archy and mehitabel and musings on the role of reporters

archy and mehitabel by Don Marquis was one of my favorite books when I was growing up. Written back in the 1920s, the book is a collection of Marquis' newspaper columns supposedly penned by a cockroach named archy who would creep into the newsroom at night and painstakingly compose poems on Marquis' typewriter. Because archy wasn't strong enough to reach the shift key, the poems were all in lowercase letters. It was an intriguing conceit and archy was one heck of a poet for a cockroach. 

For example, in "the coming of archy"  he wrote:

expression is the need of my soul

i was once a vers libre bard

archy

but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach

it has given me a new outlook upon life

i see things from the under side now

thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket

but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it

there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have

removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she

catch rats that is what she is supposed to be fore

there is a rat here she should get without delay

Mehitabel was an extraordinary cat with a checkered past who came to be archy's friend (when he wasn't worried that she would eat him). Here's part of "the song of mehitabel" :

my youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret

mehitabel

wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

the things that i had not ought to
i do because I ve gotto
wotthehell wotthehell
and i end with my favorite motto
toujours gai toujours gai

boss sometimes I think
at our friend mehitabel
is a trifle too gay

There are few typewriters today and no place for archy in the newspaper world. Newspaper circulation and advertising are on the decline -- why subscribe or advertise if you can read the news for free on the web? But the web does not discriminate: some content is well researched and well written; other writing is inferior. It is up to the visitor to judge the value of what he or she reads.

Some might say that this is the way it should be -- that even the most impartial writer presents information that has a bias. However, I would prefer to get my information from a source that I knew to be well-educated and ethical. Journalism school teaches good reporting and writing as well as ethics. Some writers on the Internet are not so well credentialed.

Some of archy's observations are as true today as they were in 1927:

if you get gloomy just
take an hour off and sit
and think how
much better this world
is than hell
of course it won t cheer
you up much if
you expect to go there