Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1888-04-18
NEWSPAPER WRITER'S.

Gratifying improvements in the Char
actor of journalism.
Why is it. we sometimes hear the
question asked, that the owners and
managers of newspapers do not take
greater pains in the selection of the
men who do the work on themp Why
is it, the outsider wonders, that men of
shady characters, or with no character
at all, are able to obtain situations as
writer's or correspondents of prominent
journals. In short, why are not all the
men engaged in an occupation which
offers SO fine scope for talent, which
is SO attractive to men of brain-why
are not all such men scholars and gen
"alnen?
The first suggestion that these queries
brings up is to remind the questioner
that a large majority of the capable
and successful journalists of the day
are men of good character as well as of
a careful education. There are few
great newspapers in the country in
the offices of which men who can
worthily claim the name of gentlemen
are not preferred to those who are
careless in their conduct and way
of living. There is an Improvement
noticeable in this respect from year to
year. The American newspaper as it
exists now, is a very recent creation.
1t has grown up since the opening OF
the war of the rebellion. Many of the
weekly newspapers of to-day have
larger establishments and employ more
men than most of the daily newspapers
could show in 1860. Some of the most
United States have been entirely built
up within the past fifteen years. Men
of limited means who have acquired
newspapers of small circulation and in
fuence in certain localities, have seen
them increase until they have become
enormously remunerative. In nearly
every American newspaper office what
is known as 1.-The business manage
ment' has vast deal to do with the
growth and success of the paper. Sue
cessful business management in many
offices consists sin keeping down ex-
penses," and this results oftentimes in
the employment of men who are
"cheap" in character and insensible to
the value of good name. They are
men who 'can get news'' or who can
turn off quickly fippant and fetch
ing" article, but who have such weak
nesses as to render them incapable of
advancement in the profession of jour
nalism. They are men who never .'get
ahead" but who still have ability
enough to make them useful in way.
They are tolerated because they per-
form an amount of work which men of
better standing in the community
could not be got to do for the same
money. Occasionally, of course, there
is some really brilliant and forcible
writer who is able to make himself in
dispensable in a newspaper office to
which he brings a most disreputable
private life and reputation. But gen.
orally speaking, it may be asserted that
the tendency in journalism, as in other
professions and callings, is to set up
standards of conduct and character
which render it more and more difficult
for knaves and blackguards to obtain
an entrance into it. Let us hope that
the time may come when it will be as
difficult and as unusual for sucn per-
sons to become journalists as 1t is for
them now to obtain access to any of the
other great professions. Washington
Capitol.