Editing Ernie Pyle (section)

===Human-interest and columnist===
In 1932, at the age of thirty-one, Pyle was named managing editor at the ''Daily News'', serving in the position for three years before taking on a new writing assignment.<ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', pages 33–34.</ref><ref name=JohnsonHays47/> In December 1934 Pyle took an extended vacation in the [[western United States]] to recuperate from a severe bout of influenza. Upon his return to Washington, D.C., and while he filled in for the paper's vacationing [[Columnist#Newspaper and magazine|syndicated columnist]] [[Heywood Broun]], Pyle wrote a series of eleven articles about his trip and the people he had met. The series proved popular with both readers and colleagues. G.B. ("Deac") Parker, editor-in-chief of the [[Scripps-Howard]] newspaper chain, said he had found in Pyle's vacation articles "a sort of [[Mark Twain]] quality and they knocked my eyes right out".<ref>Boomhower, ''The Soldier's Friend'', pages 38–39.</ref>

In 1935, Pyle left his position as managing editor at the ''Daily News'' to write his own national column as a roving reporter of human-interest stories for the Scripps-Howard newspaper syndicate.<ref name=Price/> Over the next six years, from 1935 until early 1942, Pyle and his wife, Jerry, whom Pyle identified in his columns as "That Girl who rides with me," traveled the United States, Canada, and [[Mexico]], as well as Central and South America, writing about the interesting places he saw and people he met. Pyle's column, published under the title of the "Hoosier Vagabond," appeared six days a week in Scripps-Howard newspapers. The articles became popular with readers, earning Pyle national recognition in the years preceding his even bigger fame as a war correspondent during World War II.<ref name=McMurray/><ref name=BoomhowerTraces2-3>{{cite journal| author= Ray E. Boomhower| title =The Hoosier Vagabond | journal =Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History | volume =28 | issue =2 | pages =2–3 | publisher =Indiana Historical Society | location =Indianapolis | date =Spring 2016}}</ref> Selected columns of Pyle's human interest stories were later compiled in ''[[Home Country (book)|Home Country]]'' (1947),
published posthumously.<ref name=BoomhowerTraces30-31/>

Despite his growing popularity, Pyle lacked confidence and was perpetually dissatisfied with his writing; however, he was pleased when others recognized the quality of his work. Pyle's aviation and travel reports laid the groundwork for his life as a [[war correspondent]]. Pyle continued his daily travel column until 1942, but by that time he was also writing about American soldiers serving in [[World War II]].<ref name=JohnsonHays47/><ref name=McMurray/>