The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-04-19
REPORTERS.
A Hard-worked Glass who Usually Re-
oeive More Blame than Pay.
Their Wages, What They DO, and How
They Go About 1t.

Their Wages, What They DO, and How
They Go About 1t.
IT, NJ. Whitman, in American Journalistl
Among all the classes that make up
the down town life of city there is no
class so interesting TO nae as that of the
news gatherers. speak OF them just as
they occur to me, hoping to interest none
but those who are more or less strangers
to them Here is this class of collectors
and writer's of news-a class that has
sprung up within half a century, and to-
day in our own country numbers five
thousand men. How little does the great
world which they each day epitomize
know of them. "The local reporter
how contemptuously the rich man
speaks of him as he sits at the break
fast table and chances over the crowded
columns of the great daily. And yet
the wonderful product that lies before
him is the work of that same despised be-
ing.
Not alone the news OF his own city is
given him by the focal reporter" not
alone the details of the market and trade;
but all night long the mails, the telegraph
wires and the cable have been burdened
with the work of ''the local reporter"
Debates OF senates, movements of armies,
ravages of earthquake, desolation by pes
. thence and fiood-kings plotting together
in palaces, peoples gathering turbulent
and rebellious in their streets-a panora-
ma of the world, as wonderful as the
Spaniard's downward glance into all life
arrested and motionless for his inspection
and this is the work of ''local repor-
ters." 1t was a wonderful organization
that impressed Webster as he sat upon
one of the great guns at Quebec and
looked at the rising sun, that power whose
drum beat as he wrote: Rising with the
sun and keeping pace with the hours en-
circled the earth with the continuous and
unbroken strains of the military music of
England" But a greater power than
that has been brought into puissant be-
ing since that time. Under the direction
of combined capital an army of men
actually covers the known world, and
the far-fashing of their written words
outstrips the sun in its course and dis
tances the tagging hours in their flight.
This army is made up of ''localreporters. f"
1t is not difficult to see romance and
power in this class, taking them in their
relations with the great organizations
which are bound into the alliances for the
exchange of news. But the stranger,
thinking of them individually, might find
the air of romance gone. The average
reporter is to all appearances very COM
monplace individual. He has generally
a rather anxious face and wears shabby
clothes. His complexion is sallow, and
tobacco and long hours have taken the
brightness from his eye. As a rule, he is
not handsome man. In respect to age
he is anywhere from twenty to thirty
five years old. His hair is streaked with
gray, but that does not indicate his age.
Ii indicates his work and experiences.
He Is usually an even tempered individ-
ual who cares too little for the irun of
peoble to be often angered, and knows
too much OF the world to give personal
offense. He Is seldom in blues, rarely
in love, sometimes in drink, and general
" in debt. That's the local reporter.
The majority of news gatherers are
single men. Doubtless most of them feel
that their salaries viii not support fam
lily. Perhaps they are wrong in this, for
as q class they are better paid than most
young men. Moreover, considerable
number OF reporters do support families,
and very comfortably, on their salaries.