City editor

“ The city, telegraph, and news editors confer with him about getting important stories. The Sunday editor consults with him with regard to special features. To him is submitted a proof of every story, which he reads for possible libel and for general effectiveness. [Pg 12] Now and then he returns a story to the city editor to be lengthened or to be pruned down. Occasionally he may kill an article. Always he is working at top speed, from the time he gets to his office at 8:00 a.m., or 2:00 p.m., until he sits down to compare his paper with the first edition of rival publications. ”

“ Instructions from the City Editor.—Before beginning the story, the reporter should stop at the city editor's desk, give him in as few words as possible an account of what he has learned, and ask for instructions about handling the story, about any feature or features to play up. The city editor may not offer any advice at all, may simply say to write the story for what it is worth. In such a case, the reporter is at liberty to go ahead as he has planned; and he should have his copy on the city editor's desk within a very few minutes. ”

“ Clarke never thought well of himself as a reporter, and often said that in that capacity he was a failure. As a judge of news values, or news presentation, or as a giver of the fine literary touch which lent to the Sun’s articles that indescribable tone not found in other papers, Clarke stood almost alone.
The city editor of a New York newspaper sows seeds; the night city editor re-seeds barren spots, waters wilting384 items, and cuts and bags the harvest. The city editor sends men out all day for news; the night city editor judges what they bring in, and decides what space it shall have. ”

“ The City Room.—The city room is the place where a reporter presents himself for work the first day. It is impossible to give an exact description of this room, because no two editorial offices are ever alike. If the reporter has allied himself with a country weekly, he may find the city room and the business office in one, with the owner of the paper and himself as the sole dependence for village news. If he has obtained work on a small daily, he may find a diminutive office, perhaps twelve by fifteen feet, with the city editor the only other reporter. ”

“ The city editor commands a company of perhaps half a hundred reporters, who are sent scurrying daily throughout the city to bring in the news from its various sources. One goes to the ball game, another to a funeral, another to the courts, another to a hotel to interview some prominent person, and still another goes to a political convention. ”

“ The city editor also has an assignment book or sheet on which is entered every important news possibility for the day, with the name of the reporter assigned to cover it, and with any information or suggestions that the editor wants to give the reporter. When the reporter arrives at the office to begin his day’s work, or when he reports to the office by telephone, he gets his assignments for the day. These assignments are usually connected with his run, so that while he is on his daily round of news gathering he may get in addition the special news assigned to him. ”

“ A ‘city editor’ directs the reporters in gathering news. A ‘news editor’ keeps in touch with outside correspondents through the telegraph and the telephone. What pours in from the press associations and a paper's own avenues must be thoroughly sifted by ‘copy editors,’ who now throw out far more than they put in. For important news articles there are usually special writers. ‘Exchange editors’ read other periodicals with scissors in hand, clipping what they think will interest the public. Comment on the news of the day is in the hands of a trained corps of editorial writers. ”

“ The distinctively American system centres on the city editors, who have the primary responsibility for the news and the newspaper “stories.”
The city editor on duty for the time being combines in himself functions, which in England are usually divided between the head reporter and one of the sub-editors, whose duty it is to revise home news. For instance he has to make the assignments for the early morning to his corps of reporters ”

“ Not quite a hundred years ago a man came into the presence of the city editor—tall, distinguished-looking man, clothed in the best West of England tweed. City editor very small person compared with man. Man takes chair offered him, and says, “I’ve got into a little scrape which you can help me out of if you would.” City editor ought to feel flattered, that man would condescend to use him to help him out of a scrape. ”

“ The Night Editor is the man who stays until almost morning, who overlooks everything that goes into the paper, and who puts everything in according to the orders of the Editor-in-Chief, or of the Managing Editor. Well, he tells the Night Editor how he wants to-morrow’s paper made, what articles to make the longest, and what ones to put in the most important places in the paper. Then, perhaps, the City Editor comes knocking at the door, and enters, and he and the Editor-in-Chief talk over some stirring piece of city news, and decide what to say in the editorial columns about it. ”

“ There are also half a dozen reporters, trying to recover from the night before election; four rewrite men, who have abandoned hope of ever recovering; the city editor, who is reading Variety, and the assistant city editor, who is doing nothing at all except looking blank. The telephone rings, and the assistant city editor, with the air of an early martyr, answers it. ”

“ With great respect to your Honor (as we say in court) , I deem it a great mistake to neglect newspaper suggestions, however provincial. 'Do you hear (as Hamlet says) , let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.' And your metropolitan editor, after all, follows the bent of the public opinion of the provinces as he scissors it from his thousand and one exchanges. The village or country editor has time to mix among the people, and hears them talk to reproduce it artistically. The city editor finds little time for this. ”

“ Take for example, New York; and there is that great city, and Brooklyn, and Jersey City, and Hoboken, and Newark, and Elizabeth, to be looked after, as well as many large villages near at hand. And there is great competition between the papers, which shall get the most, the exactest, and the freshest, news. Consequently, each day, a leading New York paper will publish a page or more of local news. The City Editor has charge of collecting this news. He has, perhaps, twenty or twenty-five 20 men to help him—some in town, and others in the suburbs. ”

“ The sporting editor has one such man, and the city editor has one or two. Finally, there are the photographers, subject to the city editor, who rush hither and thither to all parts of the city and state, taking scenes valuable for cuts. ”

“ For the same practical reasons the volume omits editorial and copy reading, and makes no attempt to teach the beginner to be a dramatic critic or a city editor. It aims to give him only those details and that instruction which shall make him a competent, reliable reporter for the city editor who first employs his services.
The book is written also with the belief, based on practical experience, that news writing as a craft can be taught. It is not contended that schools can produce star reporters. The newspaper office is the only place where they can be developed. ”

“ In the handling of a big story, on which five or fifteen reporters may be engaged, the night city editor has to put together as many different writings in such a way that the reader may go smoothly from beginning to end. Chance may decree that the poorest writer has brought in the biggest news, and the man on the desk must supply quality as well as judgment. ”

“ One day, while I was so occupied, I saw among the "want" advertisements in a newspaper one offering the position of city editor on a Long Island City weekly to a competent man. Something of my old ambition stirred within me. It did not occur to me that city editors were not usually obtained by advertising, still less that I was not competent, having only the vaguest notions of what the functions of a city editor might be. I applied for the job, and got it at once. Eight dollars a week was to be my salary ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the newspaper office the rewrite man had hardly drummed out the last line of copy before the sheet of paper was snatched from his typewriter and rushed in the wake of former scudding sheets to the composing room, just in time for the first edition.
“There never was a beat like it,” cried the exultant city editor. “I don’t see how he landed it.”
“It’s a great piece of newspaper work,” agreed the managing editor. “No man in the country could have done better. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Still others were describing the scenes on the streets, the torchlight processions, the happenings at the political headquarters, and telling what the effect of the Board of Aldermen changing from one party to the other would be.
There was not an idle person in the room. The city editor was here, there, everywhere. He seemed to be carrying the responsibility of a dozen men. He was telling everyone to hurry, as it was time for the morning extra to be out on the street. ”

“ The editorial offices are in a single vast room, in a corner of which the Colonel's flat-top desk is placed. There are no private offices. The city editor and his reporters have their desks at the center, under a skylight, and the editorial writers, telegraph editor, Sunday editor, and all the other editors are distributed about the room's perimeter. ”

“ It's got to make the first edition!”
“Yes, sir!” exclaimed Bud Nelson, head copy boy on the New York Daily Leader, one of the largest afternoon papers of the metropolis, as he raced upstairs to where the clicking type-setting machines were in noisy operation.
“You boys must be more lively,” went on Mr. Bruce Emberg, the city editor. “This is not a playroom nor a kindergarten. You must learn to jump up whenever you hear the assistant city editor or myself call 'Copy.' I make some allowances for you boys who have not been here long, but it must not occur again.” ”

“ The man who directs the reporters is usually called the city editor, or perhaps the day or night city editor; above him there are managing editors and other persons in authority with whom the cub is not concerned; and the favored mortals who enjoy a room by themselves and write nothing but editorials are called editors or editorial writers. ”

“ Nearly all this copy needs editing, coming as it does largely from correspondents on country dailies and weeklies. In addition to editing stories sent in by correspondents, the state editor keeps a space book, from which he makes to the cashier in the business office a weekly or monthly report of the amount of material contributed by each correspondent.
11. Sporting Editor.—Unless given a place in the sporting department, the reporter will not soon meet the sporting editor, who, with his assistants, is usually honored with a room to himself and is independent of the city editor. ”

“ While teaching school he learned the printer's trade, in the office of a white paper, The Ironton Busy Bee, and during vacation was city editor, and in winter, during the school term, he had control of the educational column of that paper. For two years he was local correspondent of The Columbus (Ohio) Evening Dispatch, and at other times the correspondent of The Sentinel and Afro-American of Cincinnati and of The Globe at Cleveland, Ohio. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Emberg, speaking to no one in particular. “We want the news, and those who have no noses for it had better look alive. We’re in the news business, and that’s what we have to give the people.”
The reporter, to whom Mr. Emberg had given the clipping, soon ascertained that, in the main, it was correct. So a story was made up concerning the Eleventh Ward meeting, and run in the second edition of the Leader, much to the disgust of the city editor, who hated to be “beaten.” ”