THE SPHERE OF JOURNALISM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1909, Page 10

THE SPHERE OF JOURNALISM.

Mr. Stead (says the St. James's Budget) believes in widening our conception of a journalist. In a speech to the Society of Women Journalists he made a rather rash attempt to define the constituents of journalism. Tha rashness was apparent when his under- | taking led Mr. Stead to describe as real jornalists the multitude of men and women who confide to the columns of a newspaper, by means of unpaid letters, their views on all subjects under the sun. Welcome as these effusions often are, we should hesitate to describe the writers as journalists. One might as well call tho railway passenger an engine-driver because his contribution to the cost makes the running of the train possible. A better case can be made out for the advertisement writer, for whom also Mr. Stead put in a claim The advertisement writer is a very valuable assistant to a J newspaper. 'Not only would many news- 1 papers cease to exist if there were no advertisement-writers, but the occupation is an art requiring some knowledge of the article advertised, much knowledge of the minds of men and women, and i good deal of verbal ingenuity. It is only within the last few years that the world has awakened to the possibilities of the ! attractive presentation of advertisements! Now -we are going ahead. A* small host of people are believed to earn an eminently respectable livelihood by this branch of journalism ; they are increasing in number, and will increase as their capacities are more generally appreciated. There is this great difference between the advertisement writer and the ordinary newspapei letter writer. The advertisement man knocks things into shape, just as a special correspondent or leader writer does. The letter writer has to be knocked into shape. The one has not graduated in his art; the other has. But if this were all, it might still be possible to deny the advertisement writer the title of journalist. But. it is not all. A journalist is one who writes what people want to read, and the more they want to read his compositions the more effective journalist he is likely to be. Do people want to read the genial outpourings of the advertisement writer ? They do; and that is the last argument for his being considered a journalist. The advertisement columns of a newspaper are news columns ; the adveitisement columns of a magazine are part, of the entertainment it offers. Some* people, we 'know, never read advertisements. But then, some people never read ths money article or the police newsj and others refuse, with an obstii\ancy that is almost magnificent, to be beguiled into poring over the speeches of honourable gentlemen in Parliament. Yet the money article, the police reports, and the Parliamentary debates are news. Likewise, a man may sniff contempt as he hurriedly turns over the pages which tell where, and at what price, the best cocoa or blacklead can be produced, while hi? wife, who has to run the house, gets useful information from them. They are nothing to him; they are news to her. The racing columns thrill with excitement for him; they are Greek and Hebrew to her. Let us take two instances in which tho advertisement columns of a paper are among its most attractive. Here is the man who loves books and wants to know the multitudinous ways wherein literature a. tending. He reads reviews, of course —they are his- guide to the books that Rill suit him. But beiore ho finds the guide he must gain an idea of the country through which they are to pass together. In the advertisement columns, iv the publishers' announcements of the newest books — their reminder of what they have done, their statement of what they are doing, their forecast of what they intend to do — he discovers a map of the cherished territory. He revels in it as a geographer or explorer rejoices in 'the physical outlines of earth and sea. Here, again, is the woman who must for her very life's sake" keep abreast of the fashions. She -will study, with more than the attention an Egyptologist devctes to tombs and scarabei, the sketches and descriptions of the psetty things even the ugly things — which are being worn in the most knowing circles. When these studies are completed, however, a large field of knawledge remains to* be covered. She sees the highest, and needs must love it; but how is she to get possession? In matters of dress woman is no content with an inaccessible ideal. So she turns to another part of the paper in her anxiety to learn where the newest hat and the latest costume are to be approached nearest. To her the advertisement columns are most vital news. I f anybody needs convincing of the news character of advertisements — anybody who declines to be satisfied by our arguments — let him watch his wife and daughters making their way through the papers. Hs can ask no greater proof.