Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-04-26
THE JOURNALIST.


There is a man who sits far into the
night with paste pot and scissors before him,
and pencil in hand, while around him are
piled newspapers of all grades, sizes, colors
and political proclivities, and from almost
every conceivable locality. He rapidly cuts,
pastes and writes. Instinctively he rejects
all that is bad, and his eye detects all that
is good in the nooks and corners of the
scores OF Exchanges" which pass through
his hands in few hours. Ii he remember
ed one-tenth of ali he reads he would be
prodigy of varied learning, and by and by
he would probably find his place in luna
tic asylum. Then he varies the weari-
some routine by writing; not slowly and la
boriously, but rapidly, discursively and
sometimes brilliantly. What he does, he
does not just as he pleases, but as a daily
and unending task. Every night as he ereeps
homeWard in the small hours, the subject
of the next "leader" Creeps through his
tired brain, and in the morning the necessi-
~ for immense action stares him in the face.
Why these late hours and this silent, care
full, absorbing work? This man is the edi-
tor of daily paper, and every night he and
his companions are preparing the literary
breakfast for a sleeping world. 1t is a
strange life he leads, and astrange world he
works in. He yields power in the land,
but, contrary to general rule, be is almost
an unknown man. As 8 general state
ment, neither great pecuniary reward Or
fame await him. He does work which
only the man born to the task can success
fully perform. In him are necessary the
qualities of skill, tact, judgment, fair
scholarship, large fund of current in
telligence, GOODNESS, the capacity for
rapid work with few errors, and lastly
that indefnabie talent for pleasing the
many and offending the few, and yet
accomplishing a specific and often parti-
san purpose! journalism is a profession,
and the editor is strictly professional man.
To him belongs only the kind of fame
which pertains to professional skill, even if
he be famous at all. After years of skillful
toll he is almost unknown upon the street,
and has the credit he deserves only among
his equally unknown brethren of the press.
Indeed the great majority of the workers in
the worlds most potent and eVanescent IL
terature are not known at all. Scarcely
man in all England knows to certainty
who is the controlling spirit of the London
Times, and there are few who care. In less
remarkable instances than that, a newspa-
per becomes popular, increases in circula-
ton, makes itself a pecuniary success
and a political power in the land, and
not poor dozen of all its twenty, or fifty,
or hundred thousand readers ever gives q
thought to the pervading and unknown per-
sonality that made it all it is. From these
facts it is plain that journalism is something
still more than profession; it is also pas
sion. The kind of men who make news
paper q success where it is one, are not apt
to work for money alone even if amply paid
pecuniarily. There is reward in it some
where, hope, qualification; and that re-
ward must be in personal pleasure in the
peculiar work. 1t is true that the projac-
tors and proprietors of newspapers have
generally pecuniary object in view, but
we are speaking of the men who daily make
The newspaper all it is in the popular mind
who actually give it its character and
that wealth which fire cannot destroy, and
which is entirely unique in the commercial,
value estimating world.