An ode to reporters

Stanley Walker

Although rarely read today, Stanley Walker's City Editor, published in 1934, was once a popular source of information about newspapers, especially New York City newspapers. The copy I found at a used book sale a few years ago was part of the 13th printing, published in 1938. I was drawn to the book not just because my own career was devoted to newspaper journalism but also because of the name of the previous owner inside the front cover: "Virgil A. Stanfield, Sept. 1938."

Stanfield, or Stan as he was known informally, was associate editor of The News Journal in Mansfield, Ohio, when I was hired as a reporter in 1968. That was mostly an honorary title, for Stan, once the managing editor, by then had little to do with the day-to-day management of the newsroom. He distributed the mail and wrote an occasional editorial, but mainly he wrote a column and a Sunday piece about local history. He officially retired at some point, and I can remember his retirement party, but he kept his desk at the paper and wrote his history column right up until his death. He used an old Royal typewriter after staff members had moved on to electric typewriters and then to computers. He showed up for work more regularly than most of us who were paid to be there and had an opinion on everything, which he was willing to share with anyone who stopped by his desk.

I have started reading Walker's book, and although it describes a world barely recognizable today, I find much of it fascinating. Of particular interest is what he says about reporters. Although I was a reporter for only a few years at the start of my career, I was surprised at my own retirement party that most of the comments made about me had to do with my performance as a reporter, not with anything I did in the later stages of my career. This may suggest that reporting, more than any other part of the business, is central to newspapers. The editors, printers, ad reps, circulation staff and everyone else just serve supporting roles. And for all the changes in technology over the decades, the job has changed relatively little.

Most of what Walker says about reporters comes in a chapter called "Notes on a Noble Calling," which sums up nicely how he feels about them. He disputes the notion, fed by movies, that reporters are a hard-drinking, disreputable bunch of characters who will do anything for a story. He writes that if reporters from any newspaper were placed at the same dinner table as "the board of governors of the Racquet and Tennis Club" the contrast would favor the reporters. The others, he says, would be "lacking a certain urbanity and zip."

I don't know that this would be true with all reporters and all boards of governors. Reporters, in my experience, are as varied as other segments of the populations. Some are introverts who, though they might be terrific at their jobs, show little zip in dinner conversation. Some are slobs, while others are as sharply dressed as anyone you'll meet. I worked with two reporters, a man and a woman, who every day looked like models for GQ or Vogue. I rarely saw the woman wear the same outfit twice, and she wore heels even when covering crimes and traffic accidents in snowstorms. The young man always wore a nicely tailored suit and tie, even after other reporters were celebrating casual Friday five days a week.

Yet however they look and whatever their personalities, reporters keep their jobs because of their intelligence and their commitment to truth. So maybe they really would outshine any board of governors.

I'll share more about what Stanley Walker says about reporters in may next post.