The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-12-11
Henry Watterson On Journalistic Ideals

Henry Watterson in an address to
the Boston Press Club: l was born
next door to print shop and grew up
in a newspaper office. First and last
have filled every newspaper function
from galley boy to leader writer
am proud of my calling and jealous of
its good name. Until / gave up all
around night work was never SO hap
Ply as toward the wee sma' hours,
when with the boys about me, wires
were flashing and feet were hurrying
and the presses were beginning to
thunder below. Now that no longer
see the paper to press it rejoices me
to find myself still surrounded by the
boys-the boys in the trenches, as
call them in Kentucky-to remember
the old days and nights and in fancy
to believe that there is yet little
sugar in the bottom of the glass.
You will find before am done that
have proper conceit of myself.
think | know what news is and how to
prepare it equally for the tea table
and the breakfast table. Like victuals,
it may be served hot and savory or
raw and unsayory, be brought on
plain or be dressed and decorated to-
suit the varying public taste There
is in this as in cooking, an art.
A fine rudy murder, like a fair
round of beef, may be ruined in the
roasting, and scandal fat and juicy,
blond and frowsy, be wholly spoiled
by figurative excess of vinegar and
garlic. A skillful chef can take few
scraps and fabricate dish to delight
a gourmet
So the deft reporter can put this
and that together and piece story tU
stir the town. In both cases, howey-
er, there must be basis of fact. The
essential ingredients must be there.
1t is given to no man to make a silk
purse gu. of sow's ear; to no cook
to render sauce out of sawdust and
boot heels; to no reporter to turn a
scoop out of a lie.
| have always drawn the line at
straight lying and the station house.
The city editor should never consider
himself breyet chief of police; the
reporter seni-professional sleuth.
The newspaper with the law should
assume the accused innocent until
proven guilty; should be the friend,
not the enemy, of the general public;
the defender, not the invader, of pri-
yate life. 1t should never be the as
sailant of private character.
| am sometimes told that / am the
last of the personal journalists. be-
gan life an honest devotee of imper-
sonal journalism. The personal jour
nalism of which we read SO much, as
memory of bygone editorial glory, is
somewhat misunderstood by the
younger men who write about it.
Not one star differeth from another
more in quality and character than
Greeley and Bennett-even Greeley
and Raymond-than Samuel Bowles
and Joseph Medill, than Charles A.
Dana and Murat Halstead Each OF
them was in his way an editorial
writer. All of them had under them
at one time and another editorial
writer's of the first order of writing
ability, who worked and went to their
account without distinction. Not that
they were suppressed by their official
chiefs, but that they lacked the in
dividuality, maybe the opportunity,
which made Greeley, Raymond, a
Bowles, a Medill, a Dana and Hal
stead.
Back of these later were Richie
and Crosswell and Blair and Prentiss,
and back of them the men OF a still
earlier day., like Freneau and Callen-
der, who made things hum for old
John Adams and Alexander Hamilton