Chester Sanders Lord

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 bells27 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The manufacturer of goods, for instance,99 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Wall97 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”