The rewrite man was writing the death
Of a miserable Skid Row whore
From the after effects of a drinking bout
Some two or three weeks before.
The facts were simple and dull and brief
And he had it almost done,
When suddenly came the raucous voice
Of James H. Richardson.+
"On that murder case," the Great Man said,
"You can give it lots of play.
Go into the mystery angle, too,
For we're short of news today."
The rewrite man gave a startled cry
At the mention of mystery,
And, round-eyed, turned to the desk and said,
"Were you addressing me?"
"Of course," said the Man, and his voice grew thick,
"Some merciless sadist slew
This innocent child of E. 55th,
Though he probably loved her, too.
"Get into your lead that ghastly smile
Playing pitifully on her face;
And, in saying how she was slain, hark back
To the torso murder case.
"And somewhere high in your story tell
Of the marijuana ring
That made this maid in the seventh grade
A wretched, besotted thing.
"Oh, yes, in your opening sentence quote
MacArthur on the flag,
Ignoring the coroner calling her
A syphilitic bag.
"Write wistfully of the cocktail glass
That broke as her body fell.
The artist will alter the photograph
Of the gallon of muscatel.
"Mention the wilted, yellow rose
To tincture it with romance,
And refer somewhere to an evening gown,
Forgetting she wore no pants.
"The barroom bum she was living with
We'll call her mystery man.
And try to mention the Japanese
And the Communists, if you can.
"Get excited about the drama here
Of passion and crime and greed,
Write a good objective story, and
Get all of it in your lead.
"Give me the take as soon as you can,
I want to give it a look.
But don't start in till you've got the facts,
Then hold it to half a book."
The rewrite man, with a ghastly leer
That the Great Man didn't see,
Started again, and finished at last
At twenty-five after three.
The climax came the following week;
He was gratified to get
The prize for the finest writing to
Appear in the overset.
It served the bastard right, of course,
As philosophers will note,
For being a rewrite man at all
When he could have cut his throat.
+Famous Frisco newsroom tyrant.
* I was given this literary gem by an assistant city editor at The Plain Dealer, the a.m. paper in Cleveland, Ohio, ca. 1965 when I was the newspaper's science writer. It is reproduced here exactly as I received it, although I can't quite reproduce the feel of the thermal copy paper it was on...but that was high tech at the time!
On posting this in October 1999, I asked if anyone knew who the original author might be. It was not until July 2002 that someone took me up on it. In fact, this summer two people have written to offer historical information and several others have contributed time and effort.
It seems the original author was John Reese, then (ca. 1947) a city hall reporter at the Los Angeles Examiner (a Hearst p.m. paper). He apparently was inspired by the travails of reporter Jim Murray and others who worked for James H. Richardson, the Examiner's city editor, a man lovingly described by Murray as "...a one-eyed, iron-lunged, prototypical Hearst city editor, a tyrant of the city room." The original poem, entitled The Rewrite Man, can be found on page 126 of Murray's autobiography: Jim Murray: An Autobiography. (or, on the dust cover: Jim Murray, The Autobiography of the Pulitzer Prize Winning Sports Columnist) Macmillan, New York, June 1993, ISBN: 0025881515.
Richardson's own view of things—and a gripping account of his very interesting life (1894 - 1963)—can be found in his autobiography: For the Life of Me, memoirs of a city editor. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1954, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-10503. The book is way out of print, but may be found in used book stores online and elsewhere. And, for the record, as far as I have been able to find out, Richardson never worked in San Francisco.
Further comments are still most welcome. Write to: John O. Ludwigson.