Dear Hearts & Gentle People

The first thing a copy boy or cub reporter learns in the average city room is not to whistle, hum or sing. It's bad luck, and furthermore, it's disconcerting. But for more than two years, every 15 minutes from dawn till dark, the staid city room of the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee (circ. 114,854) has echoed to the strains of such treacly tunes as Dear Hearts & Gentle People and Because You Love Me. Miss Eleanor McClatchy, fiftyish, publisher of the Bee, wants it that way. She thinks that the music (piped in by Muzak) relaxes the Bee's workers and coaxes better copy out of them.

Most Bee staffers disagree. Growled one copyreader: "I get my Liebestraum all mixed up with my rape. And on a deadline, it's murder." Five times in the past year, unrelaxed, unidentified staffers have stopped the Muzak. Last week a chilling notice was tacked on the bulletin board: "Anyone turning it [the music] off again will be fired immediately. [Signed] Myron Depew, City Editor." Since newspaper jobs are hard to get, Muzak will now probably play on unmolested.

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