The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1891-03-20
WOMEN as JOURNAL ISIS.
They Must Have the Qualifications of
Good Reporters.

There are always young ladies who
desire to write for the newspapers and
to become professional journalists, and
the chief way ia which they try TO get
on a newspaper is by sending in con-
tributions of stories and essays and
poems, says an exchange. These may
be very good in their way, but are not
plain. everyday sort of newspaper
work. Nowadays a newspaper woman
is often a reporter. Once in while
there will be more noted individual
who has graduated out of the city de-
partment into the editorial or purely
literary, but the newspaper woman
par excellence is a reporter In order
to be a reporter n woman must know
an item when she sees il, aud be able
to relate ii evenly. correctly and con-
cisely. If she is sent to report meet
ing she must know instineiively what
to write and what TO leave out-this
instinct is really her divine afflatus-
Furthermore she must be able 10 go
around alone without having a man to
carry her bag and man to help her
over the cutters. She must be brave
about going out alone at night and she
must learn, as every working woman
ought to learn sensibly, that a modest
woman. as Lady Montague said, has
often to be both deaf and blind. Again,
she must have tact. and still again, a
tremendous sense of Justice that win
enable her to write fairly of friend as
well as foe. and she must know that
the newspaper is not a vehicle for per
sonal spites, animosities or spleen, any
more than it is for gush on the vaunt-
ing or aggrandizement Of people be-
yond their Just merits. She must also
know how TO unite common-sense En-
glish, shorn of fineuess aud to do her
work quickly. In a newspaper Office
no one has TIME to wait for inspiration.
The CRY of copy is spur enough for
most writers, and it is the constant
cry in composing-room
Apropos of this the writer is tempted
to tell story at the expense of a love-
liz and gifted lady who began a few
wears ago a career as 4 society re-
porter. Every week her copy went to
the editor beautifully written and
faultless. considered as copy from the
printers point of view. But any little
suggestion she wanted to make she run
in along with the article in the follow.
ing fashion,: Mr.. and Mrs. Browne
Smyth gave on Monday an elegant
blue dinner of fourteen covers For
goodness sake spell her name Smy
last week it went in Smi. and
she was as mad as hops about ir.1 Mrs.
Indigo Blueblood has sent ont cards
for ball, at which she will introduce
into society her lovely daughter. This
is all right. This Mrs. Blueblood has
some sense and doesn't in the least
mind seeing her name in print. It's
the other Mrs. Bluebloood we had the
fuss with. Mrs Uptown gives Il pink
tea as soon as Lent is over CDon't
stick her down at the tail end of the
column, whatever you do. | want IL
please her. anyhow, because last week
she just went in as one of the many
others. ]"
1t it had not been for the discrimi-
mating editorial blue pencil, that fash
ion and society column would have been
delicious reading on Sunday morning
since printer follows copy. y and a
parenthesis on the paragraphs 'brim.
plain parenthesis is to him. and it is
nothing more.