Page:The Newspaper World.djvu/87

 CHAPTER XV.

is the distinguishing characteristic of the reporter's vocation. It is a rare thing for him to be engaged for any length of time on one subject. This undoubtedly gives to reporting a certain fascination with juvenile aspirants for journalistic honors. In a somewhat prosaic age it must be admitted that—in this respect at least—the knight of the note-book has some advantages when his lot is compared with that of those who follow clerical occupations. But the superiority is more fancied than real, and the growing multiplicity of public engagements with which reporters have to deal—even though such engagements may be of a diversified character and necessitate traveling of various kinds—involve an amount of hard, steady work, to say nothing of ability required, which tends to neutralize the fancied superiority.

A description of a couple of days in a reporter's life will best afford an idea of what his work is, and how he performs it. Reporter's work is, speaking generally, similar in character whether on daily or weekly newspapers, with this important difference;—for an evening paper the work has to be done so that the report may appear in the same evening's issue, and on the morning paper the evening meetings and accounts of all kinds of late events, have to be put out of hand the same night. In the case of the weekly newspaper, there is not the same urgent demand for "copy," though as the staff is numerically small, the reporter will have a greater number of matters