This somewhat left-handed relationship between newspapers and public
information is reflected in the salaries of newspaper men. Reporting,
which theoretically constitutes the foundation of the whole
institution, is the most poorly paid branch of newspaper work, and is
the least regarded. By and large, able men go into it only by
necessity or for experience, and with the definite intention of being
graduated as soon as possible. For straight reporting is not a career
that offers many great rewards. The rewards in journalism go to
specialty work, to signed correspondence which has editorial quality,
to executives, and to men with a knack and flavor of their own. This
is due, no doubt, to what economists call the rent of ability. But
this economic principle operates with such peculiar violence in
journalism that newsgathering does not attract to itself anything like
the number of trained and able men which its public importance would
seem to demand. The fact that the able men take up "straight
reporting" with the intention of leaving it as soon as possible is, I
think, the chief reason why it has never developed in sufficient
measure those corporate traditions that give to a profession prestige
and a jealous self-respect. For it is these corporate traditions which
engender the pride of craft, which tend to raise the standards of
admission, punish breaches of the code, and give men the strength to
insist upon their status in society.
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