One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money

by Harold Morse Dunphy

PLAN No. 909. JOURNALISM AS A VOCATION

Acknowledgment

For the material of this monograph the Federal Board for Vocational Education is indebted to the J. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa., through its publication, “Training for the Newspaper Trade,” and the Collins Publicity Service, Philadelphia, Pa., through its publication, “Journalism,” School Edition, Teachers’ Auxiliary, of which this article is largely an abstract. This article was prepared by Dr. H. L. Smith under the direction of Charles H. Winslow, Chief of the Research Division of the Federal Board for Vocational Education. Acknowledgment is due to Dr. John Cummings, of the Research Division for Editorial assistance.

It is very important that the right decision be made, for one’s future success and happiness is largely dependent upon this choice. No two individuals have the same desires or the same ability or experience. Some like and are by nature and experience fitted to prepare for one line of work and unfitted for another, even for one in some instances which close acquaintances may urge them to take up. It is one’s duty therefore, to consider carefully the line of work one wishes to train for. Some may choose wisely to enter the field of journalism. It is hoped that this pamphlet may assist such to make the proper choice and may prevent those who are unfitted for this profession from undertaking it.

What is the Nature of the Work in Journalism?

The main purpose of a newspaper is to give the day’s news. Another purpose is that of making the meaning of this news clear to the readers. Moreover, newspapers often furnish their readers with advice and with useful information as well as with entertaining reading. There was a time when the purpose of a paper was thought to be that of simply stating conditions as they are. At the present there is a rapidly growing tendency to use the newspaper to state conditions as they should be. A newspaper that tells what to do to make things better plays a great part in making democracy safe.

In any large newspaper plant there are three main divisions—the business office, whose duty it is to make the paper pay; the plant that must see to the actual printing of the paper; and the editorial department, which prepares all of the reading matter except the advertisements. It is with the editorial department that the term “journalism” is connected, and it is with the work of that department that this pamphlet deals.

There are two classes of reading matter in a newspaper, the news and the editorial comment, each class of material being prepared by a different force of writers. The editor in chief is at the head of the editorial staff, and since editorials consist of opinions rather than of bare statements of new facts, he holds the most important position on the paper. He is helped by men who are very well informed about all matters that are of interest to the public. The number of these helpers is from one to a dozen, according to the size of the city paper.

The managing editor looks after gathering and reporting news. His department is made up of several parts, each one in charge of an editor. The news editor looks after all out-of-town news, that is, all news from other countries or from this country outside of a distance 75 miles from the city of the newspaper. The telegraph editor looks over “copy” sent in by outside reporters and decides what is good and what is poor. The Sunday editor gets up the pictures and other “features” and special articles outside of strictly news articles. The art editor decides upon the pictures to be used and the method of making those pictures. The cable editor prepares the foreign news by filling in cable messages and making long articles out of them. The city editor hires and directs reporters on city work and on work outside the city but within a distance of seventy-five miles, having sometimes as many as seventy-five helpers within the city, and as many as that outside called local correspondents. The sporting editor looks after news of sports and has an assistant for each kind of sport. The night city editor covers late news, being in charge after 6 p. m. to receive copy brought in by reporters previously assigned to their duty by the city editor. The night editor is in charge of the “make up” of the paper and the getting of the paper to press. Most newspapers also have other editors called department editors for such departments as music, drama, society, finance, literary criticism, railroads, real estate, and stock markets. The department editors gather as much of their news as possible by themselves. Their work differs from that of other editors in that their copy goes directly to the printer and is not first looked over and corrected by the city editor.

The life of a newspaper man is not an easy life. A study[11] of newspaper work in Boston sums up the hardships and difficulties in the life of a reporter in the following way: