The special foreign correspondent does not concern himself greatly with routine news: the press associations look after that. The difference in time permits the sending of all news appearing in London editions to American newspapers of the same corresponding edition, morning or evening. The London papers are on the street at two o’clock in the morning, which is eleven o’clock or before midnight in New York.
The correspondent seeks rather to elucidate the news or to send exclusive information. He finds the getting of intelligence much more difficult than in America. Public men are less willing to furnish information. The newspaper man is not so welcome. Doors are closed to him that would be flung open here. To a yet greater degree than here he must gain the confidence and the intimate acquaintance of those who are original sources of information, the confidence of the men who are conducting public affairs. The correspondent may not always print what he learns for he must not make public that which is told to him in confidence. But sooner or later it is of much value to him. The ability to secure the attention and the confidence of public men is the correspondent’s or the news gatherer’s choicest asset. It is absolutely necessary to success in higher grade reportorial work.
The foreign correspondent, more than any other writer off the editorial page, is permitted to assume an editorial attitude toward important events. He may comment and seek to persuade in editorial fashion. His articles are the more interesting in consequence, for not any newspaper writing is more attractive to the general reader than that which contains narrative description with running comment.
The French journalists are adepts at this work. Many of their publications contain no editorial articles after the English or the American fashion. They treat an important event rather as a semi-news semi-editorial review article—an article of news with interjected comment, with expression of opinion as suits the writer’s fancy or belief or prejudice.
In American newspapers of high grade the reporter is not permitted to comment or inject opinion or seek to influence the reader; he must not depart from the cold facts of narration. No comment outside the editorial page is the rule. The foreign correspondent is excepted from this requirement and the Washington man partly so.
Not any other kind of newspaper work gives more useful experience. The foreign correspondent must understand the great events that are moving Europe. When it is possible he goes to the scene of the occurrence for first-hand information. The great disaster by earthquake that destroyed Messina sent half of the correspondents scurrying from London into Italy. The election of a new Pope finds them in Rome. A revolution in Poland discloses them on the spot delving into the secrets of the leaders. Since the great war they have been constantly in every capital in Europe as some new development of finance, or a startling revelation of starvation, insurrection, or political plot demanded their presence. They watch the activities of a dozen nations. A few years of this sort of thing gives them valuable knowledge.
CHAPTER VII
THE TECHNICAL PRESS
As our young man in journalism begins to get a reputation among his fellows for sincere trustworthy work his services may be sought by other editors. Hundreds of miscellaneous weekly and monthly publications employ writers and they draw largely from the daily newspaper staffs. More than one thousand persons employed regularly in New York City furnish the copy for these miscellaneous journals. Nearly as many more are occasional or special contributors. There are scores of magazines of fiction and scores of weekly journals devoted to literature, religion, fashions, humor, science, art, music and the play-house, to sports, birds, and beasts, and fish.