Editor-in-chief

“ As editor in chief, he was a more or less cloistered mystery, and not the man of affairs one is likely to be over here. Whatever comparisons I made in spite of the Herr Director’s protest, were not entirely fair; for editors are scarcely a species anywhere, and the particular one upon whom we were calling was an uncommon editor of an uncommon journal. ”

“ The editors are ordinarily politicians or publicists, who devote their entire time to the discussion of political questions, and expect the party or faction to which they belong to furnish them with the means of living while they are so employed. Each of the papers has a director, who holds the relation of editor-in-chief, and a sub-editor, who is a man-of-all-work, edits copy, looks after the news, reads proof, and stays around the place to see that the printers are kept busy. ”

“ They canvassed the office and found everybody willing to contribute. The managing editor and the assistant editor-in-chief had gone home, but as they had shown kindness to Whiskers, and were, in fact, the only two men on the staff who knew anything about his private affairs, the exchange editor took his chances and put in a dollar for each of them. ”

“ The editor became (and now is) a mere mouthpiece of the proprietor. Editors succeed each other rapidly. Of great papers to-day the editor's name of the moment is hardly known—but not a Cabinet Minister that could not pass an examination in the life, vices, vulnerability, fortune, investments and favours of the owner. The change was rapidly admitted. It came quickly but thoroughly. At last—like most rapid developments—it exceeded itself.
Men owning the chief newspapers could be heard boasting of their power in public, as an admitted thing ”

“ The successful editor is protean in his mental grasp. A man of culture, he has to do far more than merely place the mordant impress of his mind upon his paper. The closet student, the brilliant writer, may be invaluable in a newspaper corps, but much more is required of the capable commander-in-chief. ”

“ Whilst the editor has been holding this important parliament, the sub-editor has, on his part, not been idle. The mass of papers he has to examine and arrange far exceeds that of his chief, and no small judgment is required to determine what shall be retained and what shall be destroyed. Look at that heap of papers. Surprise is often expressed that an editor should be able to fill his forty or fifty columns with such unvarying punctuality, morning after morning. “Whence can he find matter?” ”

“ Elaborate cable services from London, Berlin, and Tokyo were its chief features, and business people were not slow to recognise that through the Post they were brought into touch with the affairs of the world in a manner hitherto unattempted by private enterprise. The Post also takes the credit of being the originator of the 10-cent newspaper in Hongkong. In a short time the Post increased in size, and now it gives its readers a daily average of thirty columns of reading matter and forty columns of advertisements. ”

“ Fifty Indians had been killed and thirty prisoners taken, while the loss to the white warriors, since the first battle, was a few wounded.
The Indians had at the first been proudly defiant, Chief Jo boasting that he had a thousand warriors, and could keep that number of arrows in the air continually. But their pride had suffered a fall which left them apparently humbled. They complained to Lane, whom they recognized, talking across the river in stentorian tones, that white men had come on horses in great numbers, invading every portion of their country. ”

“ With an editor ever alive to the new message, the new note, the fresh way of saying a thing, the new angle on a current subject, whether in article or story—since fiction is really to-day only a reflection of modern thought—the foolish notion that an editor must be approached through “influence,” by a letter of introduction from some friend or other author, falls of itself. There is no more powerful lever to open the modern magazine door than a postage-stamp on an envelope containing a manuscript that says something. ”

“ II Weber's career, as pictured in his music, is the story of the gradual development of a beautiful and even noble character in the teeth of untoward circumstances. That he was a man of the strength and individuality of Beethoven cannot be maintained. He was too easily influenced by his surroundings, and the better part of his genius was of slow growth, so that the history of his earlier days is at best unsatisfactory. ”

“ While not inclined to argue this point, it is my humble judgment that the newspaper begins its existence the moment the managing editor opens his desk for the day’s work. He is its main-spring! Whatever of distinctive character it possesses in methods of handling the news of the day it owes to him, and it is these very features that render one journal better or worse than others. He it is, as a rule, who establishes the chivalry of the press toward the public. It is he who decides the line of attack or defense when the vast interests which he represents are assailed. ”

“ Wagner's description of the Seventh symphony as an apotheosis of the dance gives the key to its meaning, but we must take the word dance in the widest signification. In the majestic introduction we seem to be ascending a mighty staircase, and when the gates of the palace are flung open the scenes that pass before our eyes seem to embrace all earth and heaven in their scope. In the first movement the rhythm of the universe is set to music, from the ordered beauty of the rolling spheres of heaven to the voices of nature and the wild music that burdens every bough. ”

“ Maturity of years and of judgment, mental balance, upright character, freedom from official entanglements are the qualifications everywhere to-day demanded in an editor. Moreover, the individual editor is to-day not infrequently merged into an editorial board,—a change advocated in influential circles as assuring complete independence and impartiality in editorials, but by no means universally commended. ”

“ Mozart has often been compared with other great men: Shakespeare, Goethe, Beethoven, Haydn, etc., but the truest parallel of all is that between him and Raphael. In the works of both we admire the same marvelous beauty and refinement, the same pure harmony and ideal truthfulness; we also recognize in the two men the same intense delight in creation, which made them regard each fresh work as a sacred task, and the same gratitude to their Maker for his divine gift of genius. The influence of each upon his art was immeasurable; as painting has but one Raphael, so music has but one Mozart. ”

“ The people are true to the editors only just as long as the editors are true to the people. An editor, with no readers of his paper, is in a much more pitiable plight than a lawyer without briefs, or a preacher without a charge. ”

“ The editor feels that he is limited by the temperament of his contributors and the contributor languishes under the heavy hand of the editor. The editor must not offend the public, and the contributor must not offend the editor. With exceptions almost equal in number to those that prove the rule, the student of history must find the editor of the periodical press essentially conservative, a man with his hand on the public pulse, an observer rather than a leader, a critic rather than an initiator. ”

“ The "new" editor, in fact, is little more than a clerk doing the bidding of his proprietor, and the proprietor's idea of editing is slavishly to truckle to the public taste—or rather to his crude conception of the public taste. The only real editors of today are the capitalist and the public. The nominal editor is merely an office-boy of larger growth, and slightly larger salary. ”

“ He rushes into the editorial rooms like a whirlwind, if he is a cyclonic agent, asks in a voice of thunder for the dramatic critic, and when that gentleman is pointed out, after depositing a gilt-edged card and bestrewing the journalist's desk with a mass of notices from the Oakland Bugle, the Bragtown Boomerang, and forty other equally important and severely critical journals, proceeds to talk so loudly that he disturbs all the writers in the room, and has the managing editor on the point nineteen times out of twenty of ordering him out of the office. ”

“ Many men had his respect, even his homage, but as an editor—and I never knew him as anything else—he would allow no man to dictate to him; he served only the Public and ‘those few great principles.’ ‘An editor,’ he would say, tapping a sheet of paper with his glasses, ‘is the servant of the Public although his duty is to educate it.’ And his innocent vanity would swell out into such monstrous proportions, would bud and blossom into such foolish phrases, that his hearer would wonder if he had suddenly strayed into the rigid world of the third-rate comic novel. ”

“ This decade of violence was nevertheless one of development in both the quality and the power of newspapers. News reporting was extended to new fields of local affairs, and the intense rivalry of all too numerous competitors awoke the beginnings of that rush for the earliest reports which was to become the dominant trait in American journalism. The editor evolved into a new type. As a man of literary skill, or a politician, or a lawyer with a gift for polemical writing, he began to supersede the contributors of essays as the strongest writer on the paper. ”

“ That historian (he was a Herald man, and Bennett would have no managing editor) had not been reconciled to the fact that between the editor of a newspaper—the director of its policies and opinions and general style and tone—and the subeditors to whose various desks comes the flood of news there must be some one who will act as a link, lightening the labours of the editor and shouldering the responsibilities of the desk men. He may never write an editorial article; may never turn out a sheet of news copy or put a head on an item ”

“ His associates—the city 20editor, the religious editor, the dramatic critic, the police reporter, and the heads of several other departments—were in the habit of discussing the topics of the times from a strictly democratic standpoint, with the regularity with which day follows night.
The “old man,” or managing editor, could not take a deeper interest in the columns of the Banner than did his faithful coterie of assistants. The managing editor prided himself on his ability to recognize and command intellectual forces. ”

“ We desire to emulate their own noble efforts in behalf of American literature, and to stir up our more languid countrymen, to imitate their industry, and to hope for their success.
The rights and duties of the editorial chair, especially in the infancy of a literary work, are extremely delicate. Taste is so subtle, variable and uncertain a quality, that, for an editor to establish his own, as a fixed and immutable standard—would seem invidious, if not absolutely odious. ”

“ That editors are invisible is taken for granted only by the inexperienced. Without doubt editors love to surround themselves with an atmosphere of mystery, aloofness, and sovereignty, but in truth they are human beings, and may be so treated. The invisibility of editors is mainly a legend. If you call at a newspaper office and, presenting your card, ask in a firm voice to see the editor, the probability is that you will see him, or some one else clothed with authority. ”

“ For the multitude the leading article is the obvious short-cut to convictions." [75]
It must be apparent that no off-hand statement that the editor controls the policy of the press or that he and the paper are both controlled by the owner is of weight unless it takes into consideration the factors of time and place. Equally necessary is it to remember the variations among editors and owners and even the variations in the moods and policies of individual editors. ”

“ When we consider what Haydn did for music, and what his feelings with regard to it were—the willing service he rendered to art, and his delight in ministering to the happiness of others—we cannot but express our love and veneration, and exclaim with gratitude, "Heaven endowed him with genius—he is one of the immortals." ”

“ You can get an intelligent opinion from an editor on almost any subject; but you are lucky if you can get an intelligent opinion on any one subject from the average professional man—a lawyer, of course, excepted.
But undoubtedly curious specimens of editors might occasionally have been found in the smaller newspaper offices in the provinces long ago. More than twenty years have passed since the sub-editor of a rather important paper in a town in the Midlands interviewed, on a matter of professional etiquette, the editor—he was an Irishman—of a struggling organ in the same town. ”

“ But I have about come to the conclusion that that one editor is the only one who has the right idea. He takes the job seriously. Well, who will take it seriously if he doesn't? And who will say it should not be taken seriously?
The editorial is really the mind and soul of the newspaper. It is what the newspaper is. And every community needs today as it never needed before intelligent leadership. It needs information,—information about everything, particularly itself. It needs above all, in this world of organized propaganda and partisanship,—the truth. ”

“ The people who take the paper pay the expense of its publication, choose its editor, and remove him when unsatisfactory. You will scarcely say, I think, that such a newspaper press is not a free organ of popular opinion. ”