Evening star., 1938-09-11
Bv MIC. r.

r If1E september NSue Oh tAdt
desperately bright publication,
/ Madmoiselle, there appears an
L article called who Wants to Be
. Girl Reporter?" The author is
0retta Palmer, herself q newspaper
woman of veteran standing. Miss
Palmer apparently feels that the young
womanhood Of the Nation Is being
misled by tho recent-or perennially-
running-series Of newspaper motion
pictures wherein girl reporters" as
the Hauseating phrase has 1t, are seen
insouciantly instructing bluff old
police sergeants in their business,
thwarting crime rings with stream
lined ease, wearing mink coats by
Revillon Freres, and carrying on beau
tiful romances with the Temperament
tai young playwright in the apart
ment downstairs, whose poetic drama
is accepted In just the last feet of
the film, thereby making marriage
possible. Miss Palmer says, with less
weariness than could be excused, that
these nursery dramas do not depict
the life Of the woman journalist in a
mode Of recognizable realism.
In the first place, she says, the "girl
reporter" is not ubiquitous fixture
in newspaper Offices at all, but is such
a rarity that she can hardly be said
to make a difference Moviegoers
know, of course, that II one enters
metropolitan city room the first sight
that will meet ones eyes is a Carole
Lombard looking blond in lame eve
ming gown of striking decolletage ex-
changing slangy quips with those gay
young dogs, the hoy reporters" while
small Office slave with popping eye
balls registers puppy love somewhere
in the corner. Moviegoers know, too,
that this is the famous>"girl reporter"
who has been called in from her bril-
liant social duties to take a sudden
assignment of great Importance. But
Miss Palmer, who has spent a good
many years OF her life around city
rooms. does not know it. And she
says SO with cruel, blunt definiteness.
"HE New York Times" she writes,
has no women reporters and
refuses to consider any The New
York Herald-Tribune, the World
Telegram. the News, the Mirror, the
American journal and the sun are
shade more generous, but say that
they have three women apiece and
your estimate is high There has
never been week in New York when
as many as rs women were working on
general news assignments on all
papers combined"
So 1t would seem that the papers
which have been crashing Hollywood
are the exception rather than the rule
and that girl reporters" are not by
any means a fixture in the Nations
city rooms. But more than this, Miss
Palmer goes on to debunk the idea that
girl reporting must inevitably Head
to beautiful romance These we'd
dings between editions" She says,
are far less frequent than
Hollywood would have you believe"
And she goes on: I'm the movies
Vic City cuiOT Is pictured as SuS.
ceptible bachelor, a little on the lush
side, who has rough exterior but
heart of molten gold In actual fact,
he is almost invariably an overworked,
middle-aged suburbanite. who COM
mutes to his family at strange hours
OF the night -
The other possibilities Of the city
room include copy readers (who wear
green eyeshades and are always cutting
out the girl reporters favorite phrasesy
and man reporters (Why not
"boys"?)
A ND as to the man reporters, Miss
Palmer says that they do not
make good husbands, which is about
as succinct way of sizing up the
moviegoer's idea of the girl reporters
functions as could be found.
In other words, according to Miss
Palmer, who certainly ought to know,
a newspaper job for woman is not
field for brilliant journalistic triumphs
and exercise of magnetism over room"