When the Norsemen were on their way to the discovery of America they had no compass; yet the compass had been discovered by the Chinese many centuries before. But the news of the compass had not in all these centuries gotten half way around the world. And the science of navigation came not until that piece of news had made its way to the European world. To-day any important fact girdles the globe in a cable’s flash.
The newspapers of to-day are better because more study and thought are put into their construction. Not only are the editorial writers men of education, but the sub-editors, the night editors, the revisers of copy and the reporters are mostly educated men--men who have been taught where to seek and how to find information, who have been taught to be confident and self-reliant and original. The proportion of college-bred men on newspaper staffs is much greater than it used to be, and the intelligence of the staffs has increased in the same proportion. The modern newspaper wants men of brains who know how to use their brains--men who can think rapidly and act instantly.
This unceasing, irresistible, cumulative progress is making newspapers more important, is making the profession of journalism more attractive. Even as years of experience and study and laborious patient application have perfected and solidified the practice of law and medicine, have made firm and substantial the developments of electricity and mechanics, and have solved the problems of transportation and great business, so the making of newspapers is settling down to a strong substantial basis.
Conquests, the public’s great interest in any kind of a fight, 97
Dana, Charles Anderson, his fine leadership, 48; great as an editor, 61; advice to his Managing Editor, 62; on hasty editorial writing, 80; on making the _Sun_ talked about, 94
Dickens, Charles, experience as a reporter, 16
Edison, first public test of the household electric light, 13
Exaggeration, where it may be tolerated, 70
Imitation, its repressive influence against a writer’s advancement, 135
Jenkins, how he got a job as reporter, 18
Newspaper, the modern, made with bewildering speed, 43
Newspaper, the village, its opportunities for community service, 130