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.

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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 publicati............