ink-slinger

ink-slinger

slang A writer, especially one who produces a large amount of low-quality material for a living. I spent a lot of time after college as an ink-slinger for various newspapers and magazines while working on my first novel.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

ink slinger

n. a professional writer; a newspaper reporter. The ink slingers have been at the candidates again.
See also: ink, slinger
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • ink slinger
  • be not up to much
  • not up to much
  • slinger
  • hash slinger
  • hash-slinger
  • torpedo juice
  • pink slime
  • slime
  • mark with
References in classic literature
One of their silly offices with a couple of ink-slingers of no consequence; poor, scribbling devils."
Chance
In 1971 when Robert Brown Butler was a what he describes as a "cub ink-slinger" and living in Aspen for the summer, he met Saul Bellow, who was also living there.
Write Your Tale Off!
Or maybe the cartoonist who occasionally dons a reporter's hat is a member of a new breed of ink-slingers (if not a throwback to the Bill Mauldin school of cartooning), going beyond the gag, truth-seeking with pen in hand.
Let the laugh not be the goal: editors, cartoonists face the same issues