Who is Joseph Mitchell from Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories and what is their importance?

The author, Mitchell is a newspaper reporter and works at various times for several publications as beat reporter covering an array of topics. Mitchell talked at length about his work as a reporter during the Great Depression. He said that he'd spent a great deal of time working on stories about human misery because his editor believed that the human who was down on his luck wanted to read about others who were worse off. Toward that end, Mitchell spent time in places where people were having a rough time.