The Young Man and Journalism

by Chester Sanders Lord

Nor should the young man from the country, ambitious for city experience, stay away from the city through fear of competition or through timidity. Do not be afraid. The newspaper men of the city are not smarter than those in the country. I recall the youngster from a small up-state daily who with fear and trembling accepted a chance to work a few days on trial, in a big city office, as reporter. He went smashing around town for routine news and found the work not difficult. In a week confidence had conquered timidity. He observed the other reporters and workers and said to himself, “I can compete with these men”—and he did compete with them to his gratifying success.

Fascinating as the reporter’s life may be, it nevertheless has its unpleasant moments, its many hardships. The hours of work are irregular and unlimited. Men on the big metropolitan morning newspapers report for duty at noon, one or two o’clock; those of the evening staffs at seven or eight, A.M.; and all are supposed to work as long as their services are required—not infrequently for fifteen hours. Newspaper-making is a continuous performance, especially for reporters. Frequently those employed in it suffer great discomforts through physical fatigue, lack of food and sleep, and exposure to weather conditions.

One of the court reporters of a morning newspaper in New York was finishing his work in the late evening. He had been on duty some ten hours and his work had been hard. Suddenly came the big explosion of the great munitions plant at Morgan, New Jersey, and the weary young writer was told to hustle out there. At Perth Amboy he encountered the military guard thrown out to prevent approach to the burning buildings. In his attempts to get along he was arrested six times and detained. He phoned his facts to the office and was told to stay on. He could find no place to sleep—couldn’t have slept if he had—could hardly find a place to sit down even, could get nothing to eat or drink. Explosion after explosion followed hour after hour. And when at length he reached the office he was too exhausted to write a word. So they sent him to bed for six hours and then he wrote his report.

Very many other men had a similar experience that day and night. They were in constant danger of their lives, badly fed and without rest. They were driven from place to place by the military guard, and most of them were arrested over and over again. It was one of the most trying disasters to report of which we have record.

Several reporters nearly lost their lives while crossing Great South Bay in a tempest to the scene of a shipwreck on the beach. They capsized in a sail boat and the life-saving guard barely gave rescue.

Men sent to the Johnstown flood found the town wrecked, scantily provisioned, and with no sleeping accommodations. They were compelled to stay there a week under most distressing conditions while the search for the dead continued.

The reporting of the great national political conventions requires unceasing effort for a week or more, the utmost vigil through night and day. Important committees are reaching decisions, new pacts and combinations are being formed, and the entire situation may be changing from hour to hour. There is no sleep for the unfortunate correspondent; he must be awake to the instant. The reporting of what is done in the public sessions of the convention is the least of his labors.

When a man of importance falls mortally ill a reporter is detailed to watch him—to obtain the earliest announcement of his death. The vigil is constant. In scores of instances reporters have sat on the man’s doorstep waiting for him to die. This sort of work involves all the monotony of sentry duty. It is disagreeable in the extreme.

The newspaper boys are asked to do many unpleasant things. They are compelled to invade private homes and to ask agonized parents why a son or a daughter has committed suicide or has done a disgraceful act; to ask a husband whether it is true that his wife has run away with a neighbor, or ask a wife whether her husband is a fugitive from justice. The assignments that take a writer into a family that has been disgraced by one of its members are the most unpleasant, probably, of any that fall to him.

Indeed there is little of joyousness in any search for information that some one wishes to conceal. Yet every editor knows that in very many important cases to be chronicled some one is interested in concealing the real facts. The people who want their affairs screened from public gaze constitute a multitude. Diplomats are reticent. Government officers are evasive. Political plans are kept in the shadow, for publicity has ruined many a political plot. Bank officials seek to conceal defalcations. Insurance companies try to hush great losses. Society leaders wish to minimize society scandals. Usually in these cases the inquirer is lied to deliberately and calmly, or the door is slammed in his face, or the person sought refuses to be seen, or the reporter is sent on a fool’s errand elsewhere—anything to be rid of him. Some one has said that the newspaper man is asked to lie about people almost as often as he is asked to tell the truth.