Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-03-15
EXECUTIVE SESSIONS.
Reporters. as Q Rule. Let the Law
 makers Down Light.

A private office in public build. ing strikes most people as something
 out of the ordinary, but this is an
 age of evolution and it takes smart
 man to note the rapidly revolving wheels of progress. A great deal
 might be said in favor of private Of-
 fees in public buildings and of ex-
 ecutive sessions by public officials,
 but whether the arguments in favor
 of that way of transacting public
 business would overbalance what
 might be trotted out regarding the
 evil of such system is matter on
 which good citizens might honestly
 differ. If a reporter gets a chance to
 do his work we'll and neglects to at
 tend to it he should be shown the
 door, but in case he wants to do it
 right and is denied the privilege
 then he is obliged to make the best
 hand he can of a bad situation and
 the aggrieved parties have no req son to find fault with what he does.
 AS rule, newspaper reporters cOm- mand considerably higher salaries
 than most men receive who find their way into the city government once in while, and they are expected to give fair return therefor. This is contrary to the general idea, many entertaining the notion that they get nothing except what they pick up for misrepresenting men and r, inc hn n contempt in which they are held by people who have little or no know ledge of what is required of them. It is a black eye for reporter to misquote a man, just the same as 1t is a setback to a mechanic to do a poor job at the bench in the fac- tory. He knows this and as con- sequence when he is not sure that he is right he says nothing. This is the only thing he can do and be safe, that is provided he wants to remain in the business. The worst difficulty that confronts the press men is how to handle we'll meaning but over sensitive people, who think the papers should print what they would like to have said rather than what they actually did say. It is no easy matter to express oneself Off- hand the way he likes to appear in print, and as a result too many feel hurt, not because they have been misquoted but on account of the sharp criticisms that come to them on account of the way they handled things. A man may be a victim of this sort of censure even though he stood for what was right, but his po- sition didn't happen to suit some body's purpose. In any case, right or wrong, when you get into the pa- pers and fault is found with what you have to say, don't take the sec ond lash, but simply direct the fel- low who wants to quarrel with you to the reporters who got things twisted" Say, what would the blunderer do if he didn't have the reporters to take up his burden?
 Mayor Thoms says it is not the in tention of the department of charities to exclude reporters from meetings. but that both himself ard the c0mmis- sioners think the offices of the City hall should not be lounging places for reporters or anybody else. This is all right except it conveys the idea that reporters have, been in the habit of fritterihg Away their employers tinie in the City hall building, while as 'a' matter of fact the most they are able to do is make hurried call and in- quire if there is anything of public interest to be given out. His honor may not have meant it in that way but if he spent a week thinking it out he could not have hit upon anything farther from, the truth and yet there Is enough in it to arouse suspicion as to whether newspaper men are work ing or loafing. Mayor Thoms and his who think the reporters have lot of time to lounge in the offices of the City hall should get out some day and follow them about town. If they would do this they would learn more in a few hours about the diffi- culties that beset the ordinary news gatherer than they ever will know by looking at them from distance.
 But let us state just what the board of charities has decided upon in this matter and then let the public inter- pret it to suit themselves. One of the rules passed at the meeting Tuesday night reads as follows:
 "The office of the board of charities is private and is for the use of the members of said board and its officers and shall he used by them only"
 The meetings of the department of charities are held in the office. The ordinary scribe would say that the or der means what it says, but of course an astute disciple of Gladstone. Nike his honor. the mayor. wouldn't exper-