Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — The Cry es “Dead-Heads.” [ARTICLE]

The Cry es “Dead-Heads.”

Ik a leng article on Journalism and Reporters, the New York Evening Mail says: “It is the people and not the journalists who are ‘dead-heads.’ In case anything more serious than stubbing the toe befalls a man, he hastens to toe nearest newspaper and demands that the editor shall wield tire pen and shed ink in his vindication or defense. And if the jaded editor does not with alacrity espouse the cause of his * patron' he will make an enemy for life. ' Members of the press’ are literally hunted down by all sorts of people who have axes to grind. The managers of a public meetmg who do act find the reporters at the table suffer stings of disappointment; the Judge, who sonorously blows his nose before reading his opinion, looks anxiously for the stenographers; the [preacher who descants upon some special subject, loses spirit if the representatives of the press are not there; even the burgjar on the wav to the State Prison covets at&ikswith foe ‘newspaper’ man. Yet the outside barbarian thinks all news* paper men are dead-heads, and envies tlieii tft& flbe times they have in the way of tree dinners and free tickets to alt manner of shows. There never was a

greater mistake. People do not seem to realise that, on the part of the journalist, it Is merely a matter of business; that the reporter goes to these places, so attractive to outsiders, much as the horse goes to the plow—because he must do so. We venture to say that four-fifths of these entertainments are to Journalists Intolerable bores. The press is the victim of the public’s rapacious and unceasing demand for services without pay. Isst us have the boot on the right leg.’’