The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-01-14
NEWSPAPER WORK.
Hints and Suggestions to JournaIIstIcany'
Inclined Girls.


Many reasons exist why the mSjority !
of women are untitled for the general
work of a newspaper Office. The usual
everyday work out of which n great
daily paper is created is not only men
tally but physically laborious to an
extent that breaks down the constitu-
tons of strong men. Men who follow
the profession continuously age faster
and more frequently give out midway
in life than those in other businesses or
professions. The number of old jour
nalists is farless than that of physicians,
lawyers, clergymen or tradesmen.
Feminine physique is seldom construct
ed upon a scale that it can endure the
intense strain of everyday, jog-trot
newspaper work.
Another reason than lack of physical
endurance is that they are not so read
lily amenable to discipline. The sue
cessful newspaper is the one with a
well-disciplined staff. The workers in
each department must follow rigidly
the instructions of the head of that de-
partment Individual opinions and
notions must be made subservient to
the policy of the paper and its general
tone. There is no latitude for the ex-
ercise of pet views.
Now, most women begin to write
from the standpoint of pet views and
hobbies. The majority are prone to
think they have been thinking. They
become possessed with the conviction
that they have evolved ideas of vast
worth TO the world and seek to confer
the benefit of their mental gymnastics
upon it through the medium of the
daily paper. They are apt to array
their ideas in direct opposition to those
of their superiors salaried to direct
their work. They fail to grasp the
meaning of what constitutes news or
the readable matter of the day.
The very backbone of the newspaper
is facts. Yet the average woman has a
magnificent disregard for facts when
she takes TO writing. She is not even
friendly with facts. She wants to en-
ploy her own imagination and descrip-
tive faculties in her composition. She
undoubtedly is the very personiication
of truth in all other attitudes of life but
that of writing. The complaint of most
Chicago editors in regard to the work
of women is that it is totally unreliable.
Before printing matter of any impor-
lance furnished by the ordinary woman
writer there are few editors who don't
send out man to ascertain if the state
ments can be verified.
This is not a pretty thing to say of
my sex, and don't like to tell it. But
it is true and may furnish helpful sug-
gestion to some who are trying to find
footing for themselves on our city pa
pers-
Because a woman can write readable
matter in fiction or descriptive letters
or poetry does not entail the endow-
ment of adaptability to newspaper
work. This is most emphatically borne
out by the productions of women who
have attained more or less fame as nov
elists, versifers and takers that are
flooding the journals of the country.
The very facility of the feminine mag
ination hampers women writers from
turning their abilities to ready account
in the workshops of journalism. Yet
nowhere else is the bloom so effectually
rubbed off from imagination that might
be most valuable to the possessor in the
lines Of fiction than in the factory of
everyday reading matter.
Out of the demand for matter suita-
BILE to the requirements of women read
ers and the scarcity of desirable ma
terial vast deal of stuff that should
never have place in the columns of a
daily newspaper is finding its way
there. Articles detailing fashions mi
nutely, directions for the construction
of fancy work and similar illusions are
not the groundwork upon which a
young woman, ambitious to gain rec
ignition as a newspaper writer, should
build. The proper place for work OF
this kind il in magazines and periodic
ais devoted to these subjects. Only q
skillful and trained newspaper writer
can deal with these trivialities in style
to render them acceptable reading mat
ter to the general public. Work of this
class is not the basis for the journal
istic career" so many girls now seek.
The woman who would succeed as a
newspaper writer must lay aside her
hobbies, prejudices and schemes for
reformation, if she entertains any,
when she begins her work. She must
learn at the outset to do as she is told
TO do. And above all she must re-
member that the materials with which
she is to work are plain, unwhite-
washed facts, among which her mag
ination, if it capers at all, must capeI
with very low steps. A high-kicking
Imagination is too apt to bring the an
noying parasite of libel suit upon the
management. Janet Dale, in Chicago
Ns1CS.
1t appears that about seventeen
millions of tons of coal per year is the
amount yielded by the chief coal dis
tricts of Great Britain-Newcastle
South Wales and the Clyde country
and, assuming this to represent the
average annual consumption for many
years to come, it is estimated that the
British mines will not be exhausted il
less than 500 or 800 years. 1t is further
calculated that, drawing upon only one
other fields, the Westphalian, Germany
will not be able TO exhaust her Goa
supply in less than a thousand years
no no IN, ho -,