The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1903-02-11
TO ELEVATE THE PROFESSION.
A Few journalistic Ideas Calculated
to Inspire Ambitious Writers.


humorous articles for the Hartline
Standard, recently took up the subject
of Journalism" and evolved the fol-
lowing:
"From the little I've been able to
CLEAN concerning newspaper work it is a
most seductive and alluring profession
l don't think. am told that the gulf
between daily laborer on daily news
papers and royal "journalist'-bo
in the purple-is vast, Unreasonable,
and constantly growing wider. 1t APP
pears that the one works his way up
from the for'csle while the other comes
in at the cabin windows.
"The journalist, take it, is pimply
youth with door knobs above his tenn
pies, and thanking his brain-vat on each
side, who has written a graduation
thesis on the "Cosmogony of the Cos
mos" and read it before a hall full of
people who couldn't get away without
creating tire-panic, and had been told
by indiscreet persons on the way home
that he was the whole cheese. He de-
cides on the spot to become journalist,
and does so Immediately. That is why
he never becomes newspaper man.
He "writes up" things that have no
bearing on the case, and is damned by
the city editor at the rate of mile
minute. Meanwhile scorbutic kid,
with a cooked eye, VIII shoveled
coal, peddled papers and been kicked
about among the presses for a couple of
years, worms his way into the compos-
ing room, learn the cases and how to
run a Mergenthaler linotype machine,
gets tip on piece of big news, puts
the managing editor next to it and
scoops every other paper in the city and
the Associated Press. This young man
is promoted to the CITY room. brushes
up on his English, avoids writing about
"real facts, "new-beginners, "healthy
climate cher" for "she," and chin"
for che" "ye editor" "dullthud" and
"Lo, these many MOONS" rapidly ad-
vances safely along the lines of prac-
teal newspaper work, and when he is
chief of staff, wearing dress suit every
night in the best box in the luxurious
grand opera house and living at a high
priced, swell h otel, the university
man, with the Cosmogony thesis is
stopping at Il So week boarding house
and eating baked squash.
at has frequently been said to me by
numbers of college professors and clergy
men-who never had any children of
boys inclinations, the bent of his mind,
his likes and antipathies, his aspirations
and habits, and when one has found out
all about him, give him the profession
or calling to which he seems best adapt
ed. There is a monthly paper called
Success that breaches the same doctrine.
"Well, then, if l had a boy with
constitution like cayuse, muscles like
a center-rush and stomach like grist
mill, as patient as man waiting for a
contract on the Nicaugura canal, who
could go without water six months if the
beer held out, who kept all the policemen
guessing, knew more about draw poker
than he did about casuistry, who never
missed meal or a dog fight, who had
the gall of hobo and the diplomacy OF
a townsite boomer, who could borrow
more money in week than he could
pay back in a year and whose favorite
brand of cigars was the kind the other
fellow paid for, who commenced wearing
my shirts as soon as they would fit him,
who attended every show and never had
the price, who could sing in the choir
and swear like a pirate, teach in Sun.
day school and lie like political candi-
date, who was cognizant of all the do
nestle scandals in town, took money for
keeping still about them, and who didn't
believe in God, why, l should secure
such boy position on the staff of a
daily newspaper.
81 should do this in the faint hope
that his daily presence and example
might elevate the profession