Litchfield enquirer., 1874-09-10
Editorial Manners.

}. college bred men; whereas, till the pres 8 ent generation, the practical printer who l. could not only make good use of his scis s sors, and ''sling ink" effectively, but could ] settype at the case and be his own foreman had a decided advantage(which he still re. tains in the country press) over the mere writer. This old school of editing turned
 out now and then a master who, like MT.
 Greeley, could use terser English and
 construct more telling sentences, writing
 all the time at railroad speed, than his
 regularly educated successor finds himself
 able to do with all the advantage of great
 CT culture, and comparative deliberation.
 Out of these old times when editing
 was more Of trade than profession have
 grown, however, some of the evil habits
 that still characterize the manners of the
 press. The older editors were generally
 men who had to start great papers with
 little capital, and, in doing so, employed
 all the arts that are known to trade.
 Each puffed his own wares vigorously,
 glorlfied his own ability. and depreciated
 hls rivals, after the manner of the quack
 medicine advertiser, or the bogus lottery
 speculator. Now this is in the worst
 style of the "trade," and utterly inad-
 mlssible in the ''profession." No lawyer.
 doctor, or clergyman can advertise h1s
 own special merits, and retain the respect
 
 retain too much of the stiffness of old ar-
 lstocratic habit. Nevertheless the con-
 tlnual self-laudation which is so offensive
 In the columns of the New York Herald,
 and the occasional self praises of the Fri
 bune, seem to us utterly out of character
 With that self respect which should charac-
 ter1ze the profession. A gentleman who
 constantly lauds his own performances
 and depreciates those of other gentleman IS soon voted nuisance by his fellows, Yet many gentleman of the press" will
 praise his own paper in every issna, ont of all proportion to it's merit, who would be the last to praise himself when in the society of gentleman. Of piece with all this IS the style that attributes special i'm portance to unimportant matters ''from our special reporter, which sticks to sen- sational headings and to numerous other tricks of the trade, far beneath the | dignity of the profession. We are glad to believe that this evil habit Is on the de- cline. The great city papers, instead of l struggling fercely for a scanty subsist- | ence, as In the days of their youth, now have their millions of capital and an as- sured position, and no longer need to en- ploy those disreputable old tricks of the | trade, which are, however, still by far too common.
 We wish we could see more improve ment in the manners of the editor towards | political friends and political opponents, and towards the casual subjects of his discourse. The prevalent style is that of offensive blame or equally offensive adulation. The moderate middle ground of discriminating praise or discrim- mating blame is one the daily jour- nal seems never cool enough to take. To draw blood at every word, and to make sport of the writhings of victim seem to be the highest aim of many of the most prominent writers in many of the imost prominent journals of the day. Modern tion is an alien virtue, inconsistent with the highly seasoned style of the sensational leader. Impersonal journalism has one ad- vantage over the older style, in that papers abuse each other often but not the editors Their treatment of others, however, can hardly be said to have improved. Now all this is not the way of the profession. Lawyers, doctors, and ministers, must be- have towards each other with at least the outward forms of respect. Undoubted- ly there is much wrangling among the common herd, but the higher they rise the greater are the manifestations of re- spect, the readier the tender of assistance. the franker the acknowledgment of spec ial merit. The higher We go in the pro- fessions the more their members seem to become co-workers rather than rivals. We look in vain for any such feeling in the higher ranks of the daily press, where the bitterness seems to increase the high CT we go. May we not hope that journal ism may sometime acquire something of the decornm that characterizes all the re- spectable ranks of the professions. It is hard to imagine that gentlemen write about Grant in the New York World. or about anything in the New York Sun, yet such they no doubt may be in all their private relations.
 The interviewing" pest is another of the anomalies of the press; but we must that the city reporter bears much the same relation to the city editor that the English attorney bears to the English barristeH The former does all the dirty work of legal business, and the dirtier the fellow, the better he does his work, it seems to be imagined. Just so the Herald reporter is fellow of infinite and persistence, whose sole talent consists in his ability and willing ness to do that which no reward, pecunia- ry or other, could induce any gentleman to.do. It would be bold prophet who would predict that time will come when the newspaper reporter will also be gen. tleman, but until such time does come the ideal journal can never be realized.
 We fear that the roughness of editorial work, as it is now done, renders the ed itor's skin thick where it needs to be thin. He comes to regard the written jest, the written praise or blame, as lightly as oth- CTS do the spoken jest, or the spoken praise or blame. Hence he may constant ly and unconsciously offend friends or opponents by free and easy com ments that would only raise Q good natur-