THE FASCINATION OF WRITING FOR THE EDITORIAL PAGE
Our young man who has just entered journalism begins soon to look longingly toward the editorial page. He wants to become an editorial writer. He longs to get into the world’s controversies, to thump Presidents, to crush cabinets, to pulverize politicians, to rebuke rulers, to sandbag ignorance, sin and superstition whenever they raise their swollen heads. His immature notion of editorial writing is to smash into somebody or something. He has a lot to learn.
The editorial page is the most important part of the newspaper. It gives the sheet its greatest distinction, its widest influence, its chief reputation—gives the editor his proudest satisfaction. It is here that the editor shows to the public the true measure of his ability and inspires the confidence and the respect of his community, if at all.
The editorial article is a little essay on a current topic. You may glorify the topic by giving it conspicuous importance in the strongest language at command, or you may minimize it by inane flabby comments on its weakest features and by ignoring its essentials.75 You may give it fine literary flavor, or you may drool over it. The tricks of the trade come with practice.
Editorial writing is fascinating. To wield influence always gives satisfaction. For centuries it has been the ambition of orators and writers to influence men’s thoughts, to direct men’s actions.
Creative work is perhaps the most enjoyable of all work. In the newspaper it has come to be the most important. An original editorial article summons all the creative ability of the writer. It is the product of his years of study and experience. The news department may be conducted without an access of book learning, for news getting has become so systematized and its principles so easy to learn that it is difficult to invent a new way of treating the news. But before you have been an editorial writer many months you will have called into precious use all of your reasoning powers, all of your philosophy, all of the principles of life and of conduct you may have observed.
These modern days are big with new discoveries and they are first made public through the newspapers. They give glorious opportunity for special study, for mastery of the subject; not necessarily a profound finality of knowledge of it, but a knowledge comprehensive enough to write about it, a knowledge fascinating in itself as a study—enough to give its possessor advantage in social conversation and receptiveness of mind for any new development of the subject.
And it astonishes to discover what a lot of information may be had from just a few hours of acute mental76 concentration on a given subject. In these modern times the literature, even the textbooks of everything new, are quickly available. The book publishers never were so alert or so spry to furnish technical knowledge. Such facilities for practical study never were known. Mere mention to the modern librarian of the nature of the information sought brings you volumes on the subject in a twinkling.
In large cities where the newspapers are opulent and large staffs are employed, the editorial writer is expected to produce one article only each day. If it be for a morning sheet he has a few hours in which to prepare it; if it be for an evening edition it must be written quickly. But the number of opulent newspapers is few in comparison with the number not able to have large staffs. In almost all American daily newspapers the editorial writer is expected to furnish several articles every day. Always he is hurried. He has little time for study or for proper thought. His task tempts to a condition of routine thought; tempts to the utterance of the obvious, to imitation and the reproduction of the thoughts of others. Hurried writing usually is slovenly writing and that is a reason why nine-tenths of our editorial writing is mediocre.
The editorial writer should devote much time to study. Not in any other profession is there greater necessity for study, greater use for the knowledge that is power. The editor whose cranium is crammed with facts has great advantage over the editor whose cranium is empty, for the mind, especially the editorial mind,77 feeds on facts. The editor must furnish information and comment on a multitude of facts widely diverse in themselves, topics treating of every phase of human life, every shade of animate or inanimate condition. He must study the topic enough to write on it skillfully. He must convince the reader of his mastery of the subject. Bulwer Lytton’s reiteration that “Knowledge is power” finds constant verification in newspaper editing.
Almost all newspaper editorial articles, critiques of the drama or of music, and all news articles are written at a single sitting and under the constant admonition to “hurry up” both mind and movement. The writer must acquire the art of instant concentration of thought on the one subject, of instantly recalling precedents and of quickly foreseeing results. This everlasting hurry is a serious drawback to good newspaper making; but it is a powerful incentive, also, to quick thinking. What has been said of the politician, that often he must act before he has read or thought, is singularly true of the editor. The editorial writer must understand the political and commercial and social questions of the hour and must be prepared to hop right into a discussion of them at a moment’s notice. He must train himself to use quick judgment and to arrive at quick conclusions.
News intelligence may be so presented that it will have quick influence on the reader. Often it may produce flash conclusions that may be reversed by next day’s news. Many readers glance at headlines and quickly scan news columns and are influenced by what78 they see without giving it a scrap of intellectual reflection.
But the editorial writer must have real merit to influence other men. He must possess the art of composition, of ready speech, of carrying conviction. He not only thinks for his reader, but he seeks to persuade the reader to his way of thinking. But always the editorial article should be a help to the reader, should inform, interest, explain, elucidate as well as influence.
The modern headline artist has solved the problem of attracting the reader’s attention. The editorial writer has not the advantage of typographical eccentricity to help him; he must attract and convince by what he says.
It is difficult to indicate, even much less to advise the student of journalism, how to study for editorial writing—so vast is the field of desirable knowledge. But first of all he must read the newspapers and the periodical publications, for he must understand the topics that are engaging public thought. The editor must absorb and remember a mass of current facts that will not be recorded in textbooks and histories for months or years to come if indeed they ever are recorded. The newspapers are the first to record great events, the weekly press is next, and the magazines then follow. Histories and textbooks come along later. No other way of keeping up with public events has been discovered. The process is easy and interesting, however.
There should be thoughtful study of the great principles that govern human conduct. All history is useful.79 And obviously the editor cannot know too much of the fundamentals of government, of law, diplomacy, politics, and political causes, of finance, taxation, philanthropy, the relations of labor and capital and so on—the list is endless. The schools of journalism give much attention to these essentials. Their courses are prepared with great wisdom for the attainment of practical knowledge. Young men who would be journalists will profit greatly by study in these schools.
In almost all of the large newspaper offices there is a daily editorial council composed of the editorial writers, the managing editor, the city editor, the foreign editor, and sometimes the Sunday editor, and the special writers. This council meets at the beginning of the newspaper day. The events of the moment have informal discussion and a general conclusion is indicated by the editor as to what must be the editorial attitude toward them. Thus the editorial policy of the sheet is understood by all. The editor assigns to the writers their topics for discussion.
The editor indicates the paper’s policy toward all public questions and the editorial page is just what he makes it. The newspaper does not rise above its editor. His assistants write as he directs and wishes, without question, regardless of their personal convictions as to the wisdom of the policy or their personal attitude toward it. But an assistant is not often asked to write contrary to his convictions.
The editor usually revises all editorial page articles and his staff does not return for night work as was80 the practice of morning newspaper editorial writers fifty years ago. One editorial writer remains to comment briefly on any extraordinary news that may develop. This change in general newspaper practice was inspired by the late Charles A. Dana who urged that all editorial comment should be prepared with great deliberation and thoughtfulness, that hastily written articles were perfunctory or were expression of the obvious. He wanted not the editorial expression written at midnight for publication at two A. M. and the other editors came to his way of thinking and doing.
Little change has been made in the appearance of the editorial page in the last fifty years. The make-up remains about the same, the most important article or “the leader” occupying first place, the other articles tapering off in the order of their supposed goodness or importance. Few new features are seen. The column or two of letters to the editor appear with the same regularity and in the same place as they did fifty years ago, written, as then, for the most part by persons who delight to see their names in print, who like to find fault or criticize, who seek to exploit a hobby or a precious project for reforming something. Nevertheless, many letters to the editor are of great value, informative, suggestive, original. Some of the newspaper controversies in which the public takes part are amusing and instructive. Many of the letters to the editor are written by the editor himself—an easy, convenient device for avoiding personal responsibility for the sentiment exploited.
81
The increase in the size of newspapers has been that more pages of news and department features may be added. The editorial page has remained unchanged. Indeed, instead of additional editorial articles following increase of the sheet’s size the tendency has been to print less comment. We have quadrupled the volume of space devoted to general news, to sports, to financial reports, but have actually lessened the number of columns carrying editorial articles.
But we note decided change in the editorial articles themselves, in the choice of topics for comment, in the character, the quality, the spirit of discussion, in the diction. The old time editorial page was devoted almost entirely to politics. It was the expression of a strongly partisan editor and was surcharged with vituperation and abuse of his personal and political enemies and of the opposition candidates. “You lie, you villain; and you know you lie” was one of the gentler forms of argument in common use. The ability of the enemy candidate and the quality of his political principles were treated with unfairness and contempt. This unfairness flavored news reports as well. I distinctly remember a meeting of three thousand howling, shouting, partisan lunatics alive with vim and bursting with enthusiasm all honestly interested in their cause; and they were described next morning by an opposition newspaper as a handful of silent, melancholy, dejected, drooling curiosity seekers and vagrants who had crawled into the hall to keep warm.
But the modern newspaper has ceased to be a rigid82 partisan organ. It is much more moderate of discussion. There is less acrimonious attack on public men, less political misrepresentation, less unfairness toward any opponent. Indeed, it is common enough nowadays for an editor to make a fair and honest presentation of the opposition argument before undertaking to demolish it. It always has been a question whether excessive vituperation and venomous attack have as much influence as temperate reasoning and the moderate expression of righteous conclusions. It is easy to call names—to call a man a thief or a liar—and the personal journalism of fifty years ago rang with such language. The editorial writing of to-day is moderation itself compared with the old time kind.
Even more conspicuous is the change in the choice of topics selected for editorial discussion. Politics dominated four-fifths of the old time page, day after day. The stirring events preceding and succeeding the Civil War aroused great interest in political principles and in political leadership. It was a continuous performance of political strife involving the issues of secession, the extension of slavery to the new states, the conduct of the war, and the multitude of complications and consequences attending reconstruction. The period between 1850 and 1870 was perhaps the most important politically in American history after the Revolution. The American editor was in his glory.
Just at that time the Victorian era of literature was at full growth. It was a literary age. We are living just now in a commercial age and commercialism engrosses83 public attention. It is changing our processes of thinking, changing our choice of editorial topics from political and literary topics to commercial topics, changing our diction from the smoothly flowing ornate sentences of the Victorian era to a blunter, more robust form of expression that tells what it wants to say in a staccato of fewest, shortest words.
Nevertheless, in the plain robust writing of the day we miss much of the pleasure of reading. In the everlasting hunt for fact, for practical information, there is less food for the imagination, less suggestion on which we may enlarge the imagination. Our thoughts are directed in mathematical lines, in practical directions. There is less of the sentimental.
Politics we must have with us always, but the routine politics of ordinary times do not especially interest the public. It is in the few months of a presidential campaign only that we find the American people approaching political excitement. An Edison test of political knowledge would bring many of us to grief. How many readers of these lines, for instance, can name the officers of their state chosen at the latest election, or can name the state’s delegation in Congress, or can give even the name of each member of the President’s cabinet and the post he occupies?
Always there must be love for good literature among the cultured, but the mass of the people care less for literature than they did fifty years ago when the literature of the Victorian period was uppermost in thought.
In the larger offices there are from six to ten editorial84 staff writers who go to the editorial rooms daily. The editor has at command always a number of editorial writers who contribute in the line of their specialties—the writer on medical topics, the army and navy experts, the mechanical engineer, the man who is authority on geographical research, the expounder of financial and commercial topics, and so on. These men are useful adjuncts to the staff and they are in constant demand.
It is quite the practice for editorial writers to specialize on a few topics, to become office authority on them, to be able to explain, elucidate, construct, with that authority and conviction which expert knowledge alone can inspire—to assure the orator confidently that he has evaded the main question, to riddle the pretension of a dishonest promoter, or the fabrications of a fake explorer, or the vaporings of a scrubby scientist. The newspaper has to disclose the humbug of the world as well as its realities.
Just at the moment (1922) the world is in confusion in consequence of the great war and the expert writer is in demand to solve the problems growing out of a vast reconstruction. The writer who understands the fundamentals of diplomacy, or of trade and commerce, of government, of international law is welcome in newspaper offices. Moreover, it is cheering to recognize that you know as much about a given topic as does any one else.
To do editorial page writing is the ambition of nearly all young journalists. The office hours are fixed and short when compared with those of the rest of the85 staff. The writer has more time for study and recreation. He has the satisfaction of doing the highest grade of newspaper work. His responsibility is not excessive for his articles are subject to revision and to criticism in advance of publication. It is clean, wholesome intellectual work with a minimum likelihood for mistake or error.
But, in the larger cities the editorial writer’s work is anonymous. He is little known except by his associates, for the practice of signing editorial articles has not become common. The names of other writers are made conspicuous. The man who describes the financial situation, the bridge whist savant, some of the book reviewers, the playhouse critics, even the writers of base ball games and prize fights,—these are permitted to print their names at the head of their columns. Not so the editorial writers although they perform the highest service for the newspaper, doing the work requiring the most brains and the severest study. If one of them writes an especially noteworthy article the editor in chief quite likely gets the credit for it from the public.
Editorial writing requires a different literary touch from that of plain narration. It is harder to catch the knack of it. The special article or news report gives information only; the editorial article seeks to persuade, or explain, or amuse. It must attract the reader’s attention and it is the writer’s art of combining chat, information and opinion that accomplishes this result. Its opportunities for literary perfection are limitless. Every possible conceit, or trick of language,86 argument, invective, ridicule, sarcasm, humor, frolic, pathos, every element that enters literature, may be indulged in, and the more striking the more successful.
Always the editorial article should have a purpose. Always exists the opportunity for nicety of language, for that use of words to befit the thought that constitutes good composition. The editorial writer must not forget that almost all readers seek to be amused rather than instructed.
“I had not thought of that before” is a common comment of the newspaper reader. But the editor had thought of it because he had been taught to think. He must be informed of the world’s events and be prepared to tell the reader exactly what they mean.
Let it be impressed on the young man in journalism that he must learn to explain as well as to record. And let it be repeated that he must expect to think for that very large proportion of his readers who from lack of time and from force of habit and from inability because they have not practiced it, are unable, unaided, to diagnose and draw conclusions from the burning questions of the day. You cannot give better service than by explaining the alpha and the omega of important events.