Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-01-14
EDITORIAL ROOMS.
THE ovERCROWDED HIGHWAYS AND
BYWAYS OF JOURNALISM.
Writers Who are Always Welcomed by
Intelligent Editors-Tht Char and
the Possible Grain of Wheat
Cast.Iron Facts.
Hoe Howard in PHILADELPHIA Press

[Joe Howard in Philadelphia Press.
The highways and byways OF journalism
are overcrowded in this city. Sundry
journals utiliz, the services of young men
To whom pay is a secondary object
Graduates from Yale. Harvard and
Columbia apply every month by the score.
and are quite content to take the humblest
compen alton for work which they conceive
Themselves specially fitted for. They start
in briskly. go along rapidly and drop out
almost universally, but their places are
soon filled. and streams flow steadily now
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 TOR ideas, except upon the editorial
page, and canior 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 tho editorials themselves
are very often little more than summaries
Of the news columns printed in larger type
and dignified by the use of the impersonal
@we." Tho Associa ted Press and other press
associations cover the out-of-t town news SO
thoroughly that, unless a man is a special
ist and has peculiar faculties in respect OF
news finding, or for some personal reason is
desired, there really is no chance that can
see for correspondents pure and simple.
Now and then, great paper sends a
special correspondent to devote time and
money and thought and labor to the devel-
opment of some special subject, and all the
great papers here. like those in Philadelphia,
have their special staff to send to signif-
cant points on extraordinary occasions, SO
that the doors at which q stranger can
knock would seem to be narrowed to two,
the editorial AMI the news doors
INEXPERIENCED NEWSPAPER MEN.
Sharp paragraphists and writers with
ideas are always welcomed by intelligent
editors, but, as all editors are not
intelligent and q, many are jeal-
Gus and envious and avaricious,
it is not always the fact that they are wise
enough in their generation to pay attention
to new Corners Toe fact is, new corners as
a rule bring bushels of chaf The wise and
intelligent editor says: There may be a
grain Of wheat; will carefully winnow and
see." But the average editor does nothing
Of the sort He pitches the chaf and with
it the possible grain Of wheat away. By
the other door reporters enter to find them
selves confronted at oncs by two classes OF
meu-those who work for salaries and those
who are 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'
ton of tine 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
cnsp. brsszy description, that he attracts
the attention Of the ultimate authority.
Chances arc dead against him. Ninety
times in a hun lre1 the sub-editors read and
edit" his copy, as it is cailed-that is they
strike out erything except the cast-iron
facts, so that Pegasus himself would be COM
PEELED to walk humbly and 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.