FEMALE REPORTERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 2, 9 May 1890, Page 27

FEMALE REPORTERS.

Not all women will make successful newspaper workers, any more than all men will. It is not an easy task, albeit it is fascinating, writes Sally Joy White in Wide Atvake. It, more nearly than any other I know, will answer the description given of woman's work in the old doggerel which ran :—: —

" Man's work is from sun to sun, Woman's work is never done."

This is really true of newspaper work. It is literally never done. — Your paper goes on through everything ; it is printed every day, and sometimes several times a day. Can you understand what that means? Something fresh and new in every one. The last incident caught even in its happening, chronicled in white heat, and put before the waiting public before it is two hours old. Nothing must escape ; every class in the community must be looked after, from the merchant prince to the rag picker. Do you realise what this requires ? Quickness, alertness and, more than that, if you will let me coin a word, aliveness. A readiness to do whatever may come to you, to turn out an interesting story on any subject, to make the moat of every trifling incident, in short, to give value to eveiy piece of work put into your hand to do.

Here, for instance, is a sample of what may come to a worker, what has come, in fact ; aad it is no exaggeration. Busy on a " special," as a loDg article to be ready for use at any time is called, you are interrupted by the call from the managing editor's desk. — You answer the summons and find your superior officer with an open letter in his hands.

" I have jast heard," he says, " that there is every likelihood that Mrs. will be put in nomination for the school board. It is to be done suddenly, and isn't generally known. We want to be prepared for the emergency, so will you go out and get a sketch of her to use this afternoon ? Get a full column, more if you can, and see what her views are on such and such points," naming them over. " And, by the way, such a person," naming some distinguished individual, " is to arrive this afternoon. Can't you see him and get a little interview ? Have it for the morning. Perhaps you'd better go to the station to meet the train ; and while you're waiting you might run into Harmony Hall and see what is going on there."

Well, off you go. To facilitate matters you take a carriage and go to the house of the proposed candidate for school committee. She has just gone to see someone who is interested in her nomination, and off you start after her. Perhaps you catch her at this point, and perhaps, which is much more likely, you have to follow her elsewhere, you find her, get yoHr points epeeriily, back you go to your desk, formulating your sketch in your mind meanwhile. It's pretty near lunch time ; but there'i no time to think of anything but that sketch ; there ia a little over an hour in which to catch the edition you want, and at leaßt a column to be written. You lock your door and begin. Somebody knocks, and you keep on writing ; nothing short of the crack of doom or the managing editor's bell will stop your pen. You and Time are having a fine race, and, being a true newspaper worker, you win. Hurrah ! the last line is written, five minutes to spare.

And now for a good luncheon. Bat what is this ? The city editor appears ; somebody is ill, an assignment overlooked ; won't you take it, please 1 There's really nobody else ; every one is out or busy " catching the edition." It will take you a mile in the opposite direction from which you are to go to capture your " interview " that is coming on the train ; good-bye, luncheon. A cup of coffee or a plate of soup is hastily swallowed, if there is that time to spare, if not you go without it. You get the points needed, write them out on your lap in the horse cars, then go on to the interview, with " Harmony Hall "by way of diversion. Luckily for you there isn't much going on there— a paragraph will dispose of it — so on you go. You are in time for the train, you look out, there's nobody from any other newspaper there. Your spirits rise, you've scored a point. la comes the train. Your " interview "is amenable, asks you to drive to the hotel and talk on the way. It's astonishing; how much information you can get in a very little time. Correct information, too, just what your public wants. And hero is a point which I desire to give to tba would-be newspaper girl. You are of little value to your paper unless the information you get is perfectly correct and reliable, and unless yon know and undersand the points which the public and the paper not only want to know, but have the right to know. Well, you go back with your material &w\ write out your interview. Perhaps you think since that is done you will be at liberty. It may be that you will ; and it may be also that you will be asked to go somewhere in the evening and write an account of a lecture, a party, a convention, a fancy fair, or a revival. That is the newspaper day, and pretty much every day.