THE REWARDS OF JOURNALISM--CHIEFLY FOUND IN CONGENIAL
EMPLOYMENT--COMMUNITY SERVICE
A broader comprehension than that reflected by mere pecuniary results
is necessary to a proper estimate of the rewards of journalism. Great
pecuniary success has come to a few metropolitan newspaper owners,
moderate success to many owners in other cities; but the number of
successful owners is very small compared with the thousands, in number,
of journalists who are working for salary only--the men who represent
the journalism of the day.
It is difficult to compare the rewards of journalism with those of any
other business or profession. If we consider the pecuniary rewards the
comparison certainly must be unfavorable. Let us see:--
Many successful lawyers have incomes from fifty thousand dollars
upward, a year. Many physicians and many surgeons make fifty thousand
dollars or more by the practice of their profession. There are oculists
and artists who make thirty thousand plus. Our prize operatic singers
have soared to two hundred thousand. The presidents of banks, railroad
companies, insurance companies, steel companies, copper companies--men
who have achieved high success in their business--commonly enough have
salaries of from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars a year
and every opportunity to double the sum if they choose to live up to
their privileges. These are the prizes of the calling to the most
successful men in it; and in a way they measure the success of the men
who have won them.
But there are few prizes in the newspaper business. Nothing like these
big salaries is paid to the men who achieve supreme journalistic
success. In New York City for instance--and New York is the best
newspaper city in the world, pays the biggest salaries, and offers the
best journalistic advantages and chances--possibly ten editors have
twenty-five thousand dollars a year. One brilliant editor has much more
than this sum for the reason that his contract with the owner--made
when the sheet’s circulation was small--was based on the number of
papers to be sold. The circulation increased to phenomenal figures and
so did the editor’s pay. Of the seven thousand newspaper editors and
writers in New York City, a number not exceeding twenty have salaries
of more than twenty thousand dollars; yet those who have achieved
genuine success in the business--success that is relatively as great as
that of the bank presidents and professional men mentioned above--may
be numbered by the hundred. Newspaper salaries are very much larger
than they were forty years ago, double as much in some departments,
yet, despite this, the pecuniary rewards have no comparison with those
of many other professions or businesses.
Since this book’s intent is to tell the young man just what journalism
offers we may say that in New York City, at this writing (1922) the
salaries of editors in chief, for morning and evening newspapers,
range from fifteen thousand to thirty-five thousand dollars; those
of managing editors from eight thousand to thirty thousand dollars;
city editors, four thousand to ten thousand dollars; copy readers,
two thousand to four thousand dollars; dramatic and music critics,
four thousand to seven thousand five hundred dollars; staff writers
on finance and politics, four thousand to eight thousand dollars;
reporters, one thousand to seven thousand dollars.
These then are the pecuniary rewards of the business to the men who do
not achieve ownership. In other cities they are much smaller; in the
small cities not more than half so much.
Prices paid for newspaper work differ materially in different offices.
For reasons of policy or poverty some pay much less than others. The
higher sums just mentioned go to the few only, for it should remain
in mind that there is one editor in chief only, one managing editor,
one city editor, one dramatic critic on each sheet, and the daily
newspapers under consideration number twelve or fourteen only in the
metropolitan district. Three quarters of the newspaper workers on these
journals earn less than four thousand dollars each a year. The man who
earns five thousand dollars a year in a New York office is rated as
highly successful and desirable, and usually his services are in demand
in other offices--for good men in journalism are exceedingly scarce.
To the youngster just entering the business these newspaper salaries
may look attractive; indeed one of the magnets of the calling is the
fact that from the first the beginner is paid fifteen or twenty dollars
a week, or enough to live on. Physicians and lawyers frequently make
comparatively nothing for a year or two after they begin. And many
newspaper men seem satisfied to work along through life on what they
can get. In all offices may be seen the pathetic spectacle of men with
silvered locks who have sat at the same desk for more than a third of a
century.
Newspaper work is fascinating, yet it is sadly ephemeral. In the big
city the life of the newspaper is six hours; in the small city less
than twenty-four. The morning newspaper lasts until toward noon; the
evening sheet ceases to thrill at bed time. Dawn brings a new edition
and yesterday’s is forgotten forever. The bright sayings of the editor
amuse and interest for the moment but they do not live. They are not of
a nature to make a lasting impression or reward.
Greeley is remembered as a vigorous abolitionist and temperance
advocate and a virile writer on national topics, but to-day his
writings are unsought save by a few students of journalism and a few
historians of Civil War times. That William Cullen Bryant was a great
editor is almost forgotten; but his fame as a poet lasts. Samuel
Bowles and Murat Halsted and Joseph Medill and other great editors
of the Civil War period had nation-wide reputations as upholders of
Lincoln and as champions of the Union cause. They are absolutely unread
to-day. Dana, whose splendid scholarship, whose familiarity with all
literature, whose marvelous memory and whose stupendous reservoir of
information must have insured him lasting fame had he devoted himself
to the making of books, was so fascinated and so incessantly busy with
the making of newspapers that he attempted little that might interest
future generations. He must have attained the heights of literary
reputation had he undertaken authorship. Eugene Field toiled in routine
newspaper work for twenty years; his fame rests in his verses. Nobody
remembers John Hay as a hard-working journalist, yet he was one, and
a good one, too. He will not be forgotten as a statesman and a poet.
Walt Whitman’s many years of editorship seldom are recalled: his poetry
lives. Who knows that Edgar Allen Poe was an editor from 1835 to 1847;
who does not know “The Raven?” Noah Webster was one of the founders and
editors of _American Minerva_ in 1793. John G. Whittier was an editor
until he abandoned journalism for authorship. Oliver Wendell Holmes
wrote for periodicals from 1857 until 1891. Thomas Jefferson founded
the _National Gazette_ in 1791. James Anthony Froude was a newspaper
writer. William D. Howells began his career as an editor. These men
must have done fine newspaper work, but little record of it remains.
In France, just at the close of the World War, nearly all the members
of the government had been writers for the newspapers. They will be
remembered as statesmen, not as editors. Of them Mr. Stéphane Lauzanne,
the editor of _le Matin_, says:
Mr. Raymond Poincaré, the President, formerly wrote articles that
were remarkable for their clearness, lucidity, and argumentation
on the greatest economical and political problems that ever
agitated France. Mr. Georges Clémenceau, Premier, has always
been looked upon as the first newspaper man in France, the pride
of the French press, for as a matter of fact, he has been the
guiding spirit and active head of several important newspapers,
creating them, making them up, editing them and inspiring
them--in a word, setting his mark upon them. Mr. Stephen Pichon,
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, is also a newspaper man. For a long
time he was on the staff of _Justice_ and afterward publisher
of _le Petit Journal_. Other members of the French Cabinet, Mr.
Lafferre, Secretary of Public Education; Mr. Klotz, Secretary of
Finance; Mr. Georges Leygues, Secretary of the Navy; have also
written in the great dailies of Paris and Mr. J. M. Dumesnil,
Under-Secretary of State for Aviation, was at the beginning of
his career a brilliant and active reporter.
No, newspaper articles, sparkling and spectacular as many of them are,
must be recognized as ephemeral. The editor has no time for leisurely
work. He rarely studies a single subject long enough or intensely
enough to become profoundly authoritative on that subject. He goes on
through life informing, elucidating, explaining, protesting, analyzing,
until overtaken by the infirmities of years he passes from view. In a
hazy sort of a way it is said of him that he was a great editor, but
all that he wrote for his newspaper is forgotten. He leaves little for
future generations to ponder over.
Alas! It is a sickening, saddening thought that the newspaper is for
the moment only and that the editor who leaves behind him a lasting
record of greatness has gained it through some other line of endeavor.
To the ambitious man the average newspaper salary means little. Any
possible savings from it must be insufficient to make him especially
prosperous. They do not insure against a pinch in old age or against
misfortune. They do not permit of the accumulation of much property or
capital. They furnish a feeble inspiration to the ambition that seeks
the comfort of leisurely life, the stimulation of extended travel, or
the luxury of intellectual repose and freedom from physical exertion
that every one hopes may bless his declining years.
And if these conditions be true of metropolitan workers, how much the
more must they befit the writers for newspapers in the smaller cities
and villages. It is not the ideal of the American boy either in country
or city to live forever in a rented house or on a small salary, or,
indeed, to live the simple life. The small-city journalism offers
little else than these if the young man cannot become a newspaper
owner. To the man who owns his sheet the rewards are more abundant. But
ownership involves the possession of capital and usually the young man
just through with student life has no capital except his brains. In
other callings the capital of brains commands success, notably in the
law, in medicine, in engineering, in architecture, but in the newspaper
business, while brains are absolutely essential they advance the young
man only so far, give but feeble reward, unless reinforced with capital
with which to buy a newspaper property. It surely is a discouraging
feature of the calling that, however intellectual or learned a man may
be, he rarely achieves more than moderate pecuniary success, as long as
he remains an employee.
In the big cities the big properties have a money valuation measured
by millions of dollars. They are owned generally by very rich men or
families and ownership rarely changes. To possess one of them has
been the ardent and unaccomplished ambition of thousands of men:
capitalists, statesmen, reformers, philanthropists, cranks. The chance
of the young journalist getting one is infinitesimal. And in the small
city the price put on a newspaper that by chance happens to be for sale
is far beyond its earning value. There seems to be some mysterious
ingredient in newspaper properties that gives them a fictitious value
in the mind of the owner. Whether it is prospective influence, or
prospective prospects, or what, nobody is able to explain; but the
sheet is always “worth much more than it is earning.”
It is a curious fact that, whereas a factory, or a store, or a farm, or
a railroad that has not made a cent for five or six years, will sell
for no more than its old junk represents, nevertheless a newspaper with
the same poverty of profits commands a price based on a prodigality
of profits. The very great success of some newspapers seems to have
inspired the belief that any sheet may be made profitable if properly
managed; but it should not be forgotten that business ability counts
for quite as much as editorial excellence on the newspaper balance
sheet. Indeed, it may count for more, for have we not seen excellently
edited sheets fail utterly, and do we not know of others, utterly
devoid of editorial worth, in which the joy bells of prosperity tinkle
a cheerful chime?
Since then the savings from the salary of even the successful newspaper
writer are insufficient for the accumulation of property or the
establishment of any considerable prosperity, and since newspaper
ownership involves the investment of capital and smart business ability
as well, it follows that our young man must look beyond mere pecuniary
gains for the rewards of journalism.
What then are some of the rewards? The editor may exercise his gifts
of persuasion in unnumbered directions. The important activities of
the world pass by him in daily review. His mental vision may survey
the entire field of human thought, furnishing delightful subjects
for consideration, for study, for exposition. In all modesty and
without vainglory he may rejoice in the satisfaction of well directed
influence; may find pleasure in the responsibility of influencing
public opinion; may take pride in the endeavor to aid in the
intellectual and moral uplift of his fellow-men. What greater reward
hath man than this?
There are no problems of statecraft, science, society or religion, that
he may not undertake. Everybody likes to tell his neighbor the latest
news and gossip and especially likes to add what he thinks about them.
The newspaper editor tells his information to thousands; and he finds
additional satisfaction in telling it well. To take a hand in every
political shindy is uproariously good fun; indeed, notwithstanding all
its importance, its responsibilities, its dignities, there is more fun
in the newspaper business than in any other occupation known to man.
Neither are the joys and the advantages of a newspaper connection
confined to the editorial desk alone. In consequence of his abundant
fund of information on current events and his knowledge of the ways of
the world the editor is asked to participate in all sorts of public
events. This is particularly the privilege of the editor in the small
city where he is well known and where everybody seeks his good opinion
and good will. There he is found in meetings and councils and all
social gatherings of any account, taking active part in the speaking
and the disposing. There, too, he is active in party politics, in
community interests and in the town’s public life. In the big cities
he is less in public gaze, yet, if he has reached editorial success,
he finds himself welcome wherever people gather. If perchance he can
speak pleasingly he is asked for addresses to all sorts of audiences
and for after-dinner speeches at public banquets. His long experience
in mingling with public men gives him ease of manner in social
gatherings. Constant practice in writing usually gives him the gift of
ready speech.
The editor is asked to consult with citizens’ committees, to sit with
advisory boards, to take membership in all sorts of organizations and
clubs. He has every opportunity to participate actively in the social,
the political, and the intellectual life of his parish. And the wise
editor does all those things, appreciating that it is to his business
advantage to mingle with the people, to know what they are talking
about, what interests them, and what may be their opinions.
Nor can it be denied that the editor of importance finds supreme
satisfaction in the acquaintances he makes. No other occupation offers
such opportunity for meeting public men, for intimacy with those who
are influencing the intellectual and the commercial world. His very
environment brings him in contact with them. He has the instruction
of their wisdom and their opinion and they are interested in him
because of his familiarity with current events; and very often the
choicest of comradeship results. He knows his fellow editors. He
knows the successful authors, the essayists, the critics, the makers
of literature and the lovers of literature, the men conspicuous in
education, the leaders in the social world. He may, if he will, find
himself in constant association with the brightest minds and the most
intellectual people of the period--and who shall say that this is not
greatly to be desired?
Yet more naturally, however, comes association with men in the public
service, with the leaders of political parties and of political
movements. If the editor’s journal chances to be in accord with one of
the great political parties the editor finds himself in the confidence
of the party leaders and participating in their councils. His advice
is sought as to party plans and measures, the availability of proposed
candidates, the conduct of campaigns and the operation of the party
machinery. Successful editorship involves a fine knowledge of party
politics, a constant study of national issues and of statesmanship and
of the requirements of public service, as well as searching inquiry
into the science of government and the intricacies of diplomacy. The
journalist’s training especially fits him for political activity and
very frequently, after a few years of editing, he joins in public
service or engages in professional politics.
Indeed, very many newspaper writers drift into businesses that promise
better pecuniary rewards. They start in journalism because it pays
something from the first, but careful calculation discloses little
promise for wealth in the future and they seek the golden dollar
elsewhere.
It is not to be urged that journalism especially fits a man for
commercial life, nevertheless there is a mysterious influence in it
that makes a man out of a boy very quickly. A few years of reporting in
a big city makes him mentally alert, if anything can, and teaches the
ways of the world as nothing else does. He experiences a new phase of
life every day of his life. He is taught to search for facts, to seek
for causes and to foresee results. He gets broadness of vision, expanse
of comprehension, and rugged contact with the world--contact with
the men whose efforts are important enough to command publicity. The
nature of news reporting is not generally understood. Routine reporting
is comparatively easy. The reporting of highly important events is
extremely difficult. In political convulsions, in financial panics,
in commercial failures, in big criminal cases, in social scandals,
in crooked legislation, in most of the topics that excite mankind,
the people most involved strive to conceal the real facts. How is the
reporter to know whether he is being lied to or not? Ah! but he must
know. It is his business to know.
It is the commonest of reportorial experience to have the information
given by one man positively contradicted by another. All decent
newspapers insist on accurate news reports. They cannot afford to be
untruthful. It is of the utmost importance to them that the narrative
of a great piece of news, to be read by a million persons, be written
with absolute fidelity to fact. It may be said in all truth that the
experienced reporter starts out for the facts of a big case with the
expectation that half of the people involved will try to mislead and
fool him. He questions every statement made to him and the motive of
the man who makes it. He verifies it through some other medium. He
becomes a detective. He uses every trick of the calling to extract
unwilling information.
This search for truth is one phase only of the many that constitute
a reporter’s experience. They involve the absorption of a mass of
information, an intimate contact with men of affairs, the cultivation
of ability to think quickly and speak easily, and mingle pleasantly
with the world. It has been urged with some reason that five or six
years of this sort of thing better fits a young man for almost any kind
of business than does sitting at a clerk’s desk learning the rudiments
of the business.
But the intelligent or educated young man with a grain of perception
in his makeup should understand that the joy of living is found in
congenial employment--in work that inspires and educates and delights.
There would not be much happiness in this world if happiness depended
on riches. The good physician finds greater satisfaction in the
helpfulness of his service than in the collection of his fee. The money
value of Mr. Edison’s discovery is probably the very last thing he
thinks of.
The Rev. Washington Gladden, who gave his life to the ministry, was
first an apprentice in the Owego _Gazette_ and he never thereafter
could withstand the fascinations of newspaper writing. While conducting
his parishes he contributed to various publications. He conducted
a magazine of his own while in Springfield, Mass., of which he
says: “I edited it in connection with my parish work, doing all the
editorial writing, ten pages of minion every month, conducting all the
correspondence, reading all the proof, and making up the pages in
the composing room. That was really worth while. I never had a better
time.” “To generate and diffuse a sound, sweet, generous, wholesome
public opinion is the best and the biggest business in which any human
being can engage” was one of his maxims.
There is no denying the fascination of power and of influence, the
satisfaction of persuasion and of direction. The editor comes to love
his work because he feels that he is participating in leadership. He
appreciates, perhaps, that he is the custodian of something new and he
glories in the thought that he may communicate this new thing to the
world; rejoices that he is influencing others to see as he sees, to
think as he thinks, to understand as he understands.
He comes to understand the delights and the responsibilities of
persuasion, appreciating, as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch tells the
Cambridge students, that persuasion is the aim of all the arts, of all
exposition of the sciences, of all useful exchange of converse in our
daily life; as it is the end sought by the artist in his picture, the
mathematician in his problem, the clergyman in his sermon. “Nor can I
imagine any earthly gift more covetable by you, Gentlemen,” says this
lecturer, “than of persuading your fellows to listen to your views and
attend to what you have at heart. Suppose that you wish to become a
journalist. Well, and why not? Is it a small thing to desire the power
of influencing day by day to better citizenship an unguessed number
of men, using the best thought and applying the best language at your
command?”