Notes on the Leading Types of Papers
In a previous chapter I have emphasised the urgency of examining with care
and regularity all the principal papers. Nothing is more important to the
outside contributor than a thorough comprehension of their various
policies and their essential differences. Many beginners, with a quite
creditable literary technique, render all effort futile by omitting to
study what I may call the _characters_ of the publications to which
they offer MSS. They know papers (except the one or two which they happen
to read for pleasure) merely by name. They may by chance have some dim
notion, gathered from hearsay, of the aim and spirit of this paper or
that--but accurate, direct information concerning these things, they
possess none. Having written an article, they send it to the first paper
whose name enters their heads, without giving a single thought to the
question of suitability. By such beginners the _Standard_, the
_Sun_, and the _Morning Advertiser_ are recognised merely as so
many dailies, the _Saturday Review_, _Tit-Bits_, and the _Bazaar_
merely as so many weeklies, and the _Strand_, _Macmillan's Magazine_,
and the _Fortnightly_ merely as so many monthlies; and no doubt when
their stuff has been refused by the _Standard_, they blithely forward
it to the _Sun_, and so on.
Since the early failures of every aspirant are without doubt largely due
to the neglect of this branch of journalistic learning, let me once more
lay stress on the fact that every paper differs from every other paper in
its needs--in what it demands from the outside contributor. Each paper has
its own public, its own policy, its own tone, its own physiognomy, its own
preferences, its own prejudices. These must be studied--as one would study
a subject like zoology. And as in zoology, to acquire a useful knowledge,
it is necessary to classify. The press divides itself naturally into a few
distinctive groups, an acquaintance with whose characteristics will form
the best, indeed the only, foundation for that wide, detailed erudition
ultimately to be obtained through years of experience and observation. Of
these groups I will briefly mention the most important.
* * * * *
Perhaps of all the different kinds of papers, that most useful to the
beginner is the "popular weekly" class, chiefly represented by _Tit-Bits,
Answers, Pearson's Weekly, Cassell's Saturday Journal_, and _Success_.
These papers pay liberally and promptly (one or two of them before
publication), and they do not exact from the contributor a high literary
standard. Their matter falls into two main divisions: articles beginning
with "How"--broadly, "How the other half lives;" and articles enumerating
curious facts and incidents--for example, "Peers who have become Cabmen."
If you can evolve novel and striking subjects, and have the patience to
collect such information as may be necessary to work the subjects out,
you may fairly rely upon gaining entrance sooner or later to the columns
of these papers, however elementary your technique. Here is also a busy
market for short melodramatic stories--stories for which "action" and a
certain ingenuity of plot are the only essentials. Do not imagine that
the editors of this sort of periodical are easily pleased. Although they
care nothing for the graces of style, they know precisely what they
want, and they insist on getting it.
Next to the popular penny weeklies as prey meet for the aspirant, I name
the three "Gazettes," the _Pall Mall_, the _Westminster_, and
the _St. James's_. These--the first two especially--make a point of
their hospitality to the outside contributor. They appeal of course to a
cultured class, and they are catholic in their tastes--ready for anything
provided it is topical and well done. They pride themselves on being
literary, and therefore good style is essential. In this particular, and
also in their habits of returning rejected MSS. with promptness, and of
paying regularly without demanding the delivery of an account, they differ
from most of the penny morning papers. With them may be bracketed the
_Globe_ and the _Evening Standard_, both celebrated in Grub
Street for a regular daily un-editorial article, to which I have referred
in Chapter VI. When you have contributed a "turnover" to the _Globe_,
you may congratulate yourself. The _Evening Standard_ article has
less pretensions.
Save as receptacles for short stories of a lurid inferior kind, the
halfpenny evening papers have little interest for the outside contributor.
The _Echo_ is an exception, showing a fondness for short, quiet,
topical articles of a rather serious nature.
Among morning papers, the most attractive to the outside contributor is
the _Daily Mail_, one of the best-edited newspapers in the world. The
_Daily Mail_ does not ask itself on receiving an unsolicited
contribution: "Is it our custom to publish things of this kind"? No, it
scorns precedent and is always anxious for novelty. It demands absolute
freshness, a great deal of _verve_, and the strictest brevity. It
makes a feature of very short interviews and articles on topics of the
hour. On its seventh page, under the title "The Daily Magazine," room is
usually found for matter of a general nature--glorified _Tit-Bits_
confections. If the _Daily Mail_ has a weakness, it is for
statistical articles of an international character, illustrated by
ingenious diagrams--articles in which Great Britain by hook or by crook is
made to surpass and outvie every other country.
Another halfpenny morning paper, _The Morning_, has burst the fetters
of precedent and usage, and willingly considers every suggestion of
originality. Its methods are those of New York and frankly sensational.
The penny morning papers are difficult of access, relying chiefly on bands
of regular contributors. The least hide-bound are the _Daily
Chronicle_ and the _Daily News_. On Saturday the former has a
women's page, for which it accepts outside contributions with some
freedom. The _Daily News_ has a reputation for humorous articles
dealing with the domesticities.
Of the illustrated sixpenny weeklies, _Black and White_ and the
_Sketch_ are usually ready to consider short stories, dialogues,
interviews, and light articles, the _Sketch_ being the more exigent
of the two. The _Illustrated London News_ and the _Graphic_
depend for matter upon their own staffs and regular correspondents, and I
believe that neither accepts any fiction from outsiders. To the
politico-literary weeklies, _Saturday Review_, _Speaker_, and _Spectator_,
the aspirant need not turn her ambitious eye. They are fastidious; they
demand advanced technique, and moreover they touch subjects with which
women are not often conversant. Of the three, the _Speaker_ is the
least exclusive.
With the vast hordes of religious papers (it is stated that several
hundred are published in London alone) I shall make no attempt to deal.
But it may be well to say that many of them pay very badly and many of
them do not pay at all. The best, speaking from a journalistic point of
view, is the _British Weekly_, a Nonconformist journal which prints
all sorts of things, and which is edited with brilliant skill;
unfortunately it has the bad habit of not returning rejected articles.
As regards the comic weekly press, not much falls to be said. It may be
separated into three divisions. First, _Punch_ (threepence), which
for several decades has stood, and still stands, quite alone. It is usual
to say that _Punch_ has of late years been steadily losing its
reputation, but the truth of the statement seems at least doubtful; and
however this may be, indubitably _Punch_ is yet the foremost comic
weekly. Though it depends in the main upon a regular staff, its doors are
not locked against the outside contributor. Second, _Judy_ (recently
edited by a woman), _Fun_, _Moonshine_, and _Pick-Me-Up_ (one penny).
Like _Punch_, all these papers, except _Pick-Me-Up_, are noticeably
conservative in their policies, and continue to move in the old grooves.
They do not, I imagine, offer much opportunity to the outside contributor.
_Pick-Me-Up_ devotes itself to the humour of the music-hall, and is
probably not largely beholden to women for its sprightliness. Third, the
halfpenny organs of wit, represented by _Comic Cuts_, and twenty other
sorts of _Cuts_. If a woman considers herself destined for the
comic press, her wisest course is to collaborate with an artist. A joke
may be the best and most original joke in the world, but it will not
have a very safe chance of acceptance unless it is illustrated. The
illustration _per se_ may be without talent; no matter; mediocre
pictures have certainly been instrumental in selling innumerable jokes.
And as with jokes, so with "skits," satires, and parodies: the writer
must combine with the artist if success is to be reached.
Monthly magazines divide themselves into three classes:--First, the purely
popular,--_Strand, Ludgate, Pearson's, Windsor, Woman at Home, Lady's
Realm,_ &c. Second, the high-class general,--_Blackwoods'_, _Pall Mall_,
_Macmillans' Cornhill_, _Longmans'_, &c. Third, the reviews,--_Nineteenth
Century_, _Contemporary_, _Fortnightly_, _National_, and
_Westminster_. Of these three classes, the aspirant is likely to succeed
best with the second, since the first demands names of renown, and the
third either expert knowledge, scholarship, or high technique.
I have left to the last the women's papers, which are, in the natural
order of things, written chiefly by women. It is of course to be expected
that women-aspirants should turn first to women's papers, of whose
characteristics they should certainly make a special and minute study, but
at the same time I must repeat the warning already given against the habit
of dealing only with subjects interesting to or connected with the female
sex. Women's papers are sharply divided into two classes--those which
appeal to women of education and breeding, and those which appeal to women
of a lower social status. To the former group belong the _Queen_, the
_Lady's Pictorial_, the _Gentlewoman_ (sixpence), _Hearth and
Home_ and the _Lady_ (threepence), and _Woman_ (one penny). To
the latter belong _Home Chat_, _Home Notes_, and their countless
imitators.
The beginner must bear in mind the essential differences between these two
groups, which, in catering for quite different tastes, necessarily follow
widely divergent policies. Both groups pay reasonably well, and it may be
said that all women's papers of any reputation whatever give a considerate
ear to the outside contributor. The sixpennies, having what amounts to
unlimited room, offer to the aspirant a spacious and delightful field.