Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1886-05-26

Inc u~ildllllCNttoHo VI ~ ROoO AepVAtcI
must be above those OF the average of
young men. A really tirst-ela3s reporter,
who holds q leading position On one OF
the great morning dailies, should be an
encyclopedia Of certain kinds Of knowl-
edge. He must be more or less &C.
quainted with politics and finance, art
and literature, science and religion.
He mnst 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 relied upon, since the most import
ant occurrences have to be written up
in a great hurry at the last moment.
Not unfrequently, indeed, a emissary
from the composing-room stands at his
side to take the pages Of his anu
script 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 tele-
graph Offices. stores, saloons and res
%taurants, in oil conceivable places and
under every circumstance and degree
Of inconvenience and discomfort. d.
Finally, the reporter must be brave
enough to go mt 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 it; 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 a young man of ability can
probably earn at the beginning a larger
salary in journalism than he might re-
ceive at a clerkship. But his salary
will not increase as he grows older, IN
less the young mar makes a determined
struggle on every round of the ladder,
COIStdltiS ttctCI IIltlitu " IcdCI tllc tpD.
Neither luck nor favoritism can avail
him. He must be contented to base
his claims for preference on merit
alone.
The reporter is in n splendid school
to learn human nature. He is thrown
into contact with every conceivable
class of society, from the highest to the
lowest. He meets his fellow beings
under every popularity of circumstance,
and in a very short time he begins to
think he can wonder at nothing. And
yet he is continually startled by circum-
stances totally at variance with all his
previous ideas of mans 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. 1t 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 wha. part of the city or
country, and under what circumstances,
he is to spend the next tw%enty-four
hours.
Then there is risk of being "beaten"
by a reporter of one of the dozen other
papers, which is an incentive and a
stimulant, and serves to make all work
interesting. Particularly is this the
case in out-of-town work, where he has
to rely IN the telegraph to get his news
to his paper.
The reporter and the country tele-
graph operator are instructive foes, and
it requires every species of threat and
bride to induce the latter to stay late at
night to send a long press dispatch. 1
have myself been obliged to go into a
village ballroom at midnight, and tear
an unwilling telegraph operator from
his partner to get an important dis
patch through to my paper on time
Youths COmDaniOn.