The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1877-08-16
Newspaper Reporters.


try, near and far, in search of choice
bits of political scandal or social gossip,
which are dished up to the public in
such an inviting form. To most of
them the reporter is either an unim-
portant parsonage, unworthy of their
notice, or monster OF iniquity too aw-
full to think of. In fact, he is neither.
A reporter myself, l claim to know
something lof my cOafreres and, be-
lieving them to be sadly misrepresent-
ed body, propose to tell what I know
about them. li-li E'l auaf
The american newspaper reporters
are no longer mere machines for report
ing speeches or chronicling the dry de-
tails of daily occurrences, like their
counterparts in the old-fashioned jour-
nalism of Europe Their duties are va
rious and Important; and, by
their faithful performance, they have
contributed largely toward earning for
the journals of this country the high
reputation that they enjoy at home and
abroad. The biographers and eulogists
of other men, they have no one to blow
their own horn unless they do it them
selves. Their work being altogether
anonymous, they get no credit for it
outside of the offices in which they
work, and their only recompense is
professional pay, which, as shall pres
emily show, is shamefully inadequate.
Newspaper reporters may be divided
into two classes-viz., the shorthand
reporters, whose duties are chiefly me-
chanical, and who report trials,
speeches, sermons, ETC., and the news
reporters, who write descriptive articles,
serious and humorous, describe pro-
cessions, balls, and other gatherings,
and report political and social sensa-
tions, tragic or romantic, and compose
local articles of the lighter order The
members of both classes must be men of
good education and pleasant ad-
dress. The latter, moreover, must
have a facility for rapid, easy,
and graceful writing, as well
as good general knowledge of men
and things. As a rule, reporters are
young men between the ages of Is and
80. Frequently they are men of uni
versity training and good social position,
who enter newspaper Office, with the
pay of stage-driver, in the usually vain
hope of working their way up to an ed
itorial position. This they very rarely
do, however, for the reason,
that if a man is a good reporter his
services in that line are too valuable to
be dispensed with; and if he is not a
good reporter he does not stay long
enough on any one paper to earn pro-
motion. The vast majority of the men,
entering at an early age upon a precari-
GUS and Bohemian sort of existence, are
soon disheartened at their poor pros
poets; and, if their position is such as
to oblige them to remain at the work,
they become dissipated and lose all am
bition to rise to a higher position. Many
reporter, who had begun life at 20,
with fair hopes of brilliant future, has
found himself at middle age no better off
than when he began. This, partly be-
cause the better positions are very few,
and partly because promotion goes more
often by favor than by merit.
A young man leaving college at Is,
who goes into a newspaper office, to be-
gin life as reporter, without influence
either with the editor or in the publish
er's department, is put at pOlice-court
work at S12 or S15 week. His hours
are from 9 or 10 a. m. until midnight,
and his work is of the most tiresOme
and monotonous character. After a
year or so he may be promoted to office
reporting at S25 or at the outside $50 a
week; and he is obliged to report for
assignment daily at II am. and 5 pm,
so that he may be called upon at any
time to engage in work that will keep
him up half the night He may be in
this position for years, with no prospect
of lettering himself, unless he has infiu-
ence or uncommon luck, until he HES
him to the country to take charge of
some country sheet of which he may Ill
timately become the proprietor. Usu-
ally, however, he continues in town, adj
ding to his income bycorresponding for
provincial papers and eking out a living
as best he may Sometimes his wide
with all kinds of men may
get him small political position or a
PLACE in some corporation; but this is
very seldom. --a.i ..
Apart from the peeuniary. difficulties
of reporters, there are others almost
unknown outside of the profession. 1t
happens that the editors, in
their anxiety to " beat' one another in
obtaining the earliest news, resort to
the most undignified and disagreeable
means to get such information as they
want, and the reporters, of course, are
the tools they employ. To the credit of
my confreres, be it said, that | have per-
sonaIly known of many instances of re-
porters refusing point-blank to accept
assignments which would compromise
them as gentlemen. During the Beecher
trial, some of the Papers were in the
habit of sending reporters to wait on
doorsteps of prominent people concern
ed in that famous scandal, to spy upon
their actions, and to report who went in
and out of doors. They had to choose
their men, though; for many reporter,
poor, though he might be, would not
stoop to such work Fancy the
position of reporter, who is sent to in
terview the widow of some murdered
man, while the bleeding corpse of her
husband lies in an adjoining room!
Think of the pleasant task assigned an
o.I,o,. 90 ,roino, tn 500 Mr. Brown on the