CHAPTER VII

THE TECHNICAL PRESS

As our young man in journalism begins to get a reputation among his fellows for sincere trustworthy work his services may be sought by other editors. Hundreds of miscellaneous weekly and monthly publications employ writers and they draw largely from the daily newspaper staffs. More than one thousand persons employed regularly in New York City furnish the copy for these miscellaneous journals. Nearly as many more are occasional or special contributors. There are scores of magazines of fiction and scores of weekly journals devoted to literature, religion, fashions, humor, science, art, music and the play-house, to sports, birds, and beasts, and fish.

There are journals devoted to the learned professions, to medicine, law, chemistry, engineering, theology, electricity. And there are hundreds of technical publications and trade papers that cater to the interests of all kinds of business: banking, insurance, shipping, manufacturing, railroading, dry goods, textile, grocery, hardware, wines, spirits, liqueurs, drugs. Almost every occupation has some sort of a publication to advance its interests. Many of them are prosperous116 and some of them are “gold mines” for their owners. Almost all are very helpful to the trade they represent. They expand in vast detail the things that the daily newspapers pass by with mere mention or do not mention at all. They tell the reader what the other fellow is doing. They cunningly search the entire world for facts bearing on the business they represent. Their representatives in Washington, and at every state capital, inform of any proposed legislation hostile to their clients’ interests—restriction of trade, increased taxation, regulation of methods, legislative strikes or blackmailing raids.

In the editorial columns are discussed every phase of business that could affect the readers’ business and the news columns give every obtainable fact, including columns of routine record such as price list quotations, statistics of merchandise movement, government reports of agricultural and metal production, and the like.

A vast volume of technical matter is required to fill these publications, the writing of which calls for expert and special knowledge and continuous study. The writer’s task is difficult for the reason that he is not writing for the general public, but rather for men who already have comprehensive knowledge of the subject and who instantly detect misstatement of fact or feebleness of reasoning. Nevertheless, the writer appreciates that his business-man reader is keenly alive to know the doings of his rivals who may be smarter and more successful than himself and who are working to solve the same problems as himself.

117

Writing for the technical press is not so fascinating as for the newspapers, the literary weeklies, or the magazines of fiction. The imagination has less opportunity to frolic. Facility of literary expression is not an asset. The embryos of inspiration and ambition are incubated elsewhere. Constant consideration of the one topic tempts to routine thought and to imitative writing.

Nevertheless, writing for the technical press involves most careful and painstaking effort. It will not do to make a mistake. Some of the accomplishments to be desired in the writer are indicated in an address delivered by Mr. Charles W. Price, editor of the Electrical Review:

    Accuracy in technical statements and simplicity of language are two elements of greatness and distinction in technical journalism. It is not always easy for the abundantly informed technical writer to present his scientific truths in simple limpid language to be comprehended by and thus delight and enlighten the average reader. I am now referring to editorial treatment of such subjects, and not of course to those technical contributions in which mathematical figures necessarily must appear. The editor or technical writer who can present scientific reasoning and its practical application accurately and simply without the aid of his algebra, is assured of the largest possible audience, and is the producer of the greatest influence and information. He is, besides, popular in technical publishing circles.

    Another element of greatness is a practical illuminating presentation of what an invention in the field of which that publication is the exponent, really means to the art to which it relates; that when an invention of importance is announced, it be told just what it would mean and how it118 might or will affect the art or the industry. But the technical writers who can state a scientific fact in a few words and with crystal clearness are not very numerous.

The electrical reviews may be mentioned as a fair example of technical journalism. They are large publications of a hundred pages or so, half of which are given to advertisements of every electrical apparatus or machine known to man. The electricians do not advertise in the daily newspapers, nor do the newspapers print the news of the electrical business except when some big discovery is made. No way exists, therefore, for the electrician to know what is going on in his business except through an electrical review. There he gets not only every treasure of discovery, but every flash, every twinkle of the business as well. He may learn what all the electric societies are doing in all parts of the world. He may read the lectures on electrical subjects delivered by experts. He may be told just what the great electrical companies are doing, what new construction they are planning or finishing. It is a constantly growing and changing business with every day new application of old discoveries as well as new ones. He simply cannot be without an electrical review.

In New York City are forty-five publications devoted to drugs, medicine and surgery. Many of them are for the drug trade only and others are highly intellectual reviews of progress and practice in medical science. They are little read except by physicians, surgeons and druggists; but of late years, so bewilderingly119 fascinating have been their disclosure of medical discovery and progress and so absorbing their illustrations of surgical skill, the daily newspaper editors have been compelled to read them searchingly for the news they contain, and they have been generously quoted in the daily press. The medical press exploits all that is new in surgery or practice, gives elaborate reports of medical society discussions, descriptions of unique surgical operations, new uses of drugs. It digs up everything all over this earth that possibly could interest a practitioner. Obviously the physician or surgeon who doesn’t read the medical literature of the day is miles behind the times.

Even the newspaper business has its trade journals, and one of them, The Fourth Estate, was saying the other day that between seven thousand and seven thousand five hundred persons are actively engaged in writing for the New York City press; and that thirty-five thousand are similarly employed in the United States.

It is quite impossible, in this space, to describe these miscellaneous and class publications. They are numbered by thousands. In New York City are more than one hundred literary magazines and weeklies. A recent tabulation attested that in the United States more than eight hundred publications are devoted to religion, of which about one hundred are printed in New York. Six hundred are issued to tell the farmer how to till. Eighty exploit automobiles. How to fly is told by six sheets. The mouthpieces of the barbers number four and the blind may learn about themselves in eleven.120 Eighteen appear regularly in the interest of the American Indian, and six for bees. More than six hundred tell about schools and colleges; twenty about dogs; twelve about confections and ice-cream; twenty-three of dentistry; twenty-six of the theater; fifty of fashion; ninety of finance, of which thirty are in New York. The grocers support eighty odd and the insurance men sixty-seven, while two hundred and fifty are in the interest of labor. We find devoted to law one hundred and fifty; to liquor twenty-seven; mechanics and engineering sixty-five; moving pictures twenty; music trade fifty-four; the negro about two hundred; poultry eighty-five; soap and perfume three; sports seventy; women suffrage seven; undertakers ten. One of the newspaper directories recently gave a list of two hundred and forty-five trades or businesses each of which has its own technical publications.

The trade papers have come to form a very important and conspicuous part of American journalism. Their writers may not be so well known to fame as are other authors, but they have better business opportunities. Their expert knowledge of the business under consideration and the acquaintances they necessarily form with the kings of that business, frequently lead to advantageous offers to engage in business. A larger proportion of the technical press men quit writing to do other work than is noted in any other line of journalism.

The business of furnishing information about business has become a great industry in itself. It has developed121 amazingly within a few years, chiefly through the technical journals or magazines, the number of which has increased greatly, but also through books and pamphlets.

The big banks have their business libraries totalling thousands of volumes, covering endless topics relating to railroads, corporations, specific business, systems and methods. They preserve newspaper clippings in bewildering numbers. The bureau of information is conspicuous in all big business houses and corporations and all the literature of business is at hand. Every Wall Street brokerage house of any account employs a man to furnish information to customers.

The great war so effectively restricted importation that the country was largely thrown on its own resources. It was compelled to produce or furnish substitute matter for many products it could not import. Business facts became greatly in demand. The librarians reported, and continue to note, a greatly increased demand for business literature. The book publishers recognize an increasing devouring public appetite for business books. The managers of business journals and magazines tell of largely increasing circulations in this period of great business expansion.

One of the managers of the System magazine series said not long ago:

    The demand for our publications has increased tremendously since the war. In the last three years one of our magazines has increased sixty per cent in circulation. Blame Germany for that, and for the big increase in business122 literature. We have learned suddenly that German business has been studying books all these years. We find now that to compete, American business must also take to books. And that has brought about one big difference. A few years ago when I left college to go into business, my employers encouraged me with, “Well, you’ll live down your college training.” To-day, a big business man does more reading than a student in college—and he has to do it.

Technical journalism is a great feature of the journalism of the times. Its importance is little appreciated or understood by the general public. It gives employment to thousands of writers and its rapid increase indicates demand for thousands more.

Trained newspapermen are in active demand as publicity and general aids by big corporations. The salaries paid are larger than is paid by newspapers. These men usually oversee the advertising; likewise they write pamphlets, collect information for the use of the corporation, frequently prepare speeches for delivery by the officers, make out reports, read many publications for any information bearing on the business. The work requires fine editorial ability and thorough knowledge of the business. It is far above the press agent work done to advertise theaters, moving pictures, or hotels. It involves a study of the principles and condition of other business besides their own, for in many instances their own business is affected by the business of others. The literature of business has become very important.

Accuracy is the supreme requirement in business writing. A single misstatement may involve a loss of123 confidence in the writer or the publication—a loss of money to the reader. Simple construction in the plainest of language is the rule for writing.

Demand for the literature of business has made startling changes in the newspapers of to-day, affecting daily sheets as well as all journalism. Ten times as much space is given to market reports as was used forty years ago. Business news is lavishly exploited. It was little noticed in the old days.

It is a business age. The educational impulse of school and college is in the direction of business education rather than classical or general education. Technical schools are much more popular. Business schools are conducted by large corporations, by banks, by chambers of commerce. Banks, insurance companies, the railroad organizations, and big business concerns maintain statistical and information departments and publish pamphlets and periodical literature. Men competent to produce information are in demand and those of newspaper experience are preferred.

Publishers are putting out an avalanche of books on every phase of business. The demand for books of reference, books of the practical, in our libraries is overwhelming. Reports of the New York Public Library attest that seekers after books of technical information are numbered by hundreds of thousands.

Nearly all of the men who are furnishing this greatly increased volume of business information have had daily newspaper office experience. In looking through the lists of technical journals printed in New York I see124 the names of dozens of men as their editors whom I recognize as former daily newspaper men. They now have permanent and responsible posts at reasonably remunerative salaries. The work is not so continuously exacting as that required in the minor places in the newspaper. The hours of toil are shorter, are in the middle of the day, and are omitted on holidays and Sundays. These are important considerations to the man who elects to live by writing information.