A Reporter's Life

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 118, 26 September 1941, Page 5

A Reporter's Life

HERE is or was a@ common idea that the journalist lives a Bohemian sort of life, free altogether from many of the conditions that limit the existence of the sober business or professional man, That never was wholly true and it is less so now than ever, There’s a good deal more hard work than Bohemian gaiety about the journalist’s life. It is true he doesn’t

live exactly as other people do, especially if he is employed on a morning paper. There can be no appearing at the office at nine and leaving it at five, keeping regular hours or observing all holidays. Anybody who feels he cannot exist except on those terms had better put the idea of journalism out of his mind at once. It doesn’t mean that

there is no leisure time and no ‘ holidays for the journalist, but he very. often has to be at work while other people are at play, and have his leisure time while his friends are working. A position with a morning paper means a great deal of night work and much Sunday work as well. These things are taken very much as a matter of course by those who have never experienced them, but they make a good deal of difference to one’s life, and especially to the social side of it, It is very easy to lose contact with one’s friends in such circumstances. The newspaper deals with events as they happen, which means that the newspaper worker is at the mercy of events. He may be called on at any hour of the day or night, may be required to work for long stretches at a time without relief, and may find that any plans of his own get short shrift in the

face of an office emergency. By way of contrast there are plenty of routine jobs that for considerable periods can make life about as exciting as breaking stones.-(" Literature and Journalism," R, A. Melville, 1Y A, September 4.)