Evening star., 1938-09-11
GIRL REPORTERS ARE DEBUNKED
Woman With Long News Room Experience Movie
Version of Journalistic Life Magazine Arte-Scribners
+ Offers Game of Selecting Overrated People,

vi o. admiring males, nor vet q high 3,
road to matrimopy. Any woman who
actually has newspaper job, or, for
that matter, any woman of intelligence
at all, might very well ask, why
should 1t be? Why should any Job be
such?"
But women Of intelligence are no
more common than men Of intelligence,
and the human race is, one fears, what
1t Is. At all times in It's history, one
supposes, there has been some occu-
patton which has held the common
mind with a spell of glamour and
persuasion Of delightful unpredicta-
bility Highway robbery has occa-
sionally been admired as a calling of
this sort. In the 18th century there
was great neurotic hankering after
the arts as professions gilded with op-
portunitieA for delicious wickedness-
Bohemianism, the quaint old phrase
had it. 1t would seem that today much
OF this kind Of wishful worship has
been transferred to journalism. 1t is
a good thing to have the notion de-
ooAAASo do dllllCI OtDullkS IL III
Madmoiselle, but sensible though her
piece is, it does not half cover the
popular illusion.
For she is limiting herself to women
on newspapers and, as she says, women
are In distinct minority on any Jour-
nal. The illusion hangs over the male
side Of the city room as well as the
female, and that side is, as noted,
great deal bigger. How much reality
is there in the picture of the bril-
liant" reporter-he who radiates un-
shaven charm and grins with pixie
deviltry from behind dangling cigar
cite and wreaks havoc with women's
hearts and drinks like a fish from
morn til morn but is always-always-
unfailingly-heroicall to make
his edition with the story that knocks
the props out from under the rival
journals and makes the owner invite
him home to meet his lovely daughter?
Yes-how much?
WELL, the reviewer In her whole
experience has known just one
youth who approximated this dream.
He was % and new-come from Jour-
nalism college. No Gable before the
Kleig lights ever worked more inde-
fatigably at being newspaper man
than did he. He had the stubbly chin.
he had the grin, he had the wanton
ways, he had-in conversation-the
perpetual hangover. What a night
that was! Boy! What night!-and -
on.) But he got fired, after month
or two, because he wasn't an efficient
reporter. One Of his most touching
little ways, the reviewer remembers,
now, was to plaster press card on the
windshield of his automobile.
Apart from this tender blossom the
aboy reporters whom the reviewer has
known have been a good bit like Miss
Palmer's city editor, described above
-hard-working. prosaic little subur-
banites, wondering if they can get
away in time to NOV the lawn and if
they can borrow enough on their SAL
aries to finance the removal of juniors
adenoids. The driving temperament,
the ceaseless vitality, the burning
energy-all that belongs rather to Mr.
Gable. Real reporters even seem to
shave regularly, and. while they are
not given to attire such as Mr.. David
Smart 0ate of the garment trades,
advertises in his Esquire, they still
wear last years suit with creases pretty
neatly pressed where creases ought to
be. Tsck! Tsck! What a dreadful
pityl
GSRIBNER'S, in its September issue,
offers the public a new game
that of choosing the most overrated
people in America" The method is
publication in the present number
Of the magazine of 20 groups of names
of prominent men and women, with
check spaces alongside. The reader
Is to check the name in each group
which he thinks is that of the most
overrated person, and send his list of
choices into Scribner's editors. The
results will be published in the next
issue. 1t is at first sight an ingenious
device for time-killing, admirably