Such Interesting People

It was a routine assignment to every legman but the 18-year-old cub reporter from the Herald & Express. Just another murder-suicide of a lonely elderly couple in a Los Angeles hotel room. The cub, Phoebe Millicent Hearst, out on her first gory crime story, stared with elaborate calm at the bodies on the bed. Then she turned away to help brisk Agness Underwood, her tutor, rifle through the dresser drawers for pictures.

Last week, after tagging along with ace crime reporter Underwood for six weeks, Phoebe Hearst, granddaughter of W.R. and daughter of eldest son George, got to cover an assignment all by herself. It was only a Cancer Prevention Society meeting, and the story was killed after the early editions, but she felt encouraged. The family had thought she ought to start out in the society department, but she "couldn't see much fun in going to teas all the time."

As a Herald reporter (at $34.79 a week, the Newspaper Guild scale for beginners), Phoebe Hearst gets up early, drives to work (at 7:30 a.m.) in her Buick convertible coupe, gets half an hour for lunch, tries hard to please everybody. Her grandfather said he could fix it with the city editor to give her easier hours, but she said no. "I'm learning a different side of life," said the fledgling Hearstling last week, "and meeting some strange people--interesting in their own little way."

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