The Young Man and Journalism

by Chester Sanders Lord

Colonel John W. Forney said:

No man is competent to edit newspaper manuscript or reprint unless he has been an extensive and analytical reader. He should, moreover, have a quick and keen perception, as well as a retentive memory of notorious facts, of celebrated names and important dates. If he is in doubt he should never fail to consult reliable encyclopedias, technical books, pamphlets and like granaries of information and knowledge.

How does the copy reader exercise his ability? All news copy goes to the readers, telegraph copy to the telegraph desk, the city copy to the city desk and so forth. The head reader glances at each article long enough to absorb a notion of its nature and make a note of its length and passes it to one of the other readers. This man edits it into the form in which it is to appear in the newspaper. If it is too long he reduces it by stripping it of its verbiage and unimportant facts, cutting out entire sentences and even paragraphs. Unconsciously he questions every statement made by the writer, so keen becomes his search for error. If an article on an important subject is inadequate he sends it back to the city editor for amplification or explanation. If the article is unimportant he kills it. Always he has in mind that the sheet is crowded, that there isn’t room for half of what is offered. He acquires the knack of condensation, of making one word express the meaning of half a sentence. He eliminates superfluous statements and obvious explanations and dull conclusions. If he be wise he rereads the article to confirm his own work. Always he seeks to improve the article, to insert a snappy word, to give it life, to smooth the diction or make it more rugged as befits the subject.

When reading news the copy reader must be alert for clews to additional information, for side issues to be added. “The assassin has lived in Canal street, New York” said one of the Milwaukee dispatches—and instantly the copy reader informed the city editor and a reporter was soon on his way to Canal street to learn of the crazy man’s record there. “Mrs. Roosevelt is at the Manhattan Hotel” said another message. A reporter was sent to her.

The copy reader must steel himself against the reporter who tries to be funny and isn’t, against those persons so well known in every newspaper office who seek notoriety by getting their names in print, against the social climbers, against the men who want puffs and free advertising, against the wiles of the press agent and the preposterous stories about the people he is exalting, against the schemers whose success depends on newspaper publicity, the fake charity organizations, the spurious reform agitations, the organizations started merely to give salaries to the people who run them, the multitude of movements created to give some one notoriety, the constant attempts to fool the public—the list is endless.

The copy reader must be familiar with the big events attracting public attention for he may be called to revise their next chapter. Many big cases drag on for months. Above all he should take sympathetic interest in every article he revises and in its writer. His every effort should be to improve the article. My own experience as a copy reader for five years was of utmost usefulness to me. Careful editing of copy fixes the subject matter of the copy in memory almost as securely as though you had written the original.

Surely the copy reader fills an especially important post. It is poor policy to intrust this work to incompetent men. Nevertheless, because of its requirements, it is a post not eagerly sought. It is thought to be a thankless task with little to show for results, with maximum opportunity for error and minimum for praise. The copy reader is unlikely to be sought for promotion. He does not mingle with the outside world as does the reporter. He sees no office visitors as do the editors. His work attracts little favorable attention. If he improves a manuscript the author, not the copy reader, gets the credit. But if you intend to follow the newspaper business, by all means take a turn at copy reading, for it gives valuable experience and information and the practice greatly improves your diction.

As the night advances the avalanche of copy increases, some nights in greater volume than others. It is a curious fact that news volume seems to ebb and flow like the ocean tide, although irregularly, not steadily. For days the news world will be calm, little of interest develops, nothing but routine news offers. And then for days at a time news breaks out from all directions, overwhelming the writing and the revising staffs, upsetting all plans and creating confusion. It is then that the managing editor admonishes: “Gentlemen, the paper is already filled; you must cut everything rigidly”; and the head copy reader, pushing a column manuscript article toward an assistant, commands: “Put it in a quarter of a column”; and the perspiring night editor shouts from the composing room through the telephone: “Can’t take another line except must stuff.” “Must stuff” means matter that simply must be printed. “Stuff” is the common newspaper office vernacular for all copy, whether it be the profound article of the editor in chief or the incident of a crap game on the pavement. The amateur writer’s sensibilities are shocked sometimes when his production is called “stuff.”

But whether the tide of copy is at ebb or flood always there is too much of it and the copy reader’s night ends in the contemplation of a mass of discarded manuscript and a ruin of reportorial reputation.

And on the morrow comes an awful hour of reckoning. The editor in chief misses from his own paper a bit of Washington political news that some other paper had printed. He speaks to the managing editor about it, and the managing editor knowing that the news was in the office and was not printed, damns the copy reader for throwing it away. The city editor who had gone home with visions of two fine fat news features each of an embellished column in length finds in their place two emaciated paragraphs containing naught but cold news facts with no juice in them—he damns the copy readers. The reporters who wrote the column stories, reduced to shreds, surcharge the place with spectacular profanity and damn the copy readers. The men who wrote twelve dollars worth of stuff at space rates and had it cut down to three dollars worth, damn the copy readers. The reporters who wrote reams of routine stuff that did not appear at all, damn the copy readers. Everybody damns the copy readers!