The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-02-22

what the yield was per acre, how many
cattle he was feeding, whether ne mad
found ShorthornS or Herefords most de-
sirable. and why. cannot believe that
he did not say something interesting
about his trip to Europe, and that ne
did not add some information about the
cost of automobiles and the result OF
his Investigations into that sort of mo-
tive power. His is one of the most IN
teresting characters in his community
He was good for a half column story
that would have interested every reader
of the paper, and yet the editor gave
him three lines which told absolutely
nothing his neighbors did not already
know
There are too many newspaper men
who practice their profession by ear and
make no effort TO jar loose the trivial
facts in every news item. And yet the
trivial facts-the little things-are 10
the country newspaper man the most
essential of the story. The man VINO
prints a newspaper once in seven DAYS
cannot hope to scoop his constituency
on any important happening. Every
man who takes his newspaper will know
the bare facts by the time the paper
reaches him. What the reader doesn't
know, and what he wants to learn, IS
the trivial data that make for the
story an harmonious whole. If Bill
Jones' team runs away, and Bits Vile
is by reason thereof made a widow, goS-
sip will beat the weekly newspaper eV-
cry time with the news of the accident
But gossip cannot gather reliable detail
The people viii want to know whether
the wagon was Balm or a Studebaker.
If Bill had life insurance they want to
know how much. They want to know
how he left his family fixed, and wheth-
er the children are old enough to care
for themselves. And in this matter of
detail is where the weekly newspaper
earns it's right to shine. How many
| thousand times has every man within
the sound of my voice read in his own
paper that Lawyer Smith, of GalllopollS,
was in town Wednesday on legal bust
cha a q
| Smiths visit had to do with something
| of interest to every person in the COM
] munity. The chances are that Lawyer
| Smith, in consideration of getting ms
name in the paper, would have told the
| editor what his business was. And yet
! the editor did not think the matter of
| sufficient Importance to investigate.
| 1 believe that the average country ed
| itor fails to print many things of in
| tense interest to his constituency be-
cause he holds them unimportant. There
! are few things so unimportant as to be
| unsuited to the columns of a country
] newspaper A good item can often be
/ made OF the fact that Israel Sturges IS
/ WhiteWashing his hen house. That the
! hen house is being whitewashed is not
/ in itself particularly interesting. But
| the probabilities are that Israel knows 4
! great deal about whitewash-hoW to-nlx
! it and how to make it stick He may
! have only a dozen hens. but the secret
| of how he makes them lay in winter,
| and what he does to break them up
/ when they want 10 set Is SOOQ TedUlIlS-
A five minute conversation with Israel
/ will almost invariably develop some
| thing interesting for which the fact that
| he is embarrassing his hen house can
| be made the basis.
do not make the point that the coun-
! try editor does not work hard enough
| 1 simply hold that he does not utilize
| the raw material at hand. He goes down
| to the postoffice or drug store in the ev-
ening and leafs around for an hour or
two with the boys never saw crowd
of drug store loafers that We're not good
for two or three columns OF juicy local
stuff-gossip maybe-but intensely in
teresting. And yet the country editor
after loafing all week with the drug
Thursday morning and writes a little
item to the effect that news is mighty
scarce this week. The man whom the
country editor meets in the course of a
week who does not suggest to him an
item of some sort is a mighty dull and
uninteresting parsonage L do not hold
to the theory that in order to get news
one must drill his legs OIL EdltlnE
country newspaper is a job wherein the
eyes and ears play a much more import
ant part than the legs.
We are often reminded by the Ladies'
Home Journal and various other publica-
lions devoted to the amelioration of the
that the only way to get on in the world is
to be Industrious, trustworthy and relia-
only man who arrives is the man who
works his head off. 1 have no doubt that
trious Trustworthy and reliable. although
never tried being either. But to my mind
paper man can have is a good eye. mean
by this eye that notes not only the
humorous incidents as well. To be able to
see something in an incident which the
ment is the hallmark of the graduate
newspaper man. There is printed in Kan
sas the most widely quoted and one of the
most interesting newspapers in the world
1t owes its vogue almost solely to the fact
hal Ia "
moro morous in the little every dav affairs that
are common to every community. Very
little that it prints is important in news
sense but it is interesting because it sees
| the little things that the crowd in passing
misses. The editor is often referred to as
a philosopher. He is nothing of the kind
underside of things. Every editor in Kan
right out of Gods hand, in his own door
Some years ago, by some inadvertence of
the managing editor. 1 was placed on the
an eastern state. Working on the Same
and Bob Davis They had been in the
and held up the ghost each week for. the
same amount of money. Davis was about
says a man ought to be. He had a won
derfully industrious pair of legs and could
on the paper. He was perfectly reliable
| in his news getting; was always at his
! post and turned in copy that was per-
| feet, gagged from the standpoint of its
syntax and its construction; But he lacked
the eye. He got the facts, but left out the
hunlor and the human interest. His
stories read like the annual report of the
| bureau of labor statistics. Unless it was
! n matter of vital interest nobody ever dug
deeper into Davis story than the head
| lines. Brown was Davis antitheSiS. NY
| own mOdeSty cOmpelS me to say that he
was the LATEST man 1 ever saw. His leg
work bad-very bad. He often over
slept. He changed his linen irregularly.
He could call more bartenders and hack
! drivers by their first names than any man
1 ever knew. do not think this latter ac-
complishment is essential to good news
| paper work, but l mention it in order that
| YOU may have an intelligent idea of