legman

noun

1. A person hired to carry out errands or (often) menial tasks, frequently requiring travel from place to place; an errand boy or errand girl, a runner.

   “[W]ell, anyway, he sent a chap who acts as his confidential ‘leg-man’ and ‘Man Friday’.”

   “Guillam was boss and legman, and twice a day he dropped the tapes on the Berne residency, using a parked car as a letter-box.”

   “Once in Hollywood he [Andrew J. Fenady] became a legman for Paul Coates, which led to writing and producing Coates' controversial television series, Confidential File, winner of three Emmy awards.”

2. A reporter who frequently travels to conduct research, interview witnesses, etc., and then conveys the information to a rewriteman who writes up the story.

   “Morris Cramm was night legman for a columnist and worked from seven in the evening to five in the morning.”

   “The guy looked and acted like a cheap hood when he was the head legman for one of the biggest of the syndicated columnists.”

   “Many of the changes which have taken place in the newspaper field within the last fifty years have been in the direction of specialization. At the turn of the century, for example, a reporter got his stories, wrote them, and sometimes even made up his own headlines. Legmen and rewrite men were practically unknown.”

   “LEG MEN cover local events and phone the information to a rewrite man. The leg man must have a good nose for news and the ability to give information over the phone quickly and accurately. He seldom writes his own stories.”

name

1. A surname.