The young woman looked a trifle embarrassed, as she answered: "Well, to
tell you the truth, I write a good many disagreeable and nasty things
about people, especially people in public life. The editors who take my
work will have that kind. I have essayed better things, and they would
not touch them. So I am compelled to write the stuff they do want. I
must make a living." When I read the "stuff" in question, I was inclined
to doubt the assertion of the writer that "she must make a living." The
world would be the better should she and all her kind cease to exist.
Ridicule, falsehood, and insinuation were the leading traits of the
young woman's literary style. Costumes and personalities were
caricatured, and conversations and actions misstated. The entire article
would have been libelous, had it not been too cowardly to deserve so
bold a word.
It is useless for any man or woman to assert that such reportorial work
is done from necessity. The blackmailer and the pickpocket have as much
right to the plea, as the newspaper masked-assassin, with the concealed
weapon of a pen.
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