The police-court beat created the first full-time journalist role in America

Evidence

On its first day, the New York Sun reportedly sold about three hundred copies. It was a start, but still a money-loser; to get it off the ground Day would have to do much better. He continued to find his best stories at New York’s police court, with its “dismal parade of drunkards and wife beaters, con men and petty thieves, prostitutes and their johns.” Copying a British publication, therefore, he hired a man called George Wisner (for $4 a week) just to cover the court, creating quite possibly “the first full-time news reporter in U.S. history.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 33

Categorization

• SHARE: The claim that a $4-a-week police-court reporter was ‘the first full-time news reporter in U.S. history’ is a great nerdy tidbit for a journalism or media-history friend.
• CANDY: Fun fact: the modern American news reporter evolved from a worker hired to cover drunks and pickpockets at a police court for $4 a week.