Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1886-05-22
NswspApzhAaD MAGAZINE EDITING
A Want Which Il Apparsnt-The Esus-
paper Edibo~'s Work.

ltor CtaeAeo NeWS.l
It is a little remarkable and slightly
ridiculous that the magazine editor does
not do any editing. He merely selects
and arranges matter for publication
which in great newspaper Offices is in
trusted to subordinates, This want of
editing IS painfully apparent in every is
sue of the magazines, where solecisms,
mistakes of fact. and blemishes result.
ing from sloyenly. editing arc only too
common. The systems OF newspaper
and magazine editing--if tho last de-
serves to be called editing-aro radio
ally different.
The newspaper editor, armed with a
relentless heart, an pndinching hand,
and blue pencil, goes through man
uscript like a surgeon with o dissecting
knife. He has besides his literary repu-
tation at stake, like q magazine editor,
his business and political interests also
for newspapers are strictly business
enterprises, which magazines are not
always; there is more than one promi-
nent magazine in this country run by
a great publishing Arm as an advertise
ment, and one or two as literary pas
times very much as other capitalists
keep yachts and trotters.
There is, Of course, a very great differ
ence in the manner of the two sorts of
editors The newspaper editor must iDe
brief sometimes he must be brusque.
He is always polite if he is a first
class editor, but his eye often wan
ders to the big trazen-faced clock
hanging somewhere in the Office, by
which everything is run, and when he
says his time is limited he is telling the
truth; he knows the very minute when
the clang Of the presses in the subject
lar OF the printing Office must begin.
The magazine editor, on tho contrary,
is disposed to be conversational He
has a whole month before him to ar,
range the matter for a publication about
as big as the Sunday edition of a great
New York daily, and as many months
as he chooses to deliberate where the
pictures shall go in an article on The
Probable Shape of the Sea Cows Tail in
the Paleozoic Period" or Operations
Before Tripoli in 1905, by Capt. Hal
yard and Commander Lanyard, U. s.
n, and other subjects Of contempora-
neous human interest.
The newspaper editor, on the con
trary, has about twenry.four hours tt
edit an article on the Spanish treaty
for example, going over the whole
ground of commercial treaties, the con
stitutiohal rights Of house and senate il
treaty making, its effect ON the tariff
its status in different sections of thu
country, the whole thing to be com
pressed into three-quarters Of column
with the certainty that if he slips W
once, every one Of his esteemed contem
poraries will be bounding him mex
morning, and that he will never
be able to write another lint
on the subject of CONNER
mercial treaties without being reminded
1 in printed chorus, with the charming
frankness of newspaper men, that he i
a monumental john-donkey, and thi
continual grind going on every day il
the week and every week in the year
and thousand other things of as mucl
Importance as the Spanish treaty press
ing him; with literature and art demand
ing to be heard as much in newspape
as III a magazine, verify, the newspape
editor is born 10 ink and misery.
must again repeat that this typical edi
tor belongs to great and powerful
| daily.