�outsiders, and he carries with him the prestige of the newspaper he represents. 4 The occasional correspondent is not regularly at tached to the press, but sends to it letters on subjects which he
is specially well qualified to treat.
The historian must first of all ask what have been the qualifica tions demanded of those who cover so large a part of the world 's activities. From the standpoint of the editor, they may be best
given in the words of James Gordon Bennett, when he says: “ The Special Correspondent of a great newspaper possesses for the time being something of the influence of an Ambassador from one nation to another. Now , according to an axiom of Machiavelli, an Ambassador should endeavor to make himself
persona grata with those to whom he is accredited , if only thereby to gain the best opportunities for obtaining every possible information and to be able to report events in a broad impartial spirit.
The correspondent should give his sources wherever
possible, and allow the reader to form his own opinion on the facts submitted . The views of the paper itself should be found in
the editorial columns. The correspondent is to take no side, and to express no opinions of his own. In many cases it would appear that the matter sent to the papers by their correspondents in
Turkey is biased against the Turks. This implies an injustice against which even a criminal on trial is protected .” 5 But his own list of qualifications, from the standpoint of the special correspondent himself, may vary materially from those of
the editor ; if the editor emphasizes the needs of the newspaper, the correspondent does not forget the correspondent propria persona . “ The special correspondent must be ' to the manner born '. Hemay or may not have creative ability. He must have such a
temperament as to be new -born every morning, and to look on all that he is to write about with new eyes and fresh interest. He
must have a made- to -order sort of a soul, that will suffer itself to be thrown into whatever he does as a boy 's soul enters into what
games he plays at college. He must have at once the broadest and the finest power of observation , and the vocabulary and
facility that are the bases of expression and freedom with his
pen . Hemust be as sanguine as a songbird, and as strong and
- W . Beatty-Kingston, “ Our Own Correspondents," A Journalist's
Jottings, II, 339 - 368.
6 Cited by Sidney Whitman, Turkish Memories, pp
