The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-03-27
NEW YORK REPORTERS.
Mouths Companion. ]

O0uthS COmpanlOn.I
 The qualifications of good reporter must be above those of the average of young men. 4 really frst-class reporter, who holds leading position on one of the great morning dailies, should be an encyclopaedia of certain kinds of knowl- edge. He must be more or less ac- quainted with politics and finance, art and literature science and religion.
 He must be largely endowed with the shrewdness and insight which make the successful detective, but above all he must be gifted with what newspaper men call "news-sense which enables him to know what will and what will not be interesting, and must be endowed with untiring energy, or " leg talent, as the reporters call it, which an editor prizes in his reporters most of all
 Another qualification is the faculty of rapid writing. A good literary style and the art of finished composition have their own value, but the reporter who is unable to do rapid work cannot be re- lied upon, since the most important oc- currences often have to be written up in q great hurry at the last moment Not unfrcquently indeed, an emissary from the composing-room stands at his side to take the pages of his manuscript from him as fast as he concludes the last word on the leaf.
 Reporters come to think nothing of writing their articles on railroad trains, in street-cars and row boats in telegraph offices, stores. saloons and restaurants. in all conceivable places and under ev- cry circumstance and degree of incon- vcnience and discomfort
 Finally, the reporter must be brave enough to go at any hour of the day or night into the vilest dens of the most dangerous slums; honest enough to tell the exact truth as he discovers 1t; not too easily carried away by his feeling and candid enough to bear constantly in mind the fact that there are two sides to every story.
 The reporter is well paid for his work, and young man of ability can probably earn at the beginning a larger salary in journalism than he might receive at a clerkship. But his salary will not in crease as he grows older unless the young man makes 6 determined strug- gle on every round of the ladder, con stantly determined to reach the top Neither luck nor favortsm can avail him. He must be contented to base his claims for preference on merit alone.
 The reporter is in a splendid school to learn human nature. He Is thrown into contact with every conceivable class of society, from the highest to the low est He meets his fellow-beings under every peeuliarity of circumstance, and in very short time he begins to think he can wonder at nothing And yet he is continually startled by circumstances to- tally at variance with all his previous ideas of man s capability for love or hate
 There is something of fascination in the reporters life which makes up in part for the drudgery he is obliged to undergo. It is adventurous, and never monotonous When he leaves his home in the morning he rarely knows whether he will be back again at night, or not for a week, or in what part of the city or country, and under what circum- stances, he is to spend the next twenty four hours.
 Then there is risk of being "beaten" by reporter of one of the dozen other papers, which is an incentive and stimulant and serves to make all work interesting Particularly is this the case in out-of-town work, where he has to rely on the telegraph to get his news to his paper.
 The reporter and the country tele- graph operator are instinctive foes, and it requires every species of threat and bribe to induce the latter to stay late at night to send a long press despatch, l have myself been obliged to go into village ballroom at midnight, and tear an unwilling telegraph-operator from his partner to get an important despatch through to my paper on time.