Reporter

( Originally Published 1913 )

THE reporter is, journalistically speaking, a gatherer of news, and most reportorial work is confined to the writing of local happenings.

The great metropolitan newspaper maintains a residential staff of from twenty-five to fifty reporters, a part of them being known as regular reporters or reporters-at-large, who do the work assigned to them by their city editors, while others are called district and special men, whose duties are to cover prescribed or local territory, or to handle some one class of news.

The district men are under the direction of the suburban editor, or of the city editor, if there is no suburban editor. These reporters are largely in command of themselves, and their work is not laid out for them. They are supposed to cover their territory according to their own judgment, giving preference to the news which would be especially interesting to their constituency.

The regular reporters are connected with the home office staff, make their headquarters in the city room of the newspaper, and receive daily instructions from the city editor, who keeps an assignment book, and lays out the work for his men, giving to each. one of them an important assignment or several of minor consequence. As a rule, one reporter is assigned to a piece of work, but if it is of unusual importance two or more may cover it, the city editor, or the reporter in charge of it, running these reports together, so that the result appears to be written by one person. For example : a murder has been committed, and the crime, with its connections, is of sufficient importance for a first-page story. It is quite obvious that no one reporter could handle it, so several reporters are assigned to the work, the responsible reporter doing the better or larger part of it.

Every great newspaper employs two or more reporters of unusual ability, who are assigned to cover important events. They are usually versatile writers, who can acceptably handle anything from a tragedy to a convention. They may or may not be stenographers. If they are not, and a stenographic report is necessary, a short-hand man will be assigned, who will work under their direction.

But every regular reporter, although more or less of a specialist, and better adapted to one class of work than to reporting in general, is usually able to cover successfully practically every event which occurs.

Leading newspapers employ several department reporters, each of whom devotes the major part of his time to some one class of news,— one reporter covering courts, another fires, another politics, etc.

On the staff are one or more reporters, who are competent to handle special articles, and who are able to write out their impressions of famous men who are visiting the city; or to cover the dedication of a monument, or the opening of a bridge or railroad. These men have, at least, the semblance of a literary style, and most of them could, if they 'would, produce acceptable magazine or book matter.

Of course, every reporter is supposed to keep his eyes open, and to bring to the office any news which he happens to run across, even though it may be out of his jurisdiction. If he has time, he writes it himself. If not, the city editor assigns a reporter to the work.

Suburban reporters; those handling a territory or territories exclusively,— do not go outside of their districts. If a very important event occurs, the city editor assigns to them one or more regular staff men, who, in most cases, work under their direction. Much of the news gathered by the suburban reporters is telephoned or telegraphed to the office.

Staff or regular reporters,— those directly connected with the office of the newspaper, and who work under the immediate direction of the city editor; are paid from ten to even fifty dollars a week, the latter salary being enjoyed by comparatively few. The first-class staff re-porter, however, if upon a great newspaper, will draw a salary of about twenty-five dollars a week.

Most newspapers employ what are known as cub " reporters, many of whom are recent graduates of college. A proportion, and, perhaps, a large one, of these men, do not make good, and leave the newspaper business eventually. They are paid from ten to twelve dollars a week, at the start, and are promoted if they deserve it.

In addition to salaries paid to the reporter, he is allowed an expense account, so that he will go to no personal expense when working at a distance from the office.

The reporter, however, lunches and dines at his own expense, and pays his own car-fare from home to office, the newspaper reimbursing him for traveling expenses while on duty, and for board and lodging if he is unable to return to his home, and allowing for his meals if he is obliged to eat some distance from the office.

The suburban reporter is allowed traveling expenses when away from his home town.

Nearly all of the large newspapers employ what are known as space-writers,— reporters who work by the column and are paid from four to even ten dollars per column for what is printed, five dollars being the average price per column. The space-writer is not paid for what he writes, except occasionally, but only for what is printed of what he writes. For example : if he turns in copy sufficient for a column, and the editor condenses it into half a column, he is paid for half a column and not for the column he has written, unless he is working under special arrangement. These space-reporters may receive assignments from the city editor, or they may work at large, turning into the newspaper what; they think would be acceptable to it. Some of them devote their time exclusively to one paper, while others produce matter to be sold to the syndicates, and many of them are literary, writers.

Provincial or small city newspapers employ from two to even a dozen reporters, most of whom are on salaries, and receive from ten to twenty-five dollars a week, the average pay being about twelve dollars ; and these papers also use the work of space-writers.

The work of all of these reporters is similar to that of those on the large city dailies.

Suburban or district reporters for a metropolitan newspaper are paid from ten to forty dollars a week, but the average salary probably does not exceed twenty or twenty-five dollars.

This class of reporters, on the smaller dailies, receives as little as five dollars a week, and probably seldom more than fifteen dollars, unless they cover a very large territory.

Small daily newspapers pay space.-writers from three to five dollars per column.

Not more than a half of the country news-papers, which are usually published weekly, maintain a paid reportorial staff. A large part of the news is sent in, or collected by the editor himself. These papers, however, may receive news from as many as a dozen, or even fifty, country correspondents, many of whom are teachers or, clerks, and who give but a small part of their time to reporting. They receive from two to three or even five dollars a week, but many of them work for " glory."

The first-class country newspaper, however, usually employs one salaried reporter, who acts as assistant .editor, and who is paid from tea to even twenty dollars a week.

Reporters confine their labors almost exclusively to the collecting and writing of news, and occasionally to the preparation of special articles, and are not allowed to use the editorial " we," unless they are connected with a country newspaper.

Nothing contributes more to editorial or literary proficiency than does reportorial experience. The reporter, more than any other class of writer, gets close to men and things. His profession allows him to have the most intimate relations with both joy and sorrow, with the action of both business and the professions, and with everything which is a part of human life. He is always on the firing line, or is seated at the top of the observation tower. Nothing may occur outside of the line of his vision. He visits the sorrowful widow one day, the would-be suicide another, talks with the captain of industry, the clerk, the labor leader, and the workman. He is in court today, and at a wedding to-morrow. The lights and shadows of life pass before him in moving pictures, which seem to have no beginning and which never cease their rolling. The reporter may exclaim, more truly than can any other man, " The world is mine ! "

The discipline of the newspaper office, however hard it may be, teaches concentration of both eye and brain.

Practically all of our leading editorial writers and editors-in-chief graduated from that great educational institution of learning,--the reportorial school.

While a few editors have gained distinction without reportorial experience, the majority of them have marched in the ranks and have success-fully carried the gun of journalism before they were permitted to wield the pen which is mightier than the sword.

I would most emphatically advise every would-be journalist to enter the newspaper house through the reportorial door. In no other way can he obtain the fundamental experience so necessary to journalistic success. Without this experience, he may succeed. With it, his success will be more marked.

Further, I would suggest that an apprenticeship on a country newspaper be enjoyed by the embryo journalist, for the great city newspaper cannot, at the start, give its attaches the intimate contact with conditions which is necessarily a part of the everyday life of every country newspaper man.

The country editor or reporter finds himself in close touch, not only with outside conditions, but with every department of his paper. His desk is near the composing room, and he writes within the sound of the clatter of the press. He is nearer to conditions than would ever be possible in the great newspaper office, which is one huge journalistic machine, divided into departments, few of which are closely allied to the others.

I am sorry to say that the majority of reporters enter journalism with no particular desire for the work, and take it up for no well-defined reason. They seem to be somewhat fascinated with it, and go into it blindly. Many of them fail, and a few of those wlso remain are :promoted, or else become dissatisfied or disgruntled men, who work automatically, and who earn hardly enough to live respectably. This condition, however, prevails in every business, and no one should refuse to enter journalism on that account.

What makes the good reporter; that is to say, what kind of a man is likely to succeed in this ,profession? It is difficult 'to diagnose indications of reportorial proficiency, or to present an intelligent psychological study of the composition of the brain which is more likely to succeed than to fail in the gathering of news.

In this calling, perhaps more than in any other, it is obvious that no one could hope to make good unless he first of all loves it more than anything else. If he has not an active mind, which will manifest itself in an active pen, if he cannot acceptably write upon paper what he sees, if he has no imagination, if he is purely automatic in his work, if he has no ambition and would as lief take up one thing as another, he had better shun journalism as he would the plague.

While an intense and natural love of journalism is essential for the flush of success in it, there must be something more than the mere desire. The would-be reporter must have, at least, some reason to believe that he is competent, or will become so, to meet newspaper conditions. If he is not naturally a ready writer, and finds he can-not, after practicing, intelligently, correctly, and concisely place both facts and impressions upon paper, he cannot hope to become a good news-paper man. Further, the good reporter, even though he may eventually become an editor, must have what is known, in newspaper vernacular, as " a nose for news." He must not only be able to handle what is before him, but he must have that peculiar natural ability to find it by assuming that it exists. He must be diplomatic, be-cause he will meet all sorts and conditions of people. He must be able to discriminate between what is good news and what is of no importance. He must, in advance, be competent to know what a particular piece of news is worth to his news-paper, and then be able to write out, not necessarily what he wants to say, but what the newspaper considers sufficiently pertinent for publication. He must be able to size up a situation often almost instantaneously. Further, he should be a good judge of human nature, and be able, by contact with men, to discriminate between the truth and its opposite. He must learn how to believe and disbelieve what is told him, to separate the grains of news from the dust. He must have the faculty to keep his finger upon the public pulse, and to discern the pulsations of the wants of the people.

If he does not possess all, or nearly all, of these requisites, he would fail as a reporter, and would be unfit to enter any other department of active journalism.

Let not the would-be reporter or newspaper man deceive himself into believing that his academic education, even if it be collegiate, will, in itself, make him either a good reporter or journalistic writer. While book or schoolroom learning counts mightily, and while a common school education is necessary, all' of the. book knowledge in the world will be worthless in newspaper work if its possessor does not know how to apply it. In no other calling is the application of learning more essential.

Thousands of our leading journalists did not enjoy a college education, and yet many of them would have probably been better writers and newspaper men if they had graduated from a high institution of learning ; but the college in itself does not fit one for newspaper work, nor does it unfit him to follow this vocation. It will benefit him, if he uses it as he should, as it would assist him in any other department of work; but the man, more than his education, harvests success in the newspaper field.

Do not, however, belittle the importance of an academic education. Without a certain amount of it, one would be handicapped all along the journalistic line.

My advice to the would-be reporter is,—if I may condense it into a few words,--enter journalism if your desire is natural, and you have reason to believe, by preliminary experience, that you can succeed at it. But you should not take up this calling as a means of livelihood, until you have thoroughly investigated it, by contact with newspaper men of standing, who will tell you, if you ask them, what you must expect, and what you should be and must do, if you would make good as a newspaper writer.

If the investigation discourages you sufficiently to produce a reasonable doubt in your mind, consider some other calling, which does not require that special ability which is absolutely essential for success in journalism.

This subject has been further treated in the chapter entitled "A Nose for News," and in other chapters.