Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
The importance of a journal being chiefly centered in that portion
specially devoted to politics, the writers of which are supposed, right
or wrong, to possess certain influences, it is not astonishing the
editorial offices have few occupants. The editorial department of the
"Constitutionnel" wears a homely appearance, but borrows importance from
the influence that is wielded in it--writers decorated with the red
ribbon are not unfrequently seen at work in it. In others, and
especially in the editorial offices of some journals, may be seen,
besides the pen, more offensive weapons, such as swords and pistols.
This is another result of the personal system of journalism. As in
America, the editor may find himself in the necessity of defending his
arguments by arms. He is too notorious to be able to resort to the
stratagem of a well-known wit, who kept a noted boxer in his front
office to represent the editor in hostile encounters. He goes out,
therefore, to fight a duel, on which sometimes depends not only his own
fate, but that of his journal.
With regard to the personal power of a newspaper name, it is only
necessary in order to show how frequently it still exists, to state that
the provisional government of February, 1848, was concocted in a
newspaper office, and the revolution of 1830 was carried on by the
editors of a popular journal--that among the lower orders in France, at
the present time, the names that are looked up to as those of chiefs,
belong to newspaper editors, whose leading articles are read and
listened to in cheap newspaper clubs, and whose "orders" are followed as
punctually and as certainly as those of a general by his troops. A
certain class of French politicians may be likened to sheep: they follow
their "leaders."
The smallness of the number of officials in a French newspaper office is
to be accounted for from the fact that parliamentary debates are
transcribed on the spot where the speeches are made; and the reporting
staff never stirs from the legislative assembly. The divers corps of
reporters for Paris journals form a corporation, with its aldermen, or
syndici, and other minor officers. Each reporter is relieved every two
minutes; and while his colleagues are succeeding each other with the
same rapidity, he transcribes the notes taken during his two minutes'
"turn." The result of this revolving system is collated and arranged by
a gentleman selected for the purpose. This mode of proceeding insures,
if necessary, the most verbatim transmission of an important speech, and
more equably divides the work, than does the English system, where each
reporter takes notes for half or three quarters of an hour, and spends
two or three hours, and sometimes four or five, to transcribe his notes.
The French parliamentary reporter is not the dispassionate auditor which
the English one is. He applauds or condemns the orators, cheers or hoots
with all the vehemence of an excited partisan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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