The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1960-12-20
One Point Of View
The Country Correspondents

The big metropolitan news
paper is one of the marvelS of
our age. a weighty affair in
terms of pounds and ounces as
well as content which impresses
visitors from abroad as much as
the Empire State building or Nj
agara Falls. 1t offers so much to
its readers-reducing diets, horo-
scopes, Pogo. advice to the love-
lorn, and even news-that it is
perhaps unfair to remark that
with some notable exceptions it
occasionally gives the general
impression of being deliberately
designed to be head by Univac
instead of human beings. Per-
hapS this is the reason why
hardly anyone is ever sufficiently
aroused these days to march
down to the newspaper office and
horsewhip the editor.
But in an age of journalistic
imperSonality - the boys from
the Journalism schools call it lob
jective reporting" - most small
town dailieS and WeeklieS (at
least the ones with wise editors)
have managed to hold on to de-
gree of warmth and flavor
by maintaining and encouraging
their country correspondents, the
faithful amateurs who write in to
report what is going on at places
like zero. Cuckoo. Whistle Creek,
Burnt Chimney. and Scuffletown.
1t will be sad day for Ameri-
can Journalism when the last
country correspondent is gone.
for the reader who turns to them
after a feverish session on the
front page. with Khrushchev or
the election returns finds the
change as refreshing as a dip in
the millpond on a soaring day.
Theirs is small world, a
wholesome one bounde by
strawberry festivals in the spring
and ham and oyster suppers at
the church in the fall. a world in
which calves are born, people get
lumbagO. the P-TA has a rum
mage sale. and the community is
pleased when the Smiths get the
new barn finished.
The newspaper subscriber who
reads nothing but the world shak-
ing news on the front pages
sooner or later reaches the con-
clusion that everybody has gone
crazy. The correspondents can
set him straight: where things
count. they keep saying, life is
going along pretty much the way
1t always has. The correSpon-
dents. of course, read the front
pages and watch the pundits on
television just like anybody else
and know as well as anyone what
is going on in the world. But ex-
perience has taught them some
thing good many reporters
never learn that people are in
terested in the activities Of their
neighbors and thir own locality
no matter how trivial they might
appear to outsiders.
These ladies for they are al
most invariably ladies working
for little or no more than a free
subscription and the fun they
have - are good reporters, too.
They know exactly how much to
say. Everybody here was sorry
to hear about Miss Bessie
Smith, one wrote to Virginia
paper not long ago. That was the
story, that people were sorry
about Miss Bessie. What had
happened to Miss Bessie Smith
she considered to be nobody S
particular business, and any,
way, everybody knew all about it
already, whatever it was.
Still another wrote repeatedly
about the progress of campaign
to help the Johnsons." keeping
at it until the mystified editor
dispatched a reporter to find out
who the JohnSonS were and why
they needed help. 1t turned out
the Johnsons' house and barn had
burned to the ground some time
before, leaving them destitute.
The reporter asked the corrs-