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Show The Woman's Viewpoint What Is a Newspaperman? out the number of press releases re-leases and rewrites on his competitor's com-petitor's front page. A newspaperman is essentially essential-ly a lonely man, apparently doomed to perpetual misrepresentation. misrepre-sentation. He is forever stereotyped stereo-typed as a hard-drinking, high living, backslapping, tough and aggressive cross between Jack Webb and Jackie Gleason, even though in reality he may be a sober, gentle family man, and just as reticent as the next guy about meeting new people or speaking in public. As for his role, the people know he is their servant, but seldom realize that he serves them and democracy best when he is independent of their partisan pressures. He is the unpopular individual who tells people what they ought to know, even though some don't want them to know. His is the historic role of enlightening public opinion; but men with historic roles seldom have good appetites. It is really only his spontaneous spon-taneous and completely indestructible inde-structible sense of humor that keeps the newspaperman sane; and yet he is hopelessly addicted ad-dicted to his hectic life. The newspaperman is Truth with a chronic headache; he is Freedom Free-dom of Information and Opinion Opin-ion with high blood pressure; he is the Champion of Right Causes with darkroom chemical stains on his good clothes; he is Civic Integrity working for half the pay he could get elsewhere; and Honesty coming home very late, . very tired. There are times when even his wife can Icarcely live with him. But thank God that our country still has the likes of him. (This is National Newspaper Newspa-per Week, and also marks the beginning of our 12th year as Beaver County publishers. The following arlicx was written by Mrs. Alison Oldham, Old-ham, wife of a newspaperman, newspaper-man, and we .-ppublish it this week because Pat Williams, wife of Beaver County's newspaperman, news-paperman, says it's "very fitting"). fit-ting"). By Alison Davis Oldham (Wife of a newspaperman) in The American Press What is a newspaperman? He is a cross between a bundle of nerves and an heroic public servr.nt. He is the People's Friend whom everybody is mad at; the gatherer of news who hasn't time to read his own mail; the power of the printed word encased in a fallible human hu-man frame. The habitat of a newspaperman newspaper-man is wherever you may find I him (and just try about dinner time!) but he is never far from a typewriter or a telephone. Anatomically he is a unique creature, subsisting almost exclusively ex-clusively on caffeine and nicotine, nico-tine, and well on his way to a fine case of ulcers before he's thirty. His habits tend to be primarily nocturnal, from temperament tem-perament fully as much as. from necessity. And if by chance he ever does get a quiet evening at home, then without fail the fire sirens blow or the phone rings, and you don't see him again for another five hours. He is constantly preoccupied pre-occupied when you try to talk t.o him about the trivia of his personal life, for his mind is a whirlpool of 36-point heads, that error in Jones and Sweeney's Sween-ey's classified, and where to dig up the dope on that story some local VIP was "not authorized to divulge." A newspaperman is the crazy fool with the camera, out bareheaded bare-headed in the season's worst storm, or crouching so close to the goal line he's going to get a cleat in his teeth any minute, or trying to herd the Ladies Literary Lit-erary Circle into order so he can take their picture and get out of there. Jack of All Trades A newspaperman is the one remaining professional jack of all trades in our specialized society; so-ciety; for. he is an expert typist, typ-ist, an amateur English teacher, a part-time salesman, an ad writer, office boy, charwoman, and creative artist. He has a working acquaintance with typesetting, political science, ornithology, the social register, addressographs, the who's who and taboos of all the organizations organiza-tions and lodges in town, the tax structure, photographic developing, de-veloping, juvenile delinquency, county fairs, furniture refinish-ing, refinish-ing, and the pholisophy of responsible re-sponsible journalism. He is an accomplished labor arbitrator and diplomat in his relations with the boys in the back shop. And oh yes he writes, too, of course. A newspaperman is considered consid-ered fair game for taking pot shots at by everyone in the community the irate Women's Civic Uplift League because he didn't publish every detail of their goings-on, and the Wrathful Wrath-ful local politicians because he did publish theirs. And yet he is the guy who is supposed to be nice to everyone 'from the little old lady who takes up half an hour on the day the paper goes to press asking him to change her subscription from 92 Elm Street to 91 Elm Street, to the big advertiser who's special spe-cial sale price was supposed to read $86 and somehow got in ! the paper as $186. Sensitive Craftsman ' Underneath his traditionally hard exterior the newspaperman newspaper-man is human, and as sensitive 'ias any craftsman about his j work. If you want to make him insanely angry, give him a lead on an important story, and then .say, "But don't print that; we don't think people should know about it." If you want to make him utterly miserable, point out four errors in the front page after he has read proofs all night until he's cross-eyed. If you want to win his undying gratitude, praise sincerely the editorial he sweated sweat-ed out long after hours, knowing know-ing full well only five people would read it. His is a passionate passion-ate desire fox complete accuracy in a hopelessly error-ridden profession; a constant quest for new angles, fresh ideas; a surprisingly sur-prisingly childlike pleasure in artistically alliterative headlines head-lines and dry wit in features and editorials, usually too subtle to be appreciated by any but his wife, who has been coached; and a sadistic glee in pointing |