Next to the popular penny weeklies as prey meet for the aspirant, I name the three "Gazettes," the Pall Mall, the Westminster, and the St. James's. These—the first two especially—make a point of their hospitality to the outside contributor. They appeal of course to a cultured class, and they are catholic in their tastes—ready for anything provided it is topical and well done. They pride themselves on being literary, and therefore good style is essential. In this particular, and also in their habits of returning rejected MSS. with promptness, and of paying regularly without demanding the delivery of an account, they differ from most of the penny morning papers. With them may be bracketed the Globe and the Evening Standard, both celebrated in Grub Street for a regular daily un-editorial article, to which I have referred in Chapter VI. When you have contributed a "turnover" to the Globe, you may congratulate yourself. The Evening Standard article has less pretensions.

Save as receptacles for short stories of a lurid inferior kind, the halfpenny evening papers have little interest for the outside contributor. The Echo is an exception, showing a fondness for short, quiet, topical articles of a rather serious nature.

Among morning papers, the most attractive to the outside contributor is the Daily Mail, one of the best-edited newspapers in the world. The Daily Mail does not ask itself on receiving an unsolicited contribution: "Is it our custom to publish things of this kind"? No, it scorns precedent and is always anxious for novelty. It demands absolute freshness, a great deal of verve, and the strictest brevity. It makes a feature of very short interviews and articles on topics of the hour. On its seventh page, under the title "The Daily Magazine," room is usually found for matter of a general nature—glorified Tit-Bits confections. If the Daily Mail has a weakness, it is for statistical articles of an international character, illustrated by ingenious diagrams—articles in which Great Britain by hook or by crook is made to surpass and outvie every other country.

Another halfpenny morning paper, The Morning, has burst the fetters of precedent and usage, and willingly considers every suggestion of originality. Its methods are those of New York and frankly sensational.

The penny morning papers are difficult of access, relying chiefly on bands of regular contributors. The least hide-bound are the Daily Chronicle and the Daily News. On Saturday the former has a women's page, for which it accepts outside contributions with some freedom. The Daily News has a reputation for humorous articles dealing with the domesticities.

Of the illustrated sixpenny weeklies, Black and White and the Sketch are usually ready to consider short stories, dialogues, interviews, and light articles, the Sketch being the more exigent of the two. The Illustrated London News and the Graphic depend for matter upon their own staffs and regular correspondents, and I believe that neither accepts any fiction from outsiders. To the politico- literary weeklies, Saturday Review, Speaker, and Spectator, the aspirant need not turn her ambitious eye. They are fastidious; they demand advanced technique, and moreover they touch subjects with which women are not often conversant. Of the three, the Speaker is the least exclusive.

With the vast hordes of religious papers (it is stated that several hundred are published in London alone) I shall make no attempt to deal. But it may be well to say that many of them pay very badly and many of them do not pay at all. The best, speaking from a journalistic point of view, is the British Weekly, a Nonconformist journal which prints all sorts of things, and which is edited with brilliant skill; unfortunately it has the bad habit of not returning rejected articles.

As regards the comic weekly press, not much falls to be said. It may be separated into three divisions. First, Punch (threepence), which for several decades has stood, and still stands, quite alone. It is usual to say that Punch has of late years been steadily losing its reputation, but the truth of the statement seems at least doubtful; and however this may be, indubitably Punch is yet the foremost comic weekly. Though it depends in the main upon a regular staff, its doors are not locked against the outside contributor. Second, Judy (recently edited by a woman), Fun, Moonshine, and Pick-Me-Up (one penny). Like Punch, all these papers, except Pick-Me-Up, are noticeably conservative in their policies, and continue to move in the old grooves. They do not, I imagine, offer much opportunity to the outside contributor. Pick-Me-Up devotes itself to the humour of the music-hall, and is probably not largely beholden to women for its sprightliness. Third, the halfpenny organs of wit, represented by Comic Cuts, and twenty other sorts of Cuts. If a woman considers herself destined for the comic press, her wisest course is to collaborate with an artist. A joke may be the best and most original joke in the world, but it will not have a very safe chance of acceptance unless it is illustrated. The illustration per se may be without talent; no matter; mediocre pictures have certainly been instrumental in selling innumerable jokes. And as with jokes, so with "skits," satires, and parodies: the writer must combine with the artist if success is to be reached.

Monthly magazines divide themselves into three classes:—First, the purely popular,—Strand, Ludgate, Pearson's, Windsor, Woman at Home, Lady's Realm, &c. Second, the high-class general,—Blackwoods', Pall Mall, Macmillans' Cornhill, Longmans', &c. Third, the reviews,— Nineteenth Century, Contemporary, Fortnightly, National, and Westminster. Of these three classes, the aspirant is likely to succeed best with the second, since the first demands names of renown, and the third either expert knowledge, scholarship, or high technique.

I have left to the last the women's papers, which are, in the natural order of things, written chiefly by women. It is of course to be expected that women-aspirants should turn first to women's papers, of whose characteristics they should certainly make a special and minute study, but at the same time I must repeat the warning already given against the habit of dealing only with subjects interesting to or connected with the female sex. Women's papers are sharply divided into two classes—those which appeal to women of education and breeding, and those which appeal to women of a lower social status. To the former group belong the Queen, the Lady's Pictorial, the Gentlewoman (sixpence), Hearth and Home and the Lady (threepence), and Woman (one penny). To the latter belong Home Chat, Home Notes, and their countless imitators.

The beginner must bear in mind the essential differences between these two groups, which, in catering for quite different tastes, necessarily follow widely divergent policies. Both groups pay reasonably well, and it may be said that all women's papers of any reputation whatever give a considerate ear to the outside contributor. The sixpennies, having what amounts to unlimited room, offer to the aspirant a spacious and delightful field.



Chapter X

"Woman's Sphere" in Journalism



There are certain departments of journalism which women have always had, and probably will always have, to themselves: I mean the departments comprising fashion, cookery and domestic economy, furniture, the toilet, and (less exclusively) weddings and what is called society news. It is unlikely that men will ever seriously compete with women in the business of supplying the stuff which women as a sex are supposed to read. My own belief is that men could deal very capably with these subjects, or most of them, if they chose to assume the task; but there happens to be a superstition that such matters are beyond a man's scope; men accept the superstition, and leave them alone. Hence the distinctive "woman's sphere" in journalism.

Now almost all the work falling within this sphere is done badly—with a lack of technical skill which can only be described as shameful. I have argued (in Chapter II.) that the defect is attributable to the early training which women receive. A further explanation lies in the fact that, in their particular field, they are never stimulated to improvement by the sight of better performances than their own; the result, viewed dispassionately, is deplorable.

In the first place, nearly all women's work dealing with feminine subjects is in a special degree disfigured by slipshod writing. This is particularly true of fashion articles, which are on the whole worse written even than police reports in country newspapers. Of the scores of fashion articles appearing week by week in journals of standing, not five per cent. would pass muster as the work of men. I take up, for an example, one of the "great London dailies," containing a short signed contribution by a journalist whose fame as a chronicler of modes is unrivalled, a lady who earns the wage of a Cabinet Minister, and has indeed arrived at the highest places in her profession; and I find in the article the following —shall I call them?—lapses from the rectitude of sound writing.

Hackneyed phrases and quotations:—

"Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."

"Inclines towards the portly."

"De rigueur."

"Hold on our affections."

"Ignore the charms of."

Strange word:—

"Becomingness."

Bad punctuation:—

"So that such a jacket be cut well and worn by a woman of fairly slim proportions round the waist and hips it will be exceedingly successful, but she who inclines towards the portly should rigidly ignore the charms of the jacket with the belt." Unless this sentence has a comma after "well," it bears a meaning quite different from what the writer intended; it needs also a comma after "hips" and a semicolon after "successful."

Words wrongly used:—

"It is one of the earnest principles of my faith to commend fashion." A principle cannot be earnest, and faith cannot be an action. The writer probably means that she sincerely thinks it her duty to commend fashion.

"There are only two hats well worn in Paris just now—this style and the small velvet toque trimmed with a group of plumes." For "well," read "largely" or "extensively." Note the other fault in this sentence.

Wrong or clumsy constructions, laxity in the use of metaphors, &c.:—

"[We may] read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest their different charms." Fancy reading or learning or digesting a charm!

"I have no objection to the lion lying down with the lamb—the Persian lamb—or rather, I should say, to the sable being allied to this fur, or to the combination of black caracule, or sable with ermine; any two furs, or indeed three furs, put together, I recognise as appropriate and elegant, but the frivolous working of furs with coloured satins and silks now obtaining the affections of the many is not at all to my taste." To comment on this piece of composition would be wicked.

"There is a great fancy shown by the authorities this year to elaborate furs." In English one says "take a fancy to" but "show a fancy for."

"It is small wonder that the fashion has obtained such a hold on our affections, because it is so becoming if it is not overdone."

"A single row of white pearls next the fair or even dark throat of a woman has always a beneficial effect upon her complexion." Has a woman then two throats?

"And talking about a beneficial effect upon a woman's complexion, let me mention once again the exceeding becomingness of the new shades of blue, these being rather of the sugar-paper order of blue, but a little lighter in colour perhaps, yet having that vivid tone about it. This is freely mixed with dark blue, the lighter shade being used for making trimmings to bodices, or indeed to make an entire bodice, while the dark cloth forms the skirt and coat. The hat which completes it will take every shade of blue." Observe particularly the two "its" and the "this," neither of which refers properly to any substantive.

So much for the craftsmanship of one of our most celebrated women- journalists! When such a person, writing over her own name in the columns of a renowned and powerful paper, may thus brazenly ignore the elementary principles of composition, it may be guessed what latitude of carelessness and error is allowed to obscurer performers in obscurer sheets.

* * * * *

It is not only in the apparently trivial but really important details of style that women's work falls short, but in qualities even more vital. Fashion, to refer again to that branch of journalism, is a complicated and difficult subject, requiring for its adequate treatment the utmost orderliness and lucidity. Yet fashion articles are seldom arranged with any skill, and seldom lucid. The subject is usually handled after a haphazard method resulting in misty paragraphs of which often not even the writers could explain the meaning. It is said that men cannot understand fashion articles. Certainly they cannot, but the fault is not theirs. Over and over again I have heard expert fashion-journalists confess that they had failed to comprehend the writings of their colleagues. If articles on dress were properly done, men could understand, though they might not be interested in them.

Fashion gives the widest scope for the journalist's art. The constant change, the bewildering variety of it, offer opportunities for descriptive and critical work which, if they were seized, might result in articles as interesting, as accomplished, as distinguished, as any in the literary reviews. But these opportunities are uniformly missed.

Cookery, that is to say practical cookery, gives fewer opportunities than fashion for the display of merely literary skill. It is a subject which demands from the journalist clearness and thoroughness. The average cookery article may be passably clear so far as it goes, but it is rarely thorough, and so it fails in usefulness. Writers upon cookery in women's papers have been content, without thinking upon what is really wanted, to follow the methods of cookery books, ignoring the truism that cookery books, by reason of their omissions and silences, are valuable only to efficient cooks, who stand in no deep need of them. It is to the inexperienced cook that cookery articles are designed to appeal, and therefore they should be exhaustive, describing processes exactly, measuring quantities with precision, taking nothing for granted, leaving nothing to the imagination. That cookery articles, even if read, are certainly not acted upon, is proved by the monotony of the suburban dinner. And they are not acted upon because the reader finds them incomplete, "sketchy," and superficial.

It would be possible to take all the other subjects coming within "woman's sphere" in journalism, and to show that women have failed in the treatment of them to reach even a moderate standard of competence. Look, for another instance, at the reports of weddings and society entertainments, all done after one execrable model, dull and perfunctory.

* * * * *

I bring this general indictment in order that the eyes of the aspirant may be opened to the opportunities which await her. A brilliant future lies before the woman who will devote to these neglected women's subjects skilled craftmanship and the enthusiasm of an artist, of which surely they are as worthy as anything else in journalism. At present it seems as if the women who write for women are content to remain all their lives mere amateurs of the pen; the one who first puts herself to the trouble of becoming an expert may rely upon making a sensation in the world of editors.



Chapter XI

Conclusion



It is not part of my scheme to deal with newspaper offices, and so disturb the illusions of the aspirant concerning the "glamour" of those places. To those who are outside them and would fain be inside, a newspaper office is a retreat where, amid cigarette smoke and the rumour of continual event, clever people write what they like when they like, while others, only one degree less gifted, correct, by means of cabalistic signs, proofs, with the rapidity of lightning and the omniscience of gods, exchanging at intervals brilliant repartee with the beings who write. Round these are supposed to hover boys, compositors, porters, famous contributors and timid aspirants, and in the underground distance is the roar and vibration of vast steam machines which disgorge papers more quickly than one can count.

The reality is perhaps different from this picture—how different the aspirant will realise when she has at last obtained a position in an office. Having obtained such a position, she may congratulate herself that the most trying part of the apprenticeship is over. Henceforward she will be among those who can put her in the right way. She will no longer need the assistance of a handbook; it is only the unattached beginner, working (so pathetically) without guidance and in the dark, who needs that.

One thing, however, may be said about the newspaper office. It is as strictly a place of business as a draper's shop or a bank. Many women- journalists fail to recognise this fact. They do not see that in an office the relations of people must be first and foremost official; that social considerations, and even considerations of animal comfort, must be put aside in order that Business may have a clear road.

I have met in newspaper offices the sprightly woman who martyrises herself because she must work in a room with other women whose dullness and primness jar on her vivacities; the woman who is aggrieved because winter is warmed for her by a gas stove instead of an open fire; the woman who feels insulted because male associates do not accord her the elaborate ritual of deference to which she has been accustomed in drawing-rooms; the woman who arrives late because she is tired, and blandly offers to "make up the time at night;" the woman who says, "I forgot to do so and so, I'm so sorry," and stands like a spoiled child smilingly expectant of forgiveness; and other women of a similar kind.

A vast number of women engaged in journalism, I verily believe, secretly regard it as a delightful game. The tremendous seriousness of it they completely miss. On no other assumption can the attitude of many women- journalists towards their work be explained. Therefore, my final words to the outside contributor, as I leave her on the threshold of an office, are these: Journalism is not a game, and in journalism there are no excuses.

THE END