A Frenchman in America Part 12
The American journalist may be a man of letters, but, above all, he must possess a bright and graphic pen, and his services are not wanted if he cannot write a racy article or paragraph out of the most trifling incident. He must relate facts, if he can, but if he cannot, so much the worse for the facts; he must be entertaining and turn out something that is readable.
Suppose, for example, a reporter has to send to his paper the account of a police-court proceeding. There is nothing more important to bring to the office than the case of a servant girl who has robbed her mistress of a pair of diamond earrings. The English reporter will bring to his editor something in the following style:
Mary Jane So-and-So was yesterday charged before the magistrate with stealing a pair of diamond earrings from her mistress. It appears [always _it appears_, that is the formula] that, last Monday, as Mrs.
X. went to her room to dress for dinner, she missed a pair of diamond earrings, which she usually kept in a little drawer in her bedroom. On questioning her maid on the subject, she received incoherent answers.
Suspicion that the maid was the thief arose in her mind, and----
A long paragraph in this dry style will be published in the _Times_, or any other London morning paper.
Now, the American reporter will be required to bring something a little more entertaining if he hopes to be worth his salt on the staff of his paper, and he will probably get up an account of the case somewhat in the following fashion:
Mary Jane So-and-so is a pretty little brunette of some twenty summers. On looking in the gla.s.s at her dainty little ears, she fancied how lovely a pair of diamond earrings would look in them. So one day she thought she would try on those of her mistress. How lovely she looked! said the looking-gla.s.s, and the Mephistopheles that is hidden in the corner of every man or woman's breast suggested that she should keep them. This is how Mary Jane found herself in trouble, etc., etc.
The whole will read like a little story, probably ent.i.tled something like "Another Gretchen gone wrong through the love of jewels."
The heading has to be thought of no less than the paragraph. Not a line is to be dull in a paper sparkling all over with eye-ticklers of all sorts. Oh! those delicious headings that would resuscitate the dead, and make them sit up in their graves!
A Tennessee paper which I have now under my eyes announces the death of a townsman with the following heading:
"At ten o'clock last night Joseph W. Nelson put on his angel plumage."
"Racy, catching advertis.e.m.e.nts supplied to the trade," such is the announcement that I see in the same paper. I understand the origin of such literary productions as the following, which I cull from a Colorado sheet:
This morning our Saviour summoned away the jeweler William T. Sumner, of our city, from his shop to another and a better world. The undersigned, his widow, will weep upon his tomb, as will also his two daughters, Maud and Emma, the former of whom is married, and the other is open to an offer. The funeral will take place to-morrow. Signed.
His disconsolate widow, Mathilda Sumner.
_P. S._--This bereavement will not interrupt our business, which will be carried on as usual, only our place of business will be removed from Washington Street to No. 17 St. Paul Street, as our grasping landlord has raised our rent.--M. S.
The following advertis.e.m.e.nt probably emanates from the same firm:
PERSONAL--HIS LOVE SUDDENLY RETURNED.--Recently they had not been on the best of terms, owing to a little family jar occasioned by the wife insisting on being allowed to renovate his wearing apparel, and which, of course, was done in a bungling manner; in order to prevent the trouble, they agreed to send all their work hereafter to D., the tailor, and now everything is lovely, and peace and happiness again reign in their household.
All this is lively. Never fail to read the advertis.e.m.e.nts of an American paper, or you will not have got out of it all the fun it supplies.
Here are a few from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, which tell different stories:
1. The young MADAME J. C. ANTONIA, just arrived from Europe, will remain a short time; tells past, present, and future; tells by the letters in hand who the future husband or wife will be; brings back the husband or lover in so many days, and guarantees to settle family troubles; can give good luck and success; ladies call at once; also cures corns and bunions. Hours 10 A. M. and 9 P. M.
"Also cures corns and bunions" is a poem!
2. The acquaintance desired of lady pa.s.sing along Twelfth Street at three o'clock Sunday afternoon, by blond gent standing at corner.
Address LOU K., 48, _Enquirer_ Office.
3. Will the three ladies that got on the electric car at the Zoo Sunday afternoon favor three gents that got off at Court and Walnut Streets with their address? Address ELECTRIC CAR, _Enquirer_ Office.
4. Will two ladies on Clark Street car, that noticed two gents in front of Grand Opera House about seven last evening, please address JANDS, _Enquirer_ Office.
A short time ago a man named Smith was bitten by a rattlesnake and treated with whisky at a New York hospital. An English paper would have just mentioned the fact, and have the paragraph headed: "A Remarkable Cure"; or, "A Man Cured of a Rattlesnake Bite by Whisky"; but a kind correspondent sends me the headings of this bit of intelligence in five New York papers. They are as follows:
1. "Smith Is All Right!"
2. "Whisky Does It!"
3. "The Snake Routed at all Points!"
4. "The Reptile is Nowhere!"
5. "Drunk for Three Days and Cured."
Let a batch of officials be dismissed. Do not suppose that an American editor will accept the news with such a heading as "Dismissal of Officials." The reporter will have to bring some label that will fetch the attention. "Ma.s.sacre at the Custom House," or, "So Many Heads in the Basket," will do. Now, I maintain that it requires a wonderful imagination--something little short of genius, to be able, day after day, to hit on a hundred of such headings. But the American journalist does it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SMITH CURED OF RATTLESNAKE BITE.]
An American paper is a collection of short stories. The Sunday edition of the New York _World_, the New York _Herald_, the Boston _Herald_, the Boston _Globe_, the Chicago _Tribune_, the Chicago _Herald_, and many others, is something like ten volumes of miscellaneous literature, and I do not know of any achievement to be compared to it.
I cannot do better than compare an American paper to a large store, where the goods, the articles, are labeled so as to immediately strike the customer.
A few days ago, I heard my friend, Colonel Charles H. Taylor, editor of the Boston _Globe_, give an interesting summary of an address on journalism which he is to deliver next Sat.u.r.day before the members of the New England Club of Boston. He maintained that the proprietor of a newspaper has as much right to make his shop-window attractive to the public as any tradesman. If the colonel is of opinion that journalism is a trade, and the journalist a mere tradesman, I agree with him. If journalism is not to rank among the highest and n.o.blest of professions, and is to be nothing more than a commercial enterprise, I agree with him.
Now, if we study the evolution of journalism for the last forty or fifty years, we shall see that daily journalism, especially in a democracy, has become a commercial enterprise, and that journalism, as it was understood forty years ago, has become to-day monthly journalism. The dailies have now no other object than to give the news--the latest--just as a tradesman that would succeed must give you the latest fashion in any kind of business. The people of a democracy like America are educated in politics. They think for themselves, and care but little for the opinions of such and such a journalist on any question of public interest. They want news, not literary essays on news. When I hear some Americans say that they object to their daily journalism, I answer that journalists are like other people who supply the public--they keep the article that is wanted.
A free country possesses the government it deserves, and the journalism it wants. A people active and busy as the Americans are, want a journalism that will keep their interest awake and amuse them; and they naturally get it. The average American, for example, cares not a pin for what his representatives say or do in Washington; but he likes to be acquainted with what is going on in Europe, and that is why the American journalist will give him a far more detailed account of what is going on in the Palace at Westminster than of what is being said in the Capitol.
In France, journalism is personal. On any great question of the day, domestic or foreign, the Frenchman will want to read the opinion of John Lemoinne in the _Journal des Debats_, or the opinion of Edouard Lockroy in the _Rappel_, or maybe that of Paul de Ca.s.sagnac or Henri Rochefort.
Every Frenchman is more or less led by the editor of the newspaper which he patronizes. But the Frenchman is only a democrat in name and aspirations, not in fact. France made the mistake of establishing a republic before she made republicans of her sons. A French journalist signs his articles, and is a leader of public opinion, so much so that every successful journalist in France has been, is now, and ever will be, elected a representative of the people.
In America, as in England, the journalist has no personality outside the literary cla.s.ses. Who, among the ma.s.ses, knows the names of Bennett, Dana, Whitelaw Reid, Medill, Childs, in the United States? Who, in England, knows the names of Lawson, Mudford, Robinson, and other editors of the great dailies? If it had not been for his trial and imprisonment, Mr. W. T. Stead himself, though a most brilliant journalist, would never have seen his name on anybody's lips.
A leading article in an American or an English newspaper will attract no notice at home. It will only be quoted on the European Continent.
It is the monthly and the weekly papers and magazines that now play the part of the dailies of bygone days. An article in the _Spectator_ or _Sat.u.r.day Review_, or especially in one of the great monthly magazines, will be quoted all over the land, and I believe that this relatively new journalism, which is read only by the cultured, has now for ever taken the place of the old one.
In a country where everybody reads, men as well as women; in a country where n.o.body takes much interest in politics outside of the State and the city in which he lives, the journalist has to turn out every day all the news he can gather, and present them to the reader in the most readable form. Formerly daily journalism was a branch of literature; now it is a news store, and is so not only in America. The English press shows signs of the same tendency, and so does the Parisian press. Take the London _Pall Mall Gazette_ and _Star_, and the Paris _Figaro_, as ill.u.s.trations of what I advance.
As democracy makes progress in England, journalism will become more and more American, although the English reporter will have some trouble in succeeding to compete with his American _confrere_ in humor and liveliness.
Under the guidance of political leaders, the newspapers of Continental Europe direct public opinion. In a democracy, the newspapers follow public opinion and cater to the public taste; they are the servants of the people. The American says to his journalists: "I don't care a pin for your opinions on such a question. Give me the news and I will comment on it myself. Only don't forget that I am an overworked man, and that before, or after, my fourteen hours' work, I want to be entertained."
So, as I have said elsewhere, the American journalist must be spicy, lively, and bright. He must know how, not merely to report, but to relate in a racy, catching style, an accident, a trial, a conflagration, and be able to make up an article of one or two columns upon the most insignificant incident. He must be interesting, readable. His eyes and ears must be always open, every one of his five senses on the alert, for he must keep ahead in this wild race for news. He must be a good conversationalist on most subjects, so as to bring back from his interviews with different people a good store of materials. He must be a man of courage, to brave rebuffs. He must be a philosopher, to pocket abuse cheerfully.
He must be a man of honor, to inspire confidence in the people he has to deal with. Personally I can say this of him, that wherever I have begged him, for instance, to kindly abstain from mentioning this or that which might have been said in conversation with him, I have invariably found that he kept his word.
But if the matter is of public interest, he is, before and above all, the servant of the public; so, never challenge his spirit of enterprise, or he will leave no stone unturned until he has found out your secret and exhibited it in public.