The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1885-12-25
EDITORIAL ROOMS.
! THE ovERcRoWoEo HIGH gAYs AND
BYWAYs OF JouRNA ism.
Writers Who Are Always Welcomed by
Intelligent Editors-The Char and
the Possible Grain of wheat
Cast-Iron Facts
EJoe Howard In philadelphia PressI

Joe Howard In Philadelphia Pressl
The highways and byways OF journalism
are overcrowded in this city. Sundry
journals utilize the services o; young mer
10 whom pay Is a secondary object
Graduates from Yale. Harvard AND
Columbia apply every month by sae score.
and are quits content % tabs the hu,nblssi
'compeu alton for work which they conceive
them elves specially fitted for. They start
in briskiy. go along rapidly AMI drop out
almost universally, but their places are
soon filled. and streams flow steadily ROW
from all our universities direct TO editorial
rooms, where they are on tap all the time
These young men rarely succeed Their
tendency is towards fine writing; they
have ideas which they wish to ventilate,
but which the blue pencil ruthlessly
eviscerateS
THE EDITORIAL PAGE.
We have no room in metropolitan news
papers for ideas, except upon the editoria
page, and candnr compels me to say there
is no very marked amplitudinous develop
ment of IDEAS even there You will find
the editorial page often trenched upon by
important dispatches from here, there and
every where, while the editorials themselve;
are very often little more than summaries
Of the news columns printed in larger typ
and dignifisd by the use of the impersonal
"we." The Associa ted Press and other press
associations cover ths out-of-town news 81
thoroughly that, unless a man Is a special.
ist and has peculiar faculties in respect OF
news finding. or for some personal reason /,
desired, there really il no chance that 1 can
see for corresponience pure and simple.
Now and then, great paper sends a
Il a.
money and thought and labor to the devel
opment Of some special subject, and all the
great papers mere, like those in Philadelphia,
have their special staff to send to signi8.
cant points on extraordinary occasions, SC
that the doors at which stranger car
knock would seem to be narrowed to two,
the editorial and the ne ws doors
INEXPERIENCED NEWSPAPER MEN.
Sharp paragraphi,ts and writers with
IDEAS are always welcomed by intelligent
editors, but as all editors are not
intelligent and as many are jeal.
it is not always the fact that they are wise
enough in their generation to pay attention
to new comers The fact Is, new comers as
rule bring bushels of chaR. The wise and
intelligent editor says: There may be
grain Of wheat: will carefully winnow and
sse" But the average editor does nothing
Of tie sort He pitches the chaff and with
IL the possible grain OF wheat away. BY
the other door reporters enter to find them.
selves confronted at once by two classes OF
men-those who work for salaries and those
who ere on space, paid according to the
length, not of what they write, but Of what
Is published.
Every new conner is looked upon with sus.
picion as one more to grab and grasp por.
tion Of the allotment Fortunate Is he,
however, who, having received an assign.
ment, makes so much Of it, not necessarily
in length, but In meritorious narration, in
crisp. breezy descriptiouSr that he attracts
the attention of the ultimate authority
Chances are dead against him Ninety
tim m,s in hunirel the sub-editors read and
"edit" his copy, as it Is called-that is they
strike out everything except the cast-iron
facts. so that Pegasus himself would be COM
PEELED to walk humbly ami meekly along
the towpath Of precedent. even though he
knew he was provided with wings that fitted
him for rapid transit in the upper air.