do we not know of others, utterly
devoid of editorial worth, in which the joy bells of prosperity tinkle
a cheerful chime?

Since then the savings from the salary of even the successful newspaper
writer are insufficient for the accumulation of property or the
establishment of any considerable prosperity, and since newspaper
ownership involves the investment of capital and smart business ability
as well, it follows that our young man must look beyond mere pecuniary
gains for the rewards of journalism.

What then are some of the rewards? The editor may exercise his gifts
of persuasion in unnumbered directions. The important activities of
the world pass by him in daily review. His mental vision may survey
the entire field of human thought, furnishing delightful subjects
for consideration, for study, for exposition. In all modesty and
without vainglory he may rejoice in the satisfaction of well directed
influence; may find pleasure in the responsibility of influencing
public opinion; may take pride in the endeavor to aid in the
intellectual and moral uplift of his fellow-men. What greater reward
hath man than this?

There are no problems of statecraft, science, society or religion, that
he may not undertake. Everybody likes to tell his neighbor the latest
news and gossip and especially likes to add what he thinks about them.
The newspaper editor tells his information to thousands; and he finds
additional satisfaction in telling it well. To take a hand in every
political shindy is uproariously good fun; indeed, notwithstanding all
its importance, its responsibilities, its dignities, there is more fun
in the newspaper business than in any other occupation known to man.

Neither are the joys and the advantages of a newspaper connection
confined to the editorial desk alone. In consequence of his abundant
fund of information on current events and his knowledge of the ways of
the world the editor is asked to participate in all sorts of public
events. This is particularly the privilege of the editor in the small
city where he is well known and where everybody seeks his good opinion
and good will. There he is found in meetings and councils and all
social gatherings of any account, taking active part in the speaking
and the disposing. There, too, he is active in party politics, in
community interests and in the town’s public life. In the big cities
he is less in public gaze, yet, if he has reached editorial success,
he finds himself welcome wherever people gather. If perchance he can
speak pleasingly he is asked for addresses to all sorts of audiences
and for after-dinner speeches at public banquets. His long experience
in mingling with public men gives him ease of manner in social
gatherings. Constant practice in writing usually gives him the gift of
ready speech.

The editor is asked to consult with citizens’ committees, to sit with
advisory boards, to take membership in all sorts of organizations and
clubs. He has every opportunity to participate actively in the social,
the political, and the intellectual life of his parish. And the wise
editor does all those things, appreciating that it is to his business
advantage to mingle with the people, to know what they are talking
about, what interests them, and what may be their opinions.

Nor can it be denied that the editor of importance finds supreme
satisfaction in the acquaintances he makes. No other occupation offers
such opportunity for meeting public men, for intimacy with those who
are influencing the intellectual and the commercial world. His very
environment brings him in contact with them. He has the instruction
of their wisdom and their opinion and they are interested in him
because of his familiarity with current events; and very often the
choicest of comradeship results. He knows his fellow editors. He
knows the successful authors, the essayists, the critics, the makers
of literature and the lovers of literature, the men conspicuous in
education, the leaders in the social world. He may, if he will, find
himself in constant association with the brightest minds and the most
intellectual people of the period--and who shall say that this is not
greatly to be desired?

Yet more naturally, however, comes association with men in the public
service, with the leaders of political parties and of political
movements. If the editor’s journal chances to be in accord with one of
the great political parties the editor finds himself in the confidence
of the party leaders and participating in their councils. His advice
is sought as to party plans and measures, the availability of proposed
candidates, the conduct of campaigns and the operation of the party
machinery. Successful editorship involves a fine knowledge of party
politics, a constant study of national issues and of statesmanship and
of the requirements of public service, as well as searching inquiry
into the science of government and the intricacies of diplomacy. The
journalist’s training especially fits him for political activity and
very frequently, after a few years of editing, he joins in public
service or engages in professional politics.

Indeed, very many newspaper writers drift into businesses that promise
better pecuniary rewards. They start in journalism because it pays
something from the first, but careful calculation discloses little
promise for wealth in the future and they seek the golden dollar
elsewhere.

It is not to be urged that journalism especially fits a man for
commercial life, nevertheless there is a mysterious influence in it
that makes a man out of a boy very quickly. A few years of reporting in
a big city makes him mentally alert, if anything can, and teaches the
ways of the world as nothing else does. He experiences a new phase of
life every day of his life. He is taught to search for facts, to seek
for causes and to foresee results. He gets broadness of vision, expanse
of comprehension, and rugged contact with the world--contact with
the men whose efforts are important enough to command publicity. The
nature of news reporting is not generally understood. Routine reporting
is comparatively easy. The reporting of highly important events is
extremely difficult. In political convulsions, in financial panics,
in commercial failures, in big criminal cases, in social scandals,
in crooked legislation, in most of the topics that excite mankind,
the people most involved strive to conceal the real facts. How is the
reporter to know whether he is being lied to or not? Ah! but he must
know. It is his business to know.

It is the commonest of reportorial experience to have the information
given by one man positively contradicted by another. All decent
newspapers insist on accurate news reports. They cannot afford to be
untruthful. It is of the utmost importance to them that the narrative
of a great piece of news, to be read by a million persons, be written
with absolute fidelity to fact. It may be said in all truth that the
experienced reporter starts out for the facts of a big case with the
expectation that half of the people involved will try to mislead and
fool him. He questions every statement made to him and the motive of
the man who makes it. He verifies it through some other medium. He
becomes a detective. He uses every trick of the calling to extract
unwilling information.

This search for truth is one phase only of the many that constitute
a reporter’s experience. They involve the absorption of a mass of
information, an intimate contact with men of affairs, the cultivation
of ability to think quickly and speak easily, and mingle pleasantly
with the world. It has been urged with some reason that five or six
years of this sort of thing better fits a young man for almost any kind
of business than does sitting at a clerk’s desk learning the rudiments
of the business.

But the intelligent or educated young man with a grain of perception
in his makeup should understand that the joy of living is found in
congenial employment--in work that inspires and educates and delights.
There would not be much happiness in this world if happiness depended
on riches. The good physician finds greater satisfaction in the
helpfulness of his service than in the collection of his fee. The money
value of Mr. Edison’s discovery is probably the very last thing he
thinks of.

The Rev. Washington Gladden, who gave his life to the ministry, was
first an apprentice in the Owego _Gazette_ and he never thereafter
could withstand the fascinations of newspaper writing. While conducting
his parishes he contributed to various publications. He conducted
a magazine of his own while in Springfield, Mass., of which he
says: “I edited it in connection with my parish work, doing all the
editorial writing, ten pages of minion every month, conducting all the
correspondence, reading all the proof, and making up the pages in
the composing room. That was really worth while. I never had a better
time.” “To generate and diffuse a sound, sweet, generous, wholesome
public opinion is the best and the biggest business in which any human
being can engage” was one of his maxims.

There is no denying the fascination of power and of influence, the
satisfaction of persuasion and of direction. The editor comes to love
his work because he feels that he is participating in leadership. He
appreciates, perhaps, that he is the custodian of something new and he
glories in the thought that he may communicate this new thing to the
world; rejoices that he is influencing others to see as he sees, to
think as he thinks, to understand as he understands.

He comes to understand the delights and the responsibilities of
persuasion, appreciating, as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch tells the
Cambridge students, that persuasion is the aim of all the arts, of all
exposition of the sciences, of all useful exchange of converse in our
daily life; as it is the end sought by the artist in his picture, the
mathematician in his problem, the clergyman in his sermon. “Nor can I
imagine any earthly gift more covetable by you, Gentlemen,” says this
lecturer, “than of persuading your fellows to listen to your views and
attend to what you have at heart. Suppose that you wish to become a
journalist. Well, and why not? Is it a small thing to desire the power
of influencing day by day to better citizenship an unguessed number
of men, using the best thought and applying the best language at your
command?”



CHAPTER XI

NEWSPAPER INFLUENCE--WAYS OF PERSUADING THE PUBLIC--SERVICE TO THE
GOVERNMENT


The editor of experience appreciates that in attempting to influence
the public he is addressing many men of many minds. An argument
intended to convince a scholar or a well informed man would be lost
on an ignorant man, while an appeal written down to the understanding
of the ignorant man must provoke mirth from the wise. Nevertheless,
all persons frequently are influenced by mere suggestion, especially
when they have not studied the subject. Frequently they may reverse
a judgment on a mere hint in a newspaper. Not all men have time, in
these busy days, to think out the problems of the hour, have not
the facilities at hand for research, haven’t been taught to think.
Intelligent thinking is a result of education--the education that
teaches to think. Mental improvement is the result of thought. Progress
comes from mental application. What we call “experience” is the result
of constant thought in one direction or toward a single purpose.
Lincoln was fourfold the man in 1865 that he was in 1860. Any observer
could see Woodrow Wilson leap forward in mental strength from the
instant of his appearance in public life.

The editor literally thinks for his readers. He acquires a habit of
thought not cultivated or sought or possessed by his readers. He is
trained to a mental analysis of the causes of great events, to an
expert understanding of their present importance, to a clear insight
into their future influence. If he has studied, he knows the great
influences that for centuries have governed human conduct.

In the big cities the editor knows the quality of mind he is addressing
better than does the writer in smaller communities. In New York, for
instance, every sheet has a different sort of clientele. Everybody
knows which newspaper, by reason of its scholarly editorial articles,
its criticisms, its reviews and non-sensational news appeals to the
highest intelligence. And every one knows the ones that appeal to the
non-thinking public.

But in smaller towns the newspaper goes to the wise and the unwise
alike. The task of pleasing everybody requires study, and here
editorial writing becomes an art, indeed. The scholar may sneer at
the article that pleases the man of toil and both may despise the
suggestion that convinces the man of medium intelligence.

The editor of scholarly instincts naturally wants to please the highest
intelligence among his readers; but the readers who really think in
a scholarly way are few. The great proportion of readers care little
for so-called polite literature, neither do they care for profound
instruction. They want the simpler sort of editorial comment and are
better pleased with that which explains than with that which argues.
They want their news adorned with breath-catching headlines in big type.

In the large cities many professional and business men read several
daily newspapers, but their number is small compared with the millions
who read one paper only. In smaller cities and in the villages and on
the farms it is quite the exception when more than one daily newspaper
enters the household. In very many instances this one sheet is all
the reading matter the members of the household have. Their entire
conception of public affairs is had from this publication. It is quite
impossible to suppose that they are not influenced by it. They let the
editor think for them and they accept his conclusions.

It has been argued, with much reason, that the newspaper is
indispensable to a republican or representative form of government
embracing vast territory, like our own. Even the founders of this
nation did not anticipate that the government could extend its
jurisdiction far beyond the Alleghenies, much less to the Pacific
coast. The plea for states rights was founded on the belief that it
must be impossible to bring so large an area as the original thirteen
states under a single form of government. Without the telegraph,
without railroads, in the early history of the American nation there
was no way of keeping the mass of the people in close touch with the
government, of supplying quick information on current events without
which the people are incapable of forming correct opinions. To-day, the
newspapers, with their simultaneous publication all over the continent,
their fast printing and quick delivery, keep all the people instantly
informed. They are able immediately to reflect public opinion, thus
making themselves indispensable to the government. Vast though our
distances may be, we have the healthiest kind of public spirit and
response. The sentiment of the nation is at the government’s disposal
in a jiffy.

This was strikingly illustrated after one of President Wilson’s
intimations to Germany that unconditional surrender must be a
condition of armistice. The same edition of a New York newspaper that
contained the President’s declaration also contained comments on that
declaration made by more than two hundred different publications from
Maine to California, and every one of them insisted on “unconditional
surrender.” The President knew instantly that the people were with him.

For very many years it has been the practice of governments (and
yet more persistently the practice of political leaders) to put out
“feelers” through the press. A new policy, a questionable nomination,
a new plan of taxation, may be contemplated. The government seeks to
“feel the pulse of the people” on its desirability. Hints are given to
the correspondents that the policy or the plan has been suggested and
is under consideration and the correspondents pass it along to their
newspapers, well fortified with those stale old prefixes, “it is said
that” or “rumor has it that” or “a person high in authority who does
not wish to be quoted hints that”--and so on--giving an outline of the
proposed action.

This is followed by another “feeler” passing out a little more
information saddled on some other mysterious persons. On any
important question the public flashes a quick response. The proposal
in Washington, for instance, to double the tax on theater tickets
and admissions to places of amusement drew a howl of disapproval
that defeated the plan. The people didn’t want their pleasures taxed
additionally.

The government or the political party that deliberately defies public
sentiment as expressed in the newspapers is put out of business usually
at the following election.

Throughout the World War the newspapers were of the utmost usefulness
to the government. They stood between the government and the people.
They made and reflected public sentiment as never before. Government
announcements were read in every city in the nation and in most of the
villages within six hours of their release. The government spoke to the
people in almost instantaneous speech.

The newspapers urged and sustained and stimulated the bond sales,
the thrift stamp drives, the activities of the Young Men’s Christian
Association, and like organizations, the merciful ministrations of the
Red Cross, the vast collection of money for the relief of stricken
peoples, the food campaigns, the conservation of heat and light and
a host of other material things. It would require pages of print to
tell the half of it. It would require hours of constant thought to
appreciate it. Recall, if you will, what your own favorite paper did,
and then be assured that thousands of other daily sheets did the same
thing!

Newspaper influence had perhaps its finest recognition in the various
propaganda of the war. All governments used the press lavishly with
intent to guide, to conceal, to accomplish. They “felt the pulse of the
people” constantly and subtly. Proposed policies were tested out. Often
they were suggested to direct attention from the real policy or to take
the sting from it.

The French press under the immediate inspiration and control of the
government held the people in compact unity. It stimulated the morale
and intensified the purpose of the soldiers, for it was possible
to strew the trenches with newspapers within two hours after they
were printed. This was of inestimable patriotic service. Not any
other government used the newspapers with such skill or with greater
beneficial results.

Newspaper influence was sought in the process of the censorship. The
object of censorship was not alone to prevent information from reaching
the enemy but also to influence public opinion. All warring nations
seek the good opinion of the neutrals--seek to have neutral nations
convinced of the ultimate success of their armies--hence the impulse
to suppress the news of defeat and to exalt victory. Early in the war
this was the pronounced attitude of Germany and Great Britain toward
America, much to the annoyance of the American newspapers.

Germany’s efforts to influence the American public through our
newspapers were so constant, so vociferous, so transparent, that
everybody recognized the purpose. Yet she continued to spend great sums
of money on propaganda to the very end of the war. Germany worked the
press of every country. It was a part of her war plan just as much as
was the making of bullets or asphyxiating gas. It was thought out and
arranged for and practiced before the war broke. It was depended on to
create sympathy and to establish justification; and it was exceedingly
efficacious in the early periods and influenced greatly to postpone our
entrance into the conflict.

Despite the censorship the war was very well reported by American
newspapers. Our journals were read with an interest approaching to
anxiety, and the public came to believe that the news was truthfully
presented. News reading was raised to a high plane of importance. The
war gave the public greater confidence in the newspapers.

In olden times, despotic times, in Greece and Italy let us say, before
newspapers existed, the people gathered in public places to listen to
government proclamations and whatever news the rulers were pleased to
give out. The information was proclaimed by heralds or was placarded
on market walls. The usual policy was to keep the people in ignorance
of what was going on. No public opinion existed, for the public had no
information on which to form conclusions. Many governments prevented
gatherings of the people knowing the power of the people to create
sentiment and rebellion. Not for weeks or months did remote regions get
important news that the government wished to conceal. No means of quick
communication existed. The concealment of news and the suppression of
public sentiment helped to strengthen despotic government. The rulers
might circulate false news as well as the truth, and frequently did so.
Our present-day censorship is an hereditary relic of this ancient-day
concealment.

The newspaper’s greatest influence is not in persuading persons who
have learned to think for themselves. It is exercised on that great
mass of our population that has no other source of information than the
newspapers. In thousands of families not more than two or three books
are purchased in an entire year, and these are likely to be books of
fiction. Yet few families are without a daily newspaper. Usually one
paper only is taken, and how could it happen otherwise than that the
household should come to the editor’s way of thinking when no other
thought than his comes to their attention? This condition applies to
people in moderate circumstances, employees, helpers, those who live
by physical toil or who do the simplest kind of clerical work. These
people are easily influenced because they have not been trained to
think or analyze for themselves. They depend on the newspaper for
information, explanation, suggestion. They have little inclination or
time to study with diligence the great questions of the day and have
few or no facilities for doing so in any event. They are not interested
in profound argument but they accept conclusions readily. If the editor
be wise he will seek to know what proportion of his readers are of this
type.

The average newspaper reader does not think overmuch of what he is
reading but he is highly receptive. His conclusion is likely to be
affirmative. It is his nature to believe rather than to distrust. He
is easily led by artful groupings of fact, rather more easily led
thus than by argument requiring much thought. There is not time in
these strenuous days for the old-fashioned kind of thinking. Quick
conclusions are the vogue and they are not the result of profound
thought. Rather are they the result of hasty thought. This is attested
by the rush from one party to another by the so-called independent
voter, or the sudden dethronement of a public idol, or the restoration
of a discarded hero to public popularity.

These quick changes in public sentiment have enlivened the history of
all times. The poet Byron, in the beginning of his literary career,
was praised by men and petted by women until the entire British nation
was chanting adorations. Then, with the suddenness of a whirlwind,
it turned against him and with furious persecution drove him into
exile. The American hero of Manila Bay was escorted up Broadway by
shouting thousands of admirers. Within a year he was no longer a hero.
We resisted woman suffrage for scores of years and suddenly accepted
it. This nation drank rum from its earliest beginnings and then with
comparative suddenness changed the practice of centuries by declaring
for prohibition.

The newspaper’s unconscious influence over the casual reader must be
recognized. It is an instructive influence, usually, of wide scope,
covering a multitude of topics that do not come to the reader’s
attention in any other way than through the newspapers. Information
does not get into the magazines or books until weeks or months after
the event but the newspapers print it on the instant. The casual
newspaper reader, for instance, reads that the new Roentgen ray has
been discovered, by means of which the interior of an ordinarily opaque
substance may be disclosed in photograph. He reads enough to establish
that fact, but as soon as the description begins to become technical
the casual reader abandons the article. Nevertheless he has absorbed
the fact and a crude notion of the discovery and has added just so much
to his fund of information. He may study it out if he chooses.

Again, there is no other quick source of information on new
developments in politics, in finance, in the fluctuations of the
commercial market prices.

Almost all of us feel that we must know about the artists, the singers,
the actors, and we love to talk about them, yet what we say we almost
surely have read in some newspaper. You get an intelligent idea at
your breakfast table of the new opera that did not end until midnight,
of the new play produced on the night preceding, of the speeches and
the spirit of the banquet that did not end until after you were in
sleep, of the conflagration that destroyed some well-known building
during the night, of the railroad accident that destroyed scores of
lives. And these are the things that you talk about during the day.
They unconsciously influence your thoughts and your actions even when
read casually.

The busy man is rather easily led along or into the editor’s way of
thinking especially when the topic is new to him. He is not a trained
or analytical thinker at best, hasn’t time to reflect much on the
subject, cannot invent a new line of thought in opposition to the
editor’s because of unfamiliarity with the subject, has no quick way
of getting additional information. Maybe he instinctively balks at the
editorial conclusion, but probably the editor is right, he reasons, and
he passes to something more interesting.

The next article may be a continuation of comment on a subject
written about two days before. It becomes a bit more familiar. He
half recognizes the argument. He half accepts it now as his own, has
“thought of that before,” so he approves. Reiteration has influenced
him; a third presentation clinches him. Reiteration is a most subtle
means of influencing public opinion. The man who reads the same thought
a few times in different diction comes to accept it as his own thought.
It is an unconscious influence.

It is little consolation to the editor that his articles are hastily
read; so much the more reason, on the contrary, for making them
striking and for making their meaning the more easily understood.

People like to see their own beliefs reflected in their newspaper;
regard the editorial utterance as a confirmation of it; welcome a new
argument in its favor; like to read it to a neighbor; come to look on
the sheet as a personal champion.

All newspapers have great influence one way or another. They reach
the people to an extent not reached by any other influence, for
everybody of any account reads them. Consider for a moment. Rarely
does a clergyman find himself addressing a congregation of more than
five hundred persons; rarely, indeed, does the public lecturer speak
to a thousand persons; and seldom, in the heat of a campaign, does
the political orator find five thousand persons within the reach of
his voice. Yet a little editorial paragraph, placed conspicuously on
the editorial page of the New York _Times_, will be read by more than
six hundred thousand persons. A million and a half newspapers are
printed in New York city every morning, and nearly two millions every
afternoon, not counting those printed in other languages than the
English language of which there are nearly a million more. About the
same proportion of newspapers to population prevails throughout the
chief cities of the United States.

“I never read the editorials” we all have heard many a newspaper reader
say. “I simply scan the editorials,” we hear others remark. Almost all
editorial articles are hastily read, and so is the entire sheet for
that matter. You have only to watch the process to be convinced. The
busy man opens his newspaper to the editorial page as he would open a
book, holds it open and high, one page grasped by the left hand and
the other by the right. He scans the leading article, reads the first
two or three sentences and if attention is not instantly attracted
flashes his eye down to the beginning of the next paragraph, and so
on. The greater the number of paragraphs in the article the more quick
attention it gets. The sensational sheet editors know this and they
make many paragraphs in every article.

The profound heavy articles with three or four paragraphs only to the
column get scant attention except from readers especially interested
in the topic. They are looked at for an instant only. In that instant
the reader decides whether he is interested in the topic. Usually he
is not. His eye skims along to the next article with same result. Then
he may encounter something that he wants to know more about. But it is
half a column long. “I’ll read it when I get time,” he says to himself,
as his eye jumps over to the opposite page--a news page--and he begins
to absorb the headlines. These he treats in the same hasty manner and
in about three minutes he has finished the two pages and has turned
over to the next two.

He reads all in the same way. He may pause over a particular article
but usually the reading is of short duration. He has absorbed perhaps
the spirit of the headings and maybe the few lines of introduction to
the articles that have had his attention. He is ready with an opinion,
but that opinion is the opinion of the man who wrote the caption or the
introduction. The hasty reader has given the subject not the slightest
original thought. Nevertheless he is influenced by it. It is recognized
that almost everything we read has its direct or its unconscious
influence.

Very many busy men confine their morning newspaper reading to the
breakfast table, others “get through” their newspaper while on their
way to business. Very little newspaper reading has their attention
after reaching the office. Evening newspapers are read more thoroughly.
There is more time after dinner. The comfortable chair, the shaded
lamp, the family near to join in the comment--all help to make the
reading more enjoyable. But even then the average reader does not read
with intent attention.

It is incontestably true that the great mass of the people who read the
newspapers in this hasty glancing fashion do not think deeply. This
mental attitude has had the attention of observers for many years.
Hawthorne speaks of “the wild babble of the town--indicating a low
tone of feeling and shallow thought.” Macaulay said of Tillotson: “His
reasoning was just sufficiently profound and sufficiently refined to be
followed by a popular audience with that slight degree of intellectual
exertion which is a pleasure.” Lafcadio Hearn speaks of the masses as
people of uncultured taste to whom the higher zones of emotion are out
of reach. Dr. Samuel Johnson remarked: “The greatest part of mankind
have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion.”
And one of the conspicuous British essayists commented: “It serves to
show in what a slovenly way most people are content to think.”

Henry Ward Beecher ever was impressed with the influence of newspapers.
He said:

  Do you ever stop to think that millions have no literature, no
  school and almost no pulpit but the press? Not one man in ten
  reads books, but every one of us, except the very helpless poor,
  satiates himself every day with the newspaper. It is the parent,
  school, college, theatre, pulpit, example, counsellor, all in
  one. Every drop in our blood is colored by it.

Some one has said of newspaper influence: “Let me write the headlines
and you may write the rest,” which was another way of saying:
“Let me handle the news and you may write the editorial articles,
the criticisms and the other things, and I will have the greater
influence.” It always has been a debatable question.

Northcliffe, the conspicuous figure in journalism during the great war,
has said:

  It is true that an intelligently conducted newspaper can inform
  and guide public opinion but this is done more through publishing
  the news than by the dictum of the editorial. “Ye shall know the
  truth and the truth shall make you free” must be the underlying
  principle of journalism in a democracy.

In an appeal to editors to help spread the war spirit, a writer in
the Columbia University War Papers wrote:

  Editorials, repeated editorials, are both desirable and
  necessary. But to one reader who is influenced by a given
  editorial many hundreds are influenced day by day by the
  headlines of the paper and by the wording and form of
  presentation of the news. It is therefore to a considered
  and continuous policy of news presentation that we must look
  primarily for help.

Of newspaper influence Arthur Brisbane has said:

  There never was a corrupt official who could hear without dread
  the growling of a hundred thousand human voices outside his door.
  There does not live a corrupt official, however hardened, who
  hears without alarm the opinions of a million men voiced through
  a newspaper which they trust.

Thackeray’s famous paragraph with reference to newspaper activities
is often quoted as illustrating the power of the press through her
writers. Pendennis and Warrington are passing a brilliantly lighted
newspaper building. Reporters were coming out or were dashing up in
cabs, and Warrington says:

  Look at that, Pen. There she is--the great engine, she never
  sleeps. She has ambassadors in every quarter of the world--her
  couriers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies
  and her envoys walk into statesmen’s cabinets. They are
  ubiquitous. Yonder journal has an agent at this minute giving
  bribes in Madrid; and another inspecting the price of potatoes
  at Covent Garden. Look, here comes the foreign express galloping
  in. They will be able to give news to Downing street tomorrow;
  funds will rise or fall, fortunes be made or lost; Lord B will
  get up, and holding the paper in his hand and seeing the noble
  Marquis in his place, will make a great speech; and Mr. Doolan
  will be called away from his supper at the back kitchen; for he
  is sub-editor and sees the mail on the newspaper sheet before he
  goes to his own.

It may be said of present-day news column influence that never have the
news columns been so free from personal feeling, so fair to foe. The
public has never had greater confidence in them. Almost all editors are
honest in desire to print both sides of an important controversy. They
have come to know it is best policy. The speeches of rival partisans,
their communications, their activities, have well-nigh as conspicuous
places in the sheet as do the utterances of their own champions. This
helps to aid unbiased conclusion.

Public questions never have had such elaborate publicity as in recent
years, never have been so intelligently understood; and public
sentiment has not hitherto been so active or so influential.

Indeed, the spirit of independent fairness has become so acute that
not infrequently the small minority gets a prominence that it does not
deserve, with resulting danger that its activities may be mistaken for
genuine public sentiment.

This spirit of fairness does not exist of course in all publications,
but almost all newspapers are honest in their news columns. The sheets
that deliberately falsify become fewer every year. The influence of the
news columns has increased vastly.

For individual power and influence Lord Northcliffe stood supreme
among editors. His personal triumphs during the war were decisive and
far reaching. He destroyed one British cabinet and built another.
He forced the reorganization of departments. He compelled changes
of military policy and action and he flabbergasted pretty nearly
everybody who opposed. One of his distinguished opponents lamented
that Northcliffe was the most powerful man in England’s affairs since
Cromwell.

His editorial voice reached all kinds of people through the score or
more of daily, weekly, and monthly publications owned or controlled by
him all over the British empire. He owned the _Times_ that for more
than one hundred years had endeared itself to the British well-to-do
and upper classes for its trustworthy news reports, its superior
editorial comment and its fearless political criticism. He owned the
_Evening Mail_ that scattered a million copies daily among the common
people. He talked every day to millions of people, who, while not
thinking profoundly were willing to be led by intellectual excellence.

Northcliffe’s methods were of entrancing interest to those who observe
and study newspaper influence. He admits that in the beginning he was
fascinated by the American sensational press, by its ways of doing
things, by the enormous circulations of some of our editions. Nothing
of the sort existed in England twenty years ago and Northcliffe was
the first to introduce American methods there. He visited us more than
once to study our lurid journalism. He took several American newspaper
men to help him in London. He was impressed with Mr. Pulitzer’s thought
that our newspapers were too high toned, were written over the heads
of the masses; that the masses were ignorant of what was going on
because they could not understand the newspapers, and that a sheet
written in simple language and sold for a cent must be popular. He
would bring his sheet down to the comprehension of any man who could
read.

Northcliffe added acute sensationalism to this general plan, and his
daily newspapers in London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, and elsewhere
jumped to big circulations. He did not much disturb the conservative
news policy of the _Times_, but its editorial page became livid. Of him
it was said:

  Sensationalism is his gospel. Every day must have its thrill;
  every paragraph must be an electric shock. Politics are nothing;
  parties are nothing; principles are nothing; all that matters
  is that the great public shall be kept humming with excitement.
  He believes that power and political influence are in the hands
  of the multitude and that the newspaper having the ear of the
  multitude will control the tides of national thought.

Northcliffe’s unprecedented attacks on the Asquith government made
the world gasp. Friends of the cabinet and some newspapers urged
the suspension of his publications and his arrest for treason. His
attacks continued. The government did not notice them. His unlicensed
freedom of opinion was permitted. The idiocy of the Gallipoli
campaign was exposed. The punishment of its authors was demanded. The
inefficiency of the munitions department was made a public scandal
and reorganization was compelled. Northcliffe insisted on a small
war cabinet and on many other changes. Asquith’s indecision and
exasperating deliberation, at the moment when quick thought and quick
deeds were vital, filled Northcliffe with rage. The Asquith ministry
fell and Northcliffe named the succession. The world has rarely seen
such an exhibition of newspaper power.

The editor’s enemies endeavored to minimize the incident. They
contended that Asquith’s fall was inevitable after the failure of the
British advance on the Somme and the disaster in Roumania; that it was
another instance of Northcliffe’s newspaper smartness in anticipating
a coming event, urging its enactment and then taking credit for
compelling it.

This, I am sorry to say, is a venerable editorial device for making
newspaper reputation--learn what is contemplated by the government
or some one else and then start in the newspaper a raging demand
for it and when the end is accomplished take all the credit for it.
Northcliffe was an adept at this sort of thing. Indeed his enemies
accused him of giving the impression of forcing the government against
its will. Be that as it may, he was easily the commanding figure in the
journalism of the world during the war.



CHAPTER XII

THE STUDY OF A SPECIALTY--GREAT ADVANTAGE FOLLOWS THE MASTERY OF TWO OR
THREE SUBJECTS


Now, if our ambitious young newspaper man intends to be the editor
of a sheet in a small city or a village, he should study every part
of the business in detail. But, if he means to remain on a big city
staff it will be to his advantage, after he has done general work for
two or three years, to decide what particular branch of the work he
prefers to follow and then bend effort toward that end. If he fancies
the writing of editorial articles, let him study the art of editorial
writing. If he aspires to executive work, such as is done by managing
and city editors, let him prepare accordingly. But, if he desires to
continue on the general writing staff he will find it very much to his
advantage--in connection with his general work--to study a specialty or
two. In the newspaper office the man who knows most about a given topic
is the man summoned to write on that topic. The expert on national
politics is sent to the national political conventions and the man
who knows most about finance must write the big stories of financial
moment--just as in football the best kicker is called on to kick the
goal.

Now, of newspaper specialties there is no end. Let yours be one in
which you will be interested, to master which will be a delight. One
young man of my acquaintance became fascinated with astronomy and he
studied it between times while working at his newspaper desk, mastered
it, became an authority on the subject, and was soon in demand as a
writer of astronomical articles and astronomical books.

Another young man became interested in geography and exploration until
he obtained intimate knowledge of the land and the seas that decorate
this fascinating old earth. His articles were soon in demand at
altitudinous rates. He hobnobs with explorers, directs in geographical
societies, superintends in the making of maps, delivers lectures and
writes constantly--and still the wonder grows that he can get so much
out of it.

Men who can write with authority on the subject of music are especially
welcome in newspaper offices, and a writer who knows engineering and
construction has a splendid specialty in these days of machinery,
enormous buildings and marvelous public works.

But, conspicuously above all other newspaper specialties let me put
politics, and next to politics in my opinion comes finance. In a
whimsical sense they may be said to go together, for do we not see
occasionally that politics has to be financed and that finance is at
the mercy of politics. Each in itself is highly important and together
they rule the world. Of politics there is no end--never has been--never
will be. Year in and year out its discussion fills more than one-half
of the editorial page. For centuries it has commanded the supreme
mental attention of statesmen and writers. It always furnishes the
great public issue, and here in America we all take part in it through
our right to vote and through our knowledge of the parties and the
issues and the men who represent them as set forth in the newspapers
which we all read. We might easily carry this suggestion to indefinite
lengths, proving by argument and by facts that a supreme knowledge of
this subject must be of greater usefulness to the newspaper writer than
any other specialty; and it may be added, in all truth, that no man can
become a really great editor without an intimate knowledge of politics.

Only a little less important to newspaper men as a special study is the
subject of finance. That melange of mystery called Wall Street we have
always with us. Its doings are deep and mysterious to the uninstructed,
but plain as a pancake to him who has studied them. The finances of the
nation always have had public attention. John Fiske, in his admirable
work called “The Critical Period of the American Republic,” has shown
how for eight or ten years after the Revolutionary War the young nation
was on the verge of destruction through inability to finance its
poverty. Since then we have had a dozen financial convulsions called
panics, each one followed by business depression and endless newspaper
discussions of causes and possible effects. Alway they must continue.

This particular study includes an enormous range of topics, including
the banking business and banking systems public and private at home and
abroad, international monetary systems, foreign exchange, gold exports
and imports, tariff imposition, currency systems, commercial credits,
problems of transportation, the financing of great undertakings through
the issue of stocks and bonds, the buying and selling of our enormous
agricultural product as well as the product of our factories--and many
other kindred topics which contribute to the live news of the day and
afford important subjects for editorial comment.

The principles of finance are given in various textbooks, but their
practical application can be made only through knowledge of causes
which change from day to day and which are recorded in current
publications. The same may be said of the politics of the day.

Almost all young men like to write about sporting contests because
they are interested and because they enjoy seeing the game. The public
demand for superior sporting news has compelled the printing of from
one to three pages of it daily, and the good sporting writer is usually
in demand. It is not difficult to catch the knack of writing for the
sporting page, but thorough technical knowledge is required. Interest
in sporting contests seems to be increasing of late years. They must
for a long time to come consume much newspaper space.

Also, young writers usually are ambitious to pen theatrical criticism.
They are interested in the theaters and like to attend them. But this
work is given to men of experience, as a rule. The field is limited,
the number of dramatic critics required is very few, and for various
reasons the post when attained is of precarious permanency.

The writing of book reviews is commonly an early ambition of the
college graduate especially. It fascinates with its promise of literary
research under the soft glow of the student lamp, the welcome warmth of
the cushion study chair, and the silent inspiration of dusky volumes
on the library shelves. And delightfully clean and interesting work it
is, to be sure, well worthy any student’s quest. Many newspapers print
a literary supplement once a week and it busies many pens. Usually it
is under the direction of an editor whose exclusive task is to provide
the matter for its columns. A large proportion of the new books sent
for review are given out to members of the editorial or writing staff
whose attention to them is in the nature of extra work; but some are
sent to persons outside the office. The labors of the literary editor
of a big city journal are constant and exacting for nearly every
book published is sent to him and they are numbered in thousands. He
has to provide for special articles on literary topics, also, for
answers to correspondents, and he has to prepare for printing proper
announcements of forthcoming publications which he sifts from a mass of
matter furnished by publishers. Very many books are sent to the daily
newspapers in the smaller cities, attention to which is usually divided
among various members of the staff.

The general writer on a staff seldom acquires more than a general
knowledge of the topic he is writing of; the specialist has expert
knowledge, and often it is sought to his very great advantage by
business or other outside interests. In these hustling times the expert
in almost any line of study finds himself in demand.



CHAPTER XIII

THE ACTIVITIES AND PATRIOTIC SERVICE OF NEWSPAPERS IN TIMES OF WAR


The war correspondent is perhaps the most picturesque figure in
journalism. He endures the dangers and the hardships of war as does the
soldier, possibly more so, for no one looks out for him in the field or
especially cares how he fares. He has some glorious moments; but for
the most part his time is consumed in heart-breaking effort to overcome
obstacles. His reputation depends on his success in dealing with these
difficulties.

The reporting of other wars was easy compared with the late World War.
In the South African campaign, for example, the London newspapers were
permitted to send as many correspondents as they chose and they went
when and where they pleased. The London _Daily Mail_ had thirty-six men
there with a staff editor in command--the other London newspapers about
the same number each. And all were competing in hustle and grab to get
news and flash it to the home office. With little censorship and no
restriction the reporting of that war was not difficult. And this was
true of nearly all war reporting up to the conflict between Turkey and
the Balkans in 1912.

But the great war, 1914-1918, was started with almost as much hostility
toward the correspondent as toward the enemy. As though by common
consent, all the conflicting nations sought to crush him. Every big
newspaper in all the world wanted to send a correspondent to the firing
lines: some of them wanted to send two, four, six, even more, for the
line of battle soon became more than a hundred miles long in France and
much longer on the Russian frontier. At first not any were permitted
to approach the firing front or even the division headquarters and the
correspondents worked under great disadvantage. A strict censorship
was made over the little information they were able to obtain. It was
very unsatisfactory. At this time London was almost entirely without
information about the war. The solemn silence with reference to the
armies and the fighting served to dampen enthusiasm and patriotic
ardor. Calls for enlistments were ignored, recruiting came to a
standstill. Lists of the dead began to appear, adding to the gloom. No
stirring descriptions of personal heroism or glorious achievement were
printed. The newspapers made a great row about it and the people joined
in.

It was not until later, when the papers were permitted to print
stirring news from the front of the ebb and flow of the battle tides,
that enthusiasm was aroused and England made splendid response to the
call for fighting men. The government at length came to appreciate
that to suppress all war news was to breed indifference; and in the
same proportion as the censorship was relaxed, public spirit was
aroused.

All of the London newspapers made the most elaborate preparations
to report the war. Those of the _Times_ were perhaps the most
comprehensive and may serve as illustration. It sent ninety
correspondents to the army fronts scattering them all along the lines.
They were, in the main, high priced men and the expenditure amounted to
something like fifteen thousand dollars a week. But the censors shut
them out entirely. They were not allowed within miles of the fighting
lines and were forbidden to send a scrap of news. It was useless to
keep them there and they were recalled. The only news printed in
London, Paris, or Berlin, at first, were the government reports.

It was in response to public clamor for more news that a new plan
of war reporting was adopted, namely, the syndicating of news. Very
few correspondents were permitted on the firing line and each man
represented a number of newspapers. In 1918, for example, as many as
eight or ten English newspapers shared the work of one man. Reuter’s
agency had a man at all fronts. His reports went to all newspapers.
This was a great service and also a great saving to the smaller sheets;
but the big newspapers wanted their own men to do their work.

In London, a combination of all the daily papers was formed, called
the Newspaper Proprietors Association, and it made virtually all
arrangements for reporting the war. If a member had in mind a good
thing to do he was required by the arrangement to tell it to all
the others, for nothing could be done except under this cooperative
scheme. These conditions destroyed all competition. Newspaper “beats”
disappeared. It was a very unsatisfactory arrangement. There was no
freedom of movement for individual publications. And it is more than
likely that a similar system will prevail in future wars. No room, no
facilities for several hundred correspondents are to be had at the
field headquarters of a fighting army. The number must be restricted
and the news passed around to all newspapers.

In the latter months of the war, conditions, as compared with the
first months, were reversed. Censorship was relaxed somewhat and
correspondents were allowed to approach the battle lines with greater
freedom. The syndicating plan was not changed. It worked more smoothly
as the writers had more liberty but it was not ever satisfactory to
the newspapers. The feeling of resentment toward the presence of
correspondents in the field somewhat passed away. The writers who
kept faith and observed the censorship rules were made more welcome.
But army officers never have been reconciled to the presence of
correspondents and doubtless never will be.

It was difficult for the newspapers to obtain quick news of the war for
reasons already mentioned, yet, reviewing the months of the conflict,
it is difficult to recall any serious misrepresentation of facts or
conditions. We understood always, with substantial accuracy, how many
men each power had in the field, where the armies were gathered, what
the losses were, what advantages had been gained or surrendered, and
substantially how things were going.

The war was not reported with especial brilliancy until just before
its end. In the closing months some very fine work was done, but until
then dull routine narration was the vogue. Censorship, the syndicate
requirement, the never ceasing congestion of the wires, the compelled
reduction in the size of newspapers, were the chief causes for the
moderation. A correspondent who knows that his matter is to be cut and
slashed two or three times by censors before it reaches his editor
loses much of the inspiration to brilliant work.

For the first time in any war, correspondents were compelled to wear a
uniform--the ordinary officers’ uniform without any mark or rank, but
with a green brassard around the left upper arm. Each correspondent
was compelled to provide himself with everything needed in the field
including his transport which meant motor car and horses. It has been
estimated that the correspondent’s expenses were about eight hundred
dollars a month. The correspondents were paid from four thousand to ten
thousand dollars a year salary, three or four of especial reputation
getting more than the latter sum.

The war involved vast additional expense to newspapers. The cost
of maintaining men in the field and in news centers, the cost of
transmitting dispatches, especially through the cables, as well
as the enormously increased price of every product that entered
into newspaper construction helped to swell the total. The increase
in the price of printing paper alone cost our newspapers of large
circulation an additional eight hundred thousand dollars or nine
hundred thousand dollars a year. Instead of paying from seven to
ten cents a word for cable transmission, as before the war, the
press paid latterly twenty-five to thirty-five cents from London and
Paris. Some papers paid as much as one thousand dollars for single
dispatches and frequently expended ten thousand dollars a week for the
transmission of war reports. In the Gallipoli drive, messages were sent
to Constantinople by automobile, thence wired to Vienna, relayed to
Berlin, relayed again to The Hague and again to London, whence cabled
to America at a total cost of about a dollar and a half a word. Yet we
failed to note any relaxation of effort or of expense on the part of
American newspapers to get the news. It is an axiom of the business
that the very life of the sheet depends on a lavish expenditure for
the purchase of information. The big newspapers were compelled to have
special correspondents in all the big centers of allied, belligerent
and neutral countries, to cover the political situation and other
things arising from the administrative state of the war. For example,
Holland was the center of German news, being on the frontier and on the
main route. Here, naturally, a man obtained the big German news first
of all, the German newspapers, the narratives of persons passing from
Germany. Switzerland was a news center of almost equal importance for
the same reasons. Sweden and Norway had to be covered. It was very
trying for the newspapers, very expensive.

In reporting the great war the newspapers were under great disadvantage
in consequence of the censorship. It was the more exacting in the
European cities, for there it included the censorship of comment as
well as news; but much more important war news was permitted to pass
through the Atlantic cables than was permitted to be published in
London, Paris, or Berlin. Nevertheless, every cable message, every
mail letter to America was carefully scrutinized. The letters found
objectionable were destroyed; the cables were changed or suppressed
at the censor’s will. Dispatches from Paris to America by the way of
London were censored in Paris and again in London and also on arrival
in America. Messages from Vienna were censored in that city, in Berlin,
in London and again in America. But with our entrance into the war all
messages from Germany and Austria ceased, practically. At the time
Servia was crushed, American correspondents telegraphed some fifteen
thousand words describing the conquest, not one word of which reached
New York. The reports reached London and were held there because
thought to be news damaging to the cause of the allies. An American
correspondent early in the war sent four reports of the Champagne
advance. One third of one of them was delivered. Other correspondents
had the same experience at this time.

In justification of censorship and in appeal to the press for its
aid, the War College in Washington, in the late war, cited instances
of mischief done in other campaigns. In the Crimean War the English
newspapers gave the Russians most valuable information about the nature
of the trenches and the condition of the armies. Wellington complained
that the English press gave to Napoleon full details of his troops and
movements. The result of the battle of Sadowa, in the Austro-Prussian
War, was largely determined by a report in the London _Times_ which
told that the Austrians were encamped on the right bank of the Elbe.
Napoleon’s letters from St. Helena attested that he kept accurate track
of the movements of the English fleets and armies by London newspaper
reports. The English had always given him credit for a crafty spy
system, not appreciating that the letters of English officers which
filled the newspapers, were a part source of his information. In
the Franco-Prussian War the French journals gave the Prussians full
particulars of McMahon’s concentration at Châlons, his march to Rheims,
and his advance to the Meuse. The Prussians so directed their army
movements that the French surrender at Sedan was forced. The advance of
the French army for the relief of Bazine at Metz, the success of which
depended on secrecy, became known to the Prussians through the French
and English newspapers. In our own Civil War, General Sherman’s famous
march through Georgia to the sea was largely directed by newspaper
reports and by President Jefferson Davis’s speeches explaining how
Sherman was to be cut off, which were printed in the Southern press.
And the War Office warning told how in the Spanish-American War of
1898, the success of the American expedition that concentrated at Tampa
was seriously menaced. Every military movement was reported in our
newspapers and the Spanish Government had within a few hours complete
accounts of the American preparations for war.

The War Office document made observations on the influence of the press
in times of war in the following fashion:

  The press, powerful in peace, may become more so in war. By its
  editorials and presentation of news it may sway the people for
  or against the war, and thus stimulate recruiting and hearten
  and encourage the fighting forces in their work, or, by adverse
  criticism, may tend to destroy the efficiency of these agencies.

  It may by publishing names of organizations, numbers, movements,
  accounts of victories or defeats, furnish information to the
  enemy that will enable him to deduce the strength and location
  and intended movements of our own troops.

  By criticism of the conduct of campaigns, the action of certain
  officers or exploiting others, the people will be led to lose
  confidence in the army with the result that the moral support of
  the people is lost; they cry for and obtain new generals and new
  plans of campaign, not based on expert knowledge and thought with
  a consequent lengthening of the war or even defeat.

War has added greatly to our information about foreign countries. We
studied their geography as we followed their armies, their history
as we became interested in various regions. We have come to know
of their resources, their products, their agricultural and their
financial condition. Every day for more than four years, in hundreds
of newspapers’ columns, we read of their statesmen, their generals,
admirals, soldiers, sailors, their people, their purpose, their
patriotism, and their courage. We know of their cabinets and their
parliaments as never before, their industrial troubles, their petty
politics as well as those larger problems that require diplomatic
interference. The war brought us into a new intimacy with almost all
the nations of the globe. It incubated hundreds of new problems.

It must be quite impossible for the public to appreciate the patriotic
assistance and the pecuniary sacrifice of the newspapers in the war.
They surrendered hundreds of pages to appeals for aid, to arousing
interest, to patriotic propaganda. Let us glance at the work of a
single sheet:

Mr. William H. Field of the Chicago _Tribune_ attested (April, 1918)
that at that time his newspaper was devoting fifty per cent of its
space, other than advertising, to matters concerning the war. In
response to the question, “What can we do to help win the war?” it was
decided to serve patriotic purposes both practical and inspirational.
Mr. Field said:

  In the Sunday edition, fiction section, we print at least
  one patriotic story. The pictorial supplement contains war
  photographs and portraits of military leaders.

  The woman’s department is devoted largely to war service. One
  section is given to the work of the Red Cross and especially to
  its needs. We give scientific and practical information about
  food and preach economy and conservation in cooking and urge
  coöperation with the Food Administrator.

  We advocate the making of war gardens and give explicit
  directions.

  We have a Camp Stories contest in which we encourage soldiers to
  send short stories of camp life.

  We print one page of signed editorials on the war. The idea of
  the page is to give articles such as may be found in magazines
  of the caliber of the _Atlantic Monthly_, the _Yale Review_, the
  _North American Review_ and the _New Republic_.

  On the club page we have one article and picture from the Woman’s
  Committee of the State Council of National Defense.

  Under the heading “Woman in War Time” we report the activities of
  the various patriotic women’s organizations.

  A three or four thousand word letter of society gossip has been
  a feature for many years. I find in the last one fifteen hundred
  words devoted to the work of the Woman’s Committee on the Liberty
  Loan campaign, one hundred words on war talk at one of the clubs,
  five hundred on the entertainment of soldiers and sailors, five
  hundred words to the Woman’s Land Army, three hundred words on
  the work of women in munitions factories, five hundred to appeals
  for war donations from New York committees, and three hundred
  words on a sale of Easter cards for the benefit of the wounded.
  This one article, indexed as “Society Letter” is one hundred per
  cent war propaganda. The only feature section not contributing to
  war material is the comic section.

What has been true of the Chicago _Tribune_ was true also of nearly all
the important newspapers of the United States. Nothing was permitted
to come before the most insignificant bit of war information. The
newspapers made all news subordinate to war news. Day after day no
other intelligence than war news appeared on the first page of our
metropolitan sheets. With glowing patriotism they surrendered column
after column to appeals for help for Belgium and for scores of other
charities growing out of the war, and not in all the long years did
they cease to print appeals. Through the coöperation of the newspapers
millions on millions were raised before we entered the war. Then began
renewed efforts to help the Red Cross, the Young Men’s Christian
Association, the Knights of Columbus and kindred organizations. And in
still greater patriotic endeavor the press of America urged support of
the Liberty Loans and the thrift stamp movements.

The newspapers spoke for the national government. They printed the
government appeals. They counted not the cost to themselves although
every additional page meant hundreds if not thousands of dollars in
additional expense. In no other way could the government so quickly
reach the people. The President’s appeal to public sentiment, the
treasury’s call for financial aid, the plans for taxation, the
demands for conservation of food and resources, the thousand and one
suggestions to the people were all before the people in less than
twenty-four hours in every city of this broad land. Through the press,
the government could almost instantly communicate its wishes to more
than three-quarters of the people. Yet the attitude of the government,
and especially of Congress, was that of antagonism to the press and in
some directions almost of hostility.



CHAPTER XIV

NEWSPAPER HISTORY--THE MODERN NEWSPAPER


The young man contemplating journalism may be interested in the
beginnings of the business. The little known about them is abundantly
repeated in various histories. China seems to have been the pioneer
at a time before the Christian era. But the records of those early
years are hazy. It is known that the Peking _Gazette_, as the sheet
now is called, has been in continuous publication since the year
618 and mention is made of the Peking _News_ as being much older.
News-sheets printed in the time of Julius Cæsar speak of their esteemed
contemporaries published in China.

Before the invention of type and printing all communications intended
for public consumption were written on papyrus sheets and were hanged
in the market places, or were read to the people, or were circulated in
various ways.

Fifty years before the coming of Christ, the Roman government sent out
an official sheet for the information of its public servants, the army,
and the people, and this publication was continued for many years.
Latterly it was called _Acta Diurna_ (Daily News) and it seems to have
been exceedingly popular.

The public appetite for news and gossip appears to have been quite as
voracious then as now. The news-sheets were almost sensational in their
telling of scandals, of murders, and the details of crime. There seems
to have been little regard for the proprieties in those days, for we
read in the _Acta Diurna_ that “the funeral of Marcia was performed
with greater pomp of images than attendance of mourners.” Extracts from
Cicero’s speeches are given, and one commentator writes:

  When Cicero was sent as governor to Cilicia he asked a friend
  to send him the news of Rome. The friend employed scribes, the
  reporters of that day, to gather the information and prepare
  the letters. The man who wrote the first letters reported
  everything from the procedure of the Senate to the result of the
  latest gladiatorial contest. Cicero objected to his methods and
  complained that the letters contained items that he would not
  have bothered with when at home. What he wanted, he explains,
  was advance information to keep him in touch with the political
  movements of the time.

It was during the reign of the Cæsars that the news-sheets were in full
request. They were written in Latin, of course, and were marvels of the
penman’s art on papyrus; and they were expressed with an epigrammic
terseness and a snap that might well be imitated to-day. Dr. Johnson
translates a few of them in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ as follows:

  The Latin festivals were celebrated, a sacrifice performed on the
  Alban Mount, and a dole of fish distributed to the people.

  A fire has happened on Mount Coelius; two trisulae and five
  houses were consumed and four damaged.

  Demiphone, the famous pirate, who was taken by Licinus Nerva, a
  provincial lieutenant, was crucified.

  The red standard was displayed at the Capitol and the Consuls
  obliged the youth who were enlisted for the Macedonian war to
  take a new oath in the Campus Martius.

  The Aedile Tertinius fined the butchers for selling meat which
  had not been inspected by the market overseers. The fine is to be
  used to build a chapel for the temple of Tellus.

  M. Tullius Cicero pleaded in defense of Cornelius Sylla, accused
  by Torquatus of being concerned in Catiline’s conspiracy and
  gained his cause by a majority of five judges. The Tribunes of
  the Treasury were against the defendant. One of the Praetors
  advertised by an edict that he should put off his sittings for
  five days on account of his daughter’s marriage.

  A report was brought to Tertinius, the praetor, while he was
  trying cases at his tribunal, that his son was dead. This
  was contrived by the friends of Coponius, who was accused of
  poisoning, that the praetor might adjourn the court; but the
  magistrate having discovered the falsity of the story, returned
  to his tribunal and continued in taking information against the
  accused.

After Cæsar’s time the Roman sheets gradually disappeared and
newspaper history becomes very misty. News publications reappeared,
however, in Vienna and in Augsburg in 1524 and Pendleton in his
“Newspaper Reporting in Olden Time and To-day,” after quoting
Chalmers in his “Life of Ruddiman,” observes:

  But he admits that the first modern sheet of news appeared in
  Venice about the year 1536, that it was manuscript, and was
  read aloud in certain parts of the city--a journal that proved
  a great attraction, for it was issued once a month only, and
  narrated in polished stirring words how the Venetians fared in
  their war against Turkey. The fee paid for reading this sheet
  in manuscript was a gazzetta, and the news-sheet gradually got
  the name of the coin (_The Gazette_). At least Blount, in his
  Glossographia published in the seventeenth century, would lead
  on to this conclusion, giving as the definition of the word
  gazzetta, “A certain Venetian coin scarce worth one farthing;
  also a bill of news or short relations of the occurrences of the
  times, printed most commonly at Venice, and thence dispersed
  every month in most parts of Christendom.” It was not until 1612
  that the gazzettas of the Venetians first appeared as numbered
  sheets but some years previously the thirst for news--now
  well-nigh unquenchable in every civilized part of the globe--had
  spread to England.

All through the Middle Ages the news-letters were restrained both
by church and state. The privilege of printing them was withdrawn,
and by the year 1500 they virtually had ceased to exist. When
they reappeared they were under strict government direction and
censorship. The use of movable type and the printing press now
facilitated their production, but all authority frowned on them
save that authority which made use of them for its own ends.

The newspaper censorship of the next one hundred and fifty years
was the severest ever known. Lord Burleigh, who was Prime Minister
in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, seems, however, to have understood the
value of publicity--understood that a handful of facts is worth
a hatful of rumors when it comes to influencing the people. The
appearance of the Spanish Armada in 1588, with its one hundred
and twenty-nine ships, its twenty thousand soldiers and its ten
thousand sailors, bent on the invasion of England, had long been
looked for, and on its approach the people were overcome with
hysterical excitement. But Burleigh had a news-letter printed from
day to day telling the exact facts of the situation and the panic
subsided.

Dr. James Melvin Lee, head of the Department of Journalism in New
York University, believes that the first newspaper to be printed in
the English language was published in Amsterdam, December 2, 1620,
and in proof of his belief he produces a facsimile of the sheet. It
was half sheet folio and had no title. A descriptive of the battle
of Weissenberg was its chief feature.

In a discussion as to the early use of the word “reporter,” Mr.
Henry N. Cary, a New York journalist, quotes from a pamphlet of
1613 of which the title is:

  The Wonders of this windie winter, by terrible stormes and
  tempests, to the losse of lives and goods of many thousands of
  men women and children. The like by Sea and Land hath not been
  seene nor heard of in this age of the world. London. Printed
  by G. Eld for John Wright, and are to be sold at his shop neer
  Christ-church dore.

In this pamphlet is the following:

  Ships were perishing to the number of a hundred, and forty
  seafaring men, besides other passengers, both of men and women
  which at that time made their watery graves in the deep sea. This
  first strooke feare into the hearts of people, which hath since
  seconded with many calamities, which lieth heavily upon the heart
  of the reporter.

The details of this storm’s destruction are far less interesting to
us than is the way they circulated the news in 1613 when there were
no newspapers.

For the next one hundred years the news-sheet was the chief source
of information to the English people. A few weekly newspapers were
started, the first being edited by Nathaniel Butter, in 1622. It
was called the _Weekly News_, but it seems to have had few readers.
The people stuck to the news-sheets in which they had confidence.
Possibly they did not credit Butter’s yarns. Pendleton quotes two
of them as specimens of seventeenth century journalism:

  A true relation of the strange appearance of a man-fish about
  three miles within the river Thames, having a musket in one hand
  and a petition in the other, credibly reported by six sailors who
  both saw and talked with the monster.

  A perfect mermaid was by the last great wind driven ashore near
  Greenwich, with her comb in one hand and her looking-glass in the
  other. She seemed to be of the countenancy of a most fair and
  beautiful woman, with her arms crossed, weeping out many pearly
  drops of salt tears; and afterwards she, gently turning herself
  upon her back again, swam away without being seen again any more.

Later in the century the use of the news-sheet became so general
as to clog the mails. Macaulay writes interestingly of the
disseminating of information in those days:

  In 1685 nothing like the London daily paper of our time existed
  or could exist. Neither the necessary capital nor the necessary
  skill was to be found. Freedom too was wanting, a want as fatal
  as that of either capital or skill. During the great battle of
  the Exclusion Bill, many newspapers were suffered to appear. None
  of them was published oftener than twice a week. None exceeded
  in size a single small leaf. The quantity of matter which one
  of them contained in a year was not more than is often found in
  two numbers of the _Times_. After the defeat of the Whigs, it
  was no longer necessary for the King to be sparing in the use
  of that which all his Judges had pronounced to be his undoubted
  prerogative. At the close of his reign no newspaper was suffered
  to appear without his allowance; and his allowance was given
  exclusively to the London _Gazette_. The London _Gazette_ came
  out only on Mondays and Thursdays. The contents were generally
  a royal proclamation, two or three Tory addresses, notices of
  two or three promotions, an account of a skirmish between the
  imperial troops and the Janissaries on the Danube, a description
  of a highwayman, an announcement of a grand cockfight between two
  persons of honor, and an advertisement offering a reward for a
  strayed dog. The whole made up two pages of moderate size.... The
  most important parliamentary debates, the most important state
  trials, recorded in our history, were passed over in profound
  silence. In the capital the coffee houses supplied in some
  measure the place of a journal. Thither the Londoners flocked as
  the Athenians of old flocked to the market place, to hear whether
  there was any news. There men might learn how brutally a Whig had
  been treated the day before in Westminster Hall, what horrible
  accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of the torturing of
  Covenanters, how grossly the Navy Board had cheated the crown in
  the victualling of the fleet, and what grave charges the Lord
  Privy Seal had brought against the Treasury in the matter of
  the hearth money. But people that lived at a distance from the
  great theatre of political contention could be kept informed of
  what was passing there only by means of news-letters. To prepare
  such letters became a calling in London. The news-writer rambled
  from coffee room to coffee room collecting reports, squeezed
  himself into the Sessions House of the Old Bailey if there was
  an interesting trial, nay perhaps obtained admission to the
  Gallery of Whitehall and noticed how the King and Duke looked. In
  this way he gathered materials for weekly epistles destined to
  enlighten some country town or some bench of rustic magistrates.

  Such were the sources from which the inhabitants of the largest
  provincial cities and the great body of the gentry and clergy
  learned almost all they knew of the history of their own times.

  We must suppose that at Cambridge there were as many persons
  curious to know what was passing in the world as at almost any
  other place in the kingdom out of London. Yet at Cambridge during
  a great part of the reign of Charles II, the Doctors of Laws and
  the Masters of Arts had no regular supply of news except the
  London _Gazette_. At length the services of one of the collectors
  of intelligence in the capital were employed. It was a memorable
  day on which the first news-letter from London was laid on the
  table of the only coffee house room in Cambridge.

  At the seat of a man of fortune in the country the news-letter
  was impatiently expected. Within a week after it had arrived
  it had been thumbed by twenty families. It furnished the
  neighboring squires with matter for talk over their October, and
  the neighboring rectors with topics for sharp sermons against
  Whiggery and Popery.

   It is scarcely necessary to say that there were then no
  provincial newspapers. Indeed except at the capital and at the
  two Universities there was scarcely a printer in the kingdom.

This was the condition of the newspaper business at the end of the
reign of King Charles II.--a period distinguished by less interest in
literature and study than any period of England’s history after the
Elizabethan revival of learning. The reading of books and the search
for information had been abandoned in the quest for pleasure. The
people had joined in imitating the profligacy, the licentiousness and
the revels of Charles’s court. They who champion the newspaper as a
great uplifting influence in community might instance these profligate
days in which there were no newspapers and compare them with later
years.

But the opening of the eighteenth century brought fresh impetus to
study and a new interest in literature. Several weekly newspapers
had been set going. The first daily newspaper was started in London
in 1702. It was called the _Courant_. It was a small single-sheet
publication printed on one side only, and it gave but a meager
assortment of news items. It refrained from expressing opinions, the
editor saying that “he would give no comments of his own as he assumed
that people had sense enough to make reflections for themselves.”
Scores of editors even to the present day have launched initial numbers
of their editions with this same resolution, expressed in the same way,
but somehow it does not last long.

Then came the _Review_ founded by Defoe, and Richard Steele’s _Tatler_
and the _Spectator_ by Steele and Joseph Addison, which publications
mark the real beginnings of journalism. By this time Pope and Swift,
William Walsh, whom Dryden praised as a great critic, and Arthur
Maynwaring and others of the famous Kit Cat Club were writing for the
periodicals.

Editorial comment, or the expression of editorial opinion seems to
have had no place in newspapers until toward the close of the reign
of King Charles II. Then, while the London _Gazette_, appearing under
government direction, was printing news only, Sir Roger Lestrange
was permitted to print a journal of comment without news, called the
_Observator_. Lestrange had been a Tory pamphleteer, and for a short
time had edited small news-sheets and under the government. He had
been Surveyor of Printing Offices and Licensor of the Press. The
_Observator_ was ferociously against the Whigs and the Protestants.
Because editorial comment was new, it focused much attention. Here
was the first editor to write violent political editorial articles.
He confined his subjects to politics and to religion which was then a
part of the politics of the day. He inspired a host of imitators and
the leading article, of which he was the parent, has been the leading
feature of all journalism ever since. Great in its political use,
immediately after him, were Dean Swift in his _Examiner_, and Daniel
Defoe in the _Review_ which he started in 1704 while in jail for
political offense.

It was just at the beginning of the eighteenth century that Steele
and Addison began their _Tatler_ and _Spectator_. Their first impulse
was to write of politics, for Steele was alive with political zeal
and Addison was interested; but presently they seemingly sensed the
opportunity for success in the new direction of a publication given
to the elucidation and the discussion of general topics, of subjects
on which politics was unlikely to produce diversion of opinion--social
life, play-house criticism, literature, morals, ethics and personal
conduct. The _Spectator_ was printed daily. To the policy of minimizing
politics and exalting general topics of interest it adhered.

Newspapers and periodicals increased rapidly after this time. Henry
Fielding, the novelist, was editor of the _True Patriot_ in 1745
and the _Jacobite Journal_ in 1747. Dr. Samuel Johnson started the
_Rambler_ in 1750 and the _Idler_ in 1758. In 1714, eleven papers were
appearing in London. In 1733, the number had increased to eighteen and
in 1776, to fifty-three.

John Wilkes in his newspaper the _North Briton_ accused the king of
lying in his address at the opening of Parliament in 1762, for which
Wilkes was committed to the tower and expelled from the house, of which
he had been a member.

Oliver Goldsmith wrote his delightful letters from “A Citizen of the
World” for the _Public Ledger_. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hazlitt and
John Campbell were writers for the _Morning Chronicle_.

And in after years, contributing to the London _Times_ at one period
or another as writers, were: Beaconsfield, Lord Chancellor Brougham,
Cardinal Newman, Lord Grey, Lord Macaulay, Sir William Harcourt, Moore,
Dean Stanley, Lord Sherbrook, and Dr. Groley.

The constant and consistent progress of the newspaper since its feeble
beginnings, and especially its development in the last two hundred
years, attest its importance to mankind. Rarely, indeed, has progress
been more deliberate; rarely has it been more substantial. Long
years of experience with it have tested and verified the newspaper’s
usefulness.

Thirst for news and for information has always prevailed and newspaper
progress undoubtedly must have taken a vigorous spurt with the
invention of type and printing but for the reason that both church and
state joined in its repression. In 1685, at the close of the reign of
King Charles II. there were in all England two newspapers only, worthy
of the name, and both of them were under the strict supervision of the
royal censor.

The first real jump in newspaper progress came with the relaxation
of government repression just after the year 1700. It was then that
Addison, Steele, Defoe, Fielding, Swift and Dr. Johnson, gave the
real beginnings to journalism. Thereafter, for a hundred and fifty
years, the advance and improvement in the making of newspapers were
deliberate and irresistible. From chatterers and gossipers only the
journals came gradually to be leaders of thought and of public opinion
and circulators of essential information. But the change in them was so
slow as to be almost unnoticed from year to year.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, came the
invention of the modern printing press which permits the printing of a
newspaper of thirty-five pages or more at the rate of thirty thousand
or more copies an hour; the invention of the stereotyping process by
which newspaper pages may be duplicated to indefinite numbers, in solid
metal, and used on an indefinite number of presses in the printing
of a single edition; and the invention of the typesetting machine by
which type may be cast and placed with something like six times the
speed of the old-time process of hand composition. They were marvelous
inventions.

These inventions removed mechanical difficulties that had confined the
size and restricted the circulation of newspapers, and great changes
came quickly. Heretofore the newspapers had been restricted to eight
pages and many of them printed four pages only; but immediately twenty
and twenty-four page editions appeared and thirty-five and forty
page ones are common now. This great increase in volume permitted a
like increase in scope and we now see in the newspapers a mass of
information on an innumerable number of topics. Moreover, all changes
in national or social life bring changes in newspapers. Big business
brought big newspapers, as soon as they could be made.

Greatly increased newspaper importance has followed this expansion.
It is possible to present great events with a fullness of detail and
an attention to side issues hitherto unknown. A senator’s attack on
the Administration may be printed in full--six or seven columns of
it. An investigation involving the conduct of the war may be reported
question and answer verbatim. Pages are devoted to a catastrophe
like the blowing up of Halifax that a few years ago would have been
described in as many columns. Scores of special articles are printed
the like of which never had found place in the daily newspaper. And in
the evening sheets, especially, are department features intended to
interest women and children, funny picture series, puzzles, medical
information, screeds, and freak features--all of which emphasize the
very great change from comparatively a few years ago. And every change
from the beginning has been in the direction of progress, has made
the newspaper a greater and a better product, has given to it the
increased confidence of the public. Confidence in a production of any
sort usually is withheld until experience has tested and verified it.
The value and the importance of the newspaper have come to be firmly
established.

Many persons do not require the services of a lawyer. Many rarely
employ a physician. Thousands seldom listen to a clergyman. But in
these wide-awake days everybody of any account must read the newspaper,
for the reading of the newspaper has come to be absolutely essential
to the daily routine of every intelligent person. The things we read
in the morning newspaper are the things we talk about during the
day. If you are interested in politics, or if you are interested in
finance, or the fluctuations of prices, or the movements of society,
or any phase of trade or commerce, or in any of the vital questions
of the hour--for all of these you turn to the newspaper. The things
taught in the colleges are the things of the past, or the principles
that experience has tested and verified. The things taught by the
newspapers are the things of the present. You cannot learn politics
from a textbook. You must absorb the politics of the day by a study
of the events of the day. Your financial policy must be governed by
existing monetary conditions rather than by conclusions drawn from the
panic of 1873 or that of 1907. The events of the day, the progress of
the day, are of more importance to the man in business life or the
man in social life than any other consideration. The newspaper is his
great source of inspiration and instruction. The newspaper informs you,
instructs you, influences you, amuses you, inspires you, directs your
thoughts, assists your conclusions, fires your ambitions, enlarges your
vocabulary--all of which are of the utmost importance to you. It may
be said, therefore, with confident complacency that the profession of
journalism rests on the solid foundation of supplying an essential need.

In a lecture before the students of Dartmouth College, Mr. John Lee
Mahin said:

  The family that pays a cent or two for its big morning newspaper
  receives a carefully digested review of the political, economic,
  social and commercial activities of the entire world for the
  previous twenty-four hours. Probably five hundred men in New York
  City would pay a thousand dollars a year each for the commercial
  information alone that they receive from the New York _Times_ if
  they could not obtain it in any other way.

In considering these changes it should be remembered that the
journalism of fifty years ago was conspicuous for the reason that a
famous bunch of editors stamped their personality on almost every
column. It was the period of personal journalism. These editors were
inspired by the tragedies and the ferocities of the Civil War and by
the magnitude and the political importance of events involving as they
believed the very life of the nation. They were made conspicuous by the
very greatness of the causes that moved their minds and their pens.
They were stimulated to the limit of mental exaltation in what they
wrote. The country was surging with excitement. Part of the people
were clamoring for peace on any terms. Others insisted on fighting
the war to a finish at any cost of life or money. Still others were
for compromise. It is hardly possible for generations of to-day to
appreciate how intensely the war agitated the people. The editors
fought each other with a ferocity otherwise unknown in American
journalism. They were the people’s champions and their names were known
in every household; and doubtless their names will live for years to
come as the country’s greatest editors.

Nevertheless, let it be said, in all truth, that we have to-day
scores of editors equally capable of producing the crisp and pungent
paragraphs as well as the profound editorial articles of Prentice,
Greeley, Raymond, Dana, Bryant, Bowles, Watterson, Medill and Manton
Marble. The personal journalism of that day was impetuous and
impressive, but latterly and by degrees, in the big cities especially,
“the supreme importance of the editor has been transformed into the
supreme importance of the newspaper,” and we hear less about the editor
and more about the newspaper itself.

This effacement of individuality influences to exalt the newspaper
and to exalt journalism as a profession. The greatly enlarged field
has attracted thousands of most excellent writers, fine editors,
conductors, and managers. News-gathering and news-presentation are now
regarded as of supreme importance. Our pages bristle with specialties.
Our Sunday editions are magazines of information. The great modern
newspaper represents the product of the profession rather than the
genius of a single writer.

It was not so fifty years ago. These men, whose names have come down
to us, were great editorial writers rather than great editors of the
entire newspaper. Aside from the editorial page their editions were
devoid of genius. The news columns were slovenly in appearance and
dull in narration. They lacked the cunning of embellishment with the
flavor of literature and the charm of fiction. The book reviews, the
critical articles were excellent--but the editors daubed dullness over
everything else. The newspaper of that day is not to be compared with
the newspaper of to-day in general excellence.

The editorial pages and the criticisms, however, were of high
excellence. It was a literary era and the literary impulse was a
conspicuous factor in public thought. Marble, Dana, Bryant, Curtis
and others made reputations for literary excellence in journalistic
work that would not to-day attract so much attention; for literary
excellence, while commended and appreciated, is not so much insisted
on, encouraged, or taught, as it was forty years ago.

The foreign correspondence of that day as printed in the newspapers
consisted largely of descriptions of scenery and revelations of the
writers’ emotions while climbing to Alpine heights or floating by
moonlight on the silent waters of Italian lakes. It was written mostly
by staff members who were on vacation trips and who were inspired by
the travel notes of Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne that
had obtained great attention. The journals of fifty years ago did not
maintain regular correspondents abroad. All first class important
papers to-day have representatives in the capitals of Europe, but
they do not write descriptions of scenery. Some of the foreign
correspondence of that day was very good, however, notably that of
Bayard Taylor for the New York _Tribune_.

The most conspicuous difference between the newspapers of 1850 or 1860
and those of to-day is in the treatment of news. Very little space was
given then to really important events. The national convention that
nominated a candidate for the presidency was reported in two columns
or so, whereas to-day from three to six pages are required. A bare
half column was given to the stock market. The commercial markets
were equally pinched; two or three pages of matter are now devoted to
them. There was no real estate department. The court calendars were
not printed for the lawyers, nor the list of buyers in town for the
merchants; nor was there a sporting page, or a woman’s page, or a
list of school teachers appointed, or of policemen transferred, or of
firemen granted a leave of absence. The news was presented in the most
perfunctory and routine fashion, with no attempt to make it attractive
or interesting. News collecting had not been systematized or especially
studied, as to-day. The Associated Press was in its infancy, devoting
itself almost entirely to congress proceedings and to market reports.
Raw reporters were permitted to intersperse their own comments through
what they wrote and their conclusions received little revision or
supervision. Every line in the modern newspaper is revised by a copy
reader editor and not a suggestion of reportorial opinion is permitted.
The edition of fifty years ago was more or less subject to haphazard
inexactitude and casual error.

The present-day newspaper is prepared with great care. Its ambitious
articles are studied out. The errors in its news columns are the
results of haste rather than ignorance--the haste compelled by
necessity in getting to press on the minute. The Sunday edition
supplements, devoted to general topics and to literature, are
already taking the place of many kinds of literature. They print
new fiction by popular authors. They exploit and expand the latest
developments in science, art, music, medicine, mechanics, construction,
transportation--indeed, anything that is new or important. They quickly
transfer to their columns any important matter contained in a new book.

The reading of newspapers is immeasurably greater than the reading of
any other kind of matter. The new book of which fifty thousand copies
are sold is called very successful, of which one hundred thousand are
sold is pronounced a wonder, of which two hundred thousand are sold,
phenomenal. Yet in New York City alone a million and a half newspapers
are printed every morning and nearly two millions every afternoon. In
America, millions of persons who do not read more than five books in a
year read a newspaper or two every day.

And the newspaper of to-day is a better paper because it is more
accurate of statement and more faithful to fact, and more fair-minded
in the presentation of passing events. The long weary day of
misrepresentation in news reports is drawing to its close. The chief
events of the time are recorded with such fidelity to accuracy that
in future years they must be accepted as historically correct. All
decent newspapers now take pride in their accuracy of statement in
the news columns and there is little intentional misrepresentation.
In our political campaigns the attitude of each candidate is decently
described and what he says is faithfully reported and made equally
conspicuous. In this respect the newspapers have changed greatly within
a few years.

Moreover, the collection of news has been greatly facilitated by
increased telegraph and telephone and ocean cable efficiency. These
agents give much better transmission, making communication with all
parts of the world little short of instantaneous. Speaking of the
benefits to the world secured through electricity, Mr. W. W. Harris
said in a recent address:

  When the Norsemen were on their way to the discovery of America
  they had no compass; yet the compass had been discovered by the
  Chinese many centuries before. But the news of the compass had
  not in all these centuries gotten half way around the world. And
  the science of navigation came not until that piece of news had
  made its way to the European world. To-day any important fact
  girdles the globe in a cable’s flash.

The newspapers of to-day are better because more study and thought are
put into their construction. Not only are the editorial writers men of
education, but the sub-editors, the night editors, the revisers of copy
and the reporters are mostly educated men--men who have been taught
where to seek and how to find information, who have been taught to be
confident and self-reliant and original. The proportion of college-bred
men on newspaper staffs is much greater than it used to be, and the
intelligence of the staffs has increased in the same proportion.
The modern newspaper wants men of brains who know how to use their
brains--men who can think rapidly and act instantly.

This unceasing, irresistible, cumulative progress is making newspapers
more important, is making the profession of journalism more attractive.
Even as years of experience and study and laborious patient application
have perfected and solidified the practice of law and medicine,
have made firm and substantial the developments of electricity and
mechanics, and have solved the problems of transportation and great
business, so the making of newspapers is settling down to a strong
substantial basis.



INDEX


  Abbott, Lyman, 89

  _Acta Diurna_, 197

  Addison, Joseph, 89

  Arnold, Sir Edward to Tennyson, 64


  Barnato, Barnard, 110

  Beecher, Henry Ward, 93, 173

  Bowles, Samuel, 91, 148

  Brisbane, Arthur, 174

  Bryant, William Cullen, 147

  Burleigh, Lord, 200

  Butler, Samuel, 55

  Butter, Nathaniel, 202


  Cary, Henry N., 201

  Cable, Costs, 107, 112, 190

  Censorship, 164

  Chaucer, 65

  _Christian Science Monitor, The_, 89

  City Editor, The, 2

  Conquests, the public’s great interest in any kind of a fight, 97

  Copy Readers, 29, 35

  Correspondent, the Washington, 10, 12

  Correspondent, the Foreign, 112

  Corbett, James, 97

  _Courant, The London_, 205

  Crooke, William, 18


  Dana, Charles Anderson, his fine leadership, 48;
    great as an editor, 61;
    advice to his Managing Editor, 62;
    on hasty editorial writing, 80;
    on making the _Sun_ talked about, 94

  Dickens, Charles, experience as a reporter, 16


  Edison, first public test of the household electric light, 13

  Editorial writer, The, 76, 78

  Editorial council, The, 79

  Editor in chief, The, 79

  Editor, letters to, 80

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 52

  Exaggeration, where it may be tolerated, 70


  Field, Eugene, 148

  Field, William H., 194

  Fiske, John, 181

  Forney, Colonel John W., 35

  _Fourth Estate, The_, 119

  France, Anatole, 68

  Froude, James Anthony, 148


  _Gazette, The Peking_, 197

  _Gazette, The London_, 206

  George, Lloyd, 111

  Gladden, Washington, 157

  Gosse, Edmund, 56

  Gray, 55

  Greeley, Horace, 61, 91, 94, 147


  Harris, W. W., 216

  Hay, John, 148

  Halsted, Murat, 148

  Hearn, Lafcadio, 53, 55, 89, 172

  Hearst, William R., 88

  Heenan, John C., 97

  Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 148

  Howells, W. D., 148


  Imitation, its repressive influence against a writer’s
      advancement, 135

  Irving, Washington, 65


  Jefferson, Thomas, 148

  Jenkins, how he got a job as reporter, 18

  Johnson, Samuel, 56, 173

  _Journal, The New York_, 101


  Lauzanne, Stéphane, 149

  Lee, James Melvin, 201

  Lestrange, Roger, 206

  Lincoln, Abraham, 159


  Macaulay, T. B., 55, 71, 202

  Machiavelli, 59

  Mahin, John Lee, 211

  _Mail, London Daily_, 185

  Managing Editor, 46-49

  Medill, Joseph, 148


  Nelson, Colonel William Rockhill, 15

  Newspaper, the modern, made with bewildering speed, 43

  Newspaper, the village, its opportunities for community service, 130

  Newspaper specialties, those embracing politics and finance the most
      important, 180

  Newspapers, indispensable to republican or representative form of
      government. The government speaks to the people through them, 161

  News, local, does not exist in New York City; all important in the
      village, 140

  Northcliffe, Lord, 173, 175


  _Observator, The_, 206

  Ochs, Adolph S., 91


  _Patriot, The Fulton_, _N. Y._, 130

  Pendleton, John, 12, 199

  Policy, newspaper, its reversal is dangerous to its prosperity, 91

  Price, Charles W., 117

  Proof reading, 40

  Publications, technical and class, 119

  Pulitzer, Joseph, 87


  Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, 54, 158


  Reid, Whitelaw, 94

  Reporter, his beginnings and progress, 1-9;
    the political, 8-10;
    his unpleasant tasks, 22

  Reporters, first announcements of great events made by, 13

  _Review, The_, 205

  Roosevelt, Theodore, 31

  Rossetti, 55


  Sainte Beuve, 56

  Saintsbury, George, 53

  Salaries, newspaper, 146

  Sayers, Tom, 97

  Scott, Sir Walter, 55

  Seitz, Don, 102

  Sensationalism, wherein harmful, 103

  Smith, Sidney, 70

  _Spectator, The_, 205

  Stead, William T., 67

  Syndicate service, 138

  _System_, 121

  _Sun, The Evening_, 102


  Talleyrand, 25

  _Tatler, The_, 205, 206

  Thackeray, William M., 174

  _Times, The New York_, 91

  _Times, The London_, 187

  _Titanic_, steamship, loss of: how reported, 44

  Tolstoy, 55

  _Tribune, The Chicago_, 91

  _Tribune, The New York_, 91


  Victorian Literature, Era of, 83

  Village, the American, its newspaper opportunities, 132


  War, its supreme interest to newspaper readers, 99

  Weather, the: its importance and interest to the reader, 100

  Webster, Noah, 148

  Wells, H. G., 17

  West, Dean, 67

  Whitman, Walt, 148

  Whittier, John G., 148

  Wilson, Woodrow, 58, 69, 159, 162

  _Writer, The_, 60


Transcriber’s Note:

Punctuation has been standardised. Spelling and hyphenation have been
retained as published in the original publication except as follows:

  Page 3
    everything happens in New York than can _changed to_
    everything happens in New York that can

  Page 47
    or off Montauk Point: judgment whether _changed to_
    or off Montauk Point; judgment whether

  Page 60
    better expresed by _changed to_
    better expressed by

  Page 89
    kind to whom lacrimose emotion _changed to_
    kind to whom lachrymose emotion

  Page 94
    who succeded Greeley as editor _changed to_
    who succeeded Greeley as editor

  Page 102
    exaggeration and breathless anouncement _changed to_
    exaggeration and breathless announcement

  Page 111
    opinion as to the propects for peace _changed to_
    opinion as to the prospects for peace

  Page 198
    sent as governor to Cilica _changed to_
    sent as governor to Cilicia

  Page 219
    accounts the letters from Edinburg _changed to_
    accounts the letters from Edinburgh

  Page 236
    _Gazette, The Pekin_ _changed to_
    _Gazette, The Peking_

  Page 220
    Lausanne, Stéphane _changed to_
    Lauzanne, Stéphane





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