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NEWSPAPER WRITING
AND EDITING

BY

WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER, Ph.D.

CHAIRMAN OF THE COURSE IN JOURNALISM, AND
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF JOURNALISM IN
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

BOSTON  NEW YORK  CHICAGO  SAN FRANCISCO

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

TO
A. H. B.

PREFACE

Seven years’ experience in trying to train college students in methods of newspaper writing and editing has convinced the author of the need of text-books in journalism. Newspapers themselves supply the student with so miscellaneous a collection of good, bad, and mediocre work that, with an uncritical taste, he does not always discriminate in the character of the models which he selects to imitate. Lectures by experienced editors and writers, although fruitful of much inspiration and general information, seldom give the student sufficiently specific and detailed directions to guide him in his daily work. What he needs is a handbook containing typical examples of all of the kinds of newspaper work that he is likely to be called upon to do during the first years of his newspaper experience. These examples should be carefully selected from well-edited newspapers and should be analyzed to show the fundamental principles that underlie their construction. With such a book illustrative of current practices in newspaper making, he can study more intelligently the newspapers themselves and can assimilate more completely the advice and information given by newspaper men in active service. Furthermore, such a book, by giving specific suggestions with examples of their application, serves as a guide to aid the student in overcoming his difficulties as he does his work from day to day. It is to furnish a handbook and guide of this kind that the present text-book has been prepared.

This book is adapted both for use in college classes in journalism and for study by persons interested in journalism who are not attending college. The needs of these two groups are not essentially different. Both desire to know the basic principles of newspaper writing and editing and to get the necessary training in the application of these fundamental principles to their own work. In each chapter, accordingly, explanation and exemplification are supplemented by material for practice work.

To formulate a large number of rules for the writing of news stories, the editing of copy, the writing of headlines, and other kinds of newspaper work, is plainly impossible, even if it were desirable. Methods of newspaper making during the last fifty years have undergone so constant and rapid a readjustment to new conditions in the transmission of news, in mechanical production, and in the sources of income, that only a few traditions have remained unchanged. The tireless effort to secure novelty and variety in present-day journalism prevents the news story or the headline from becoming absolutely fixed in form or style. Instead of attempting to formulate dogmatic rules and directions, the author has undertaken to analyze current methods of newspaper work with the purpose of showing the reasons for them and the causes which have produced them. The examples selected to illustrate these methods have been taken from newspapers in all parts of the country and are intended to represent the general practices now prevailing. For obvious reasons names and addresses in most of these stories have been changed. To retain the newspaper form as far as possible, the examples have been printed between rules in column width.

Inasmuch as this book is intended to prepare the student for the kind of work which he is likely to do during the first years of his newspaper experience, it does not consider editorial writing, book-reviewing, or musical and dramatic criticism. To discuss these subjects adequately would require more space than a handbook on reporting and editing permits.

It is assumed throughout this book that the student of journalism is familiar with the elementary principles of grammar and rhetoric, and has had sufficient training in composition to be able to express ideas in simple, correct English. Faults in such rudimentary matters as grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are not considered at all. No attention is given to diction or questions of good usage. All these matters are fully treated in numerous books on English composition.

In the discussion of the news story, an emphasis has been given to the “lead” that may seem disproportionate. This has been done in the belief that the rapidity with which newspapers are generally read makes the beginning the most important part of the story. The average reader gleans the significant facts of each piece of news from the headlines and the first paragraphs. He expects in the “lead” the “feature” as well as the gist of the news. To the student this problem of massing skillfully, in a compact and interesting form, the substance of his material, is a new one, and he must be shown all the varied possibilities of this treatment. The author has not been unmindful of the fact that efforts are being made to break away from the “gist-of-the-news” beginning, and has given examples of other forms. For stories in which entertainment rather than information is the purpose, beginnings that do not summarize may undoubtedly be used to advantage. In such stories the student must be shown how to arouse the reader’s interest and curiosity in the first sentences so that he will read further.

The function of the newspaper has been discussed at some length in order to call the student’s attention to the importance of the newspaper as an influence in a democratic government and to point out the significance of his own work in relation to society. An effort has been made to analyze the problems of newspaper making in order to show the fundamental issues involved. The purpose has been, not to settle these questions dogmatically, but to stimulate the student to think for himself.

“Newspaper English” has so long been regarded by many teachers of English as a term of reproach, and instruction in journalistic writing has been so recently introduced into the college curriculum, that some English instructors still question the value of systematic training of students in newspaper writing as a part of the teaching of English composition. Nevertheless, every teacher of English in the secondary schools and colleges recognizes the fact that one of the most serious weaknesses of present-day training in composition is the lack of a definite aim for the student in his writing, and a corresponding lack of interest on his part in doing work that has no real purpose. To report actual events for publication, either in a local newspaper or in a school paper, gives the student both material and purpose, and to that extent increases his interest and his desire to write well. If the application of the principles of English composition to newspaper writing and editing can be demonstrated to the student, as the author has attempted to do in this book, the student can undoubtedly be given valuable practice in these principles through systematic training in newspaper work.

“Every professor of journalism must write a textbook on journalism in order to justify his claim to his title,” was the facetious remark made at the first Conference of Teachers of Journalism. Until journalism has been taught in colleges and universities long enough to have developed generally accepted methods of instruction, the text-book produced by every teacher of the subject must be regarded, not as a demonstration of his claims to the title, but as a contribution to the development of methods of teaching based on his own experience. If this book is of assistance to those who aspire to become newspaper workers or to those who are undertaking to train students of journalism, it will have accomplished its purpose.

The author is indebted to the publishers of Collier’s Weekly, of the American Magazine, and of the Independent for permission to reprint material from these magazines. Acknowledgment is also due to the many newspapers throughout the country from which examples have been taken and to which due credit has been given whenever the “stories” thus reproduced have been important or distinctive in character.

The facsimile newspaper headings reproduced in this book represent styles of type used in newspaper offices throughout the country. These specimens are included by courtesy of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company of New York.

University of Wisconsin,
Madison, March 3, 1913.

CONTENTS

NEWSPAPER WRITING
AND EDITING

CHAPTER I

HOW A NEWSPAPER IS MADE

Newspaper Production. To furnish for a cent or two a fairly complete record of important events that take place in any corner of the world, editorial comment, market quotations, reviews of new books, critiques of plays and concerts, fashion hints, cooking recipes, cartoons, and illustrations, as well as advertisements of all kinds, would seem a stupendous, not to say impossible, task if it were not an everyday phenomenon. A single copy of a daily newspaper in a large city contains, exclusive of advertising, from 60,000 to 80,000 words, or as many as does the average novel. These metropolitan papers print from 100,000 to 900,000 copies each day, numbers far in excess of the editions of most successful novels. While it takes the novelist months to produce his work, and his publishers months to print it, the newspaper is made and printed in from one to ten editions within twenty-four hours.

The successful achievement of such an undertaking, day by day, requires extensive equipment and effective organization. The rapid production of a large edition demands many expensive machines to transform written matter quickly into type, and huge presses to print the papers at the highest speed. Furthermore, it makes necessary a large staff to gather and prepare news and other reading matter, a large force to put this material into type, to print it, and to distribute the papers, besides managers and clerks to carry on the many business transactions involved in so big an enterprise.

Newspaper Organization. Although in its main divisions the organization of newspaper publishing is essentially the same, the size of a paper determines to a considerable extent the number of employees and the degree of division of labor among them, as well as the character and the extent of the equipment. On large papers where many men are employed and many editions are printed daily, there needs must be considerable specialization in editing and reporting; while on small papers the size of the staff requires that each man perform a variety of tasks. Sometimes conditions of ownership or control, and on older papers office traditions, modify the usual duties and authority of different members of the staff.

No one form of organization that can be described in detail, therefore, will apply to all newspaper offices even when they are of the same relative size, but a composite type of organization for large newspapers may be explained to show the division of work.

Newspaper publishing consists of three distinct parts with three entirely different classes of workers: (1) the business management, (2) the mechanical force, (3) the editorial staff.

The Business Management. The business organization, as its name implies, has charge of the commercial side of newspaper publishing. From the financial point of view the purpose of the newspaper is to make enough money to maintain the paper and to pay dividends to the stockholders. The object of the business department is to sell as much advertising space and as many copies of each issue as it possibly can; and, on the other hand, to pay out for wages and expenses only so much as is necessary to keep the paper up to a standard that will insure a good circulation and enough advertising. In short, a newspaper company, regarded purely in the light of a business enterprise, is not essentially different from any manufacturing company that produces and sells a commodity.

The business department is organized with a business manager at its head, who has complete control of the finances of the paper, subject, of course, to the owner or board of directors of the company. Under him are: (1) the circulation manager, (2) the advertising manager, (3) the cashier. The circulation manager directs the work of subscription canvassers, the drivers and the assistants on the paper’s distributing wagons, the mailing clerks and helpers, and a force of office clerks and bookkeepers. In the advertising department are the advertising solicitors and the office clerks and bookkeepers. The cashier has assistants and a bookkeeper to aid him. The business office of the newspaper is frequently referred to as the “counting room.”

The Mechanical Force. The mechanical side of newspaper making is divided into three relatively distinct departments: (1) the composing room, where, under the direction of a foreman and a copy-cutter, the type is set up by compositors or is cast in linotype or monotype machines by operators, and where the type is arranged by make-up men in pages as it is to appear in print; (2) the stereotyping room, where these pages of type are used to make molds into which lead plates are cast by stereotypers under the direction of the foreman of the room; (3) the press-room, where the papers are printed, in charge of a superintendent with pressmen and machinists as his assistants. Attached to the composing room is the proof-reading department with a head proof-reader, several assistant readers, and as many copy-holders who read aloud the copy for the proof which is to be corrected.

The Editorial Staff. The writing and editing of a newspaper, with which this book is particularly concerned, is divided into two distinct parts: (1) the gathering, the writing, and the editing of the news; and (2) the interpreting of the news. The two branches are different in the kind of work involved, and are relatively independent in the organization of the office. To present clear, concise, accurate, timely, and interesting reports, or “stories” as they are called, of everything that is going on in the world of sufficient importance to be of interest to any considerable number of readers, is the aim of the news department. The more quickly, the more attractively, the more completely the news can be presented, the greater is considered the success of the newspaper from the point of view of the news staff. The editorials of a newspaper attempt to interpret and to explain the news, or to make the news the basis of argument upon issues growing out of questions of the day. The attitude taken by a newspaper on the questions at issue is determined by what is known as its “editorial policy.”

The editor-in-chief, under whom are one or more editorial writers, has charge of the editorial columns and determines the editorial policy, subject to whatever control of this policy the owner or directors desire to exercise. The editorial writers and the editor-in-chief confer daily to consider the attitude that the paper shall take in its editorials and to divide the work of writing them. Some of the editorials are written by men in other professions who are not on the regular staff, and often by such members of the news staff as the financial editor or the dramatic critic. Most of the editorials, however, are the work of the editorial writers.

The news staff is in charge of the managing editor, who is usually responsible directly to the owner or the directors. As aids the managing editor has the assistant managing editor, and the news editor, or the night editor, to take charge of “making up” the newspaper The gathering and writing of local news is in charge of the city editor and the night city editor, with an assistant city editor. The news of the state, the nation, and the world, as it comes by mail, telegraph, and telephone, is under the control of the telegraph editor. The city editor directs the reporters; the telegraph editor the correspondents. Particular kinds of news are collected and edited by persons in especially designated positions, such as the sporting editor, the society editor, the financial and market editor, the dramatic and musical editor, the real estate editor, the railroad editor, the marine editor, the labor editor, all of whom usually work under the direction of the managing editor. The special magazine sections of the Saturday or the Sunday issues are in charge of the magazine, or Sunday, editor. An exchange editor goes over all the newspapers received in exchange to clip and edit material worth reprinting. Cartoonists, artists, and photographers supply the materials for newspaper illustrations, or “cuts,” as they are called. A librarian has charge of the reference books and newspaper files, as well as of the collection of biographical sketches and portraits of prominent people known as the “morgue.”

All of the manuscript, or “copy,” is edited and is supplied with headlines at the copy desk in charge of a head copy-reader with a number of copy-readers as assistants. “Rewrite men” are often employed to take the facts of a story from another newspaper and rewrite them, or to receive material over the telephone from reporters and correspondents and write it up for publication. Unsatisfactory work of a reporter may be turned over to a rewrite man to be put in the desired form, for rewrite men must be able to take the raw material of the news furnished by others and turn it into a well-written news story.

Getting News into Print. The relation of all these departments to one another is best shown by following through the process by which a piece of news gets into print. The telegraph editor on a newspaper in the capital city of the state, for example, gets from an office telegraph operator, a typewritten dispatch signed by the paper’s correspondent in a city of a neighboring state to the effect that the attorney-general has dropped dead in the lobby of a hotel. The telegraph editor at once notifies the city editor so that he may assign reporters to get the local phases of the piece of news, or “to cover the local end of the story,” as the newspaper workers say. One reporter is sent to interview the members of the late attorney-general’s family; another is dispatched to the governor’s office for an interview with the governor on the deceased official; a third is asked to look up the statute concerning such an unexpected vacancy in the office; a fourth is assigned to find out the probable successor to the position.

After informing the city editor and the managing editor, the telegraph editor at once turns over the dispatch to the head copy-reader to have it edited and to have a headline written. Meanwhile one of the rewrite men is delegated to get a biographical sketch of the attorney-general from the office “morgue” and to write an obituary. The artist looks up the half-tone engraving, or “cut,” of the official in the “morgue” and selects an appropriate border or “frame” in which to put it. The editor-in-chief is informed of the attorney-general’s death so that he may make appropriate editorial comment. Meanwhile the telegraph editor has sent a telegram to the correspondent who furnished the first news of the event instructing him to “wire” five hundred words more giving all the particulars.

When the dispatch has been edited and a headline written by one of the copy-readers, the latter returns it to the head copy-reader, who glances over it and sends it in a pneumatic tube to the composing room. The tube delivers it at the copy-cutter’s desk. The copy-cutter glances at the sheet with the headline for the story, and then at the two pages of copy. The headline he sends by the copy distributor to the headline machine to be set up. The two pages of copy he cuts into three pieces or “takes” so that the story may be set up on three different linotype machines. If the copy of the whole story were given to one machine operator, it would take three times as long to get it into type.

Meanwhile some of the reporters have returned from their assignments. Each one reports what he has found to the city editor, and is told how long a story to write, and possibly what to emphasize in the beginning, or “lead.” As each story is finished it is turned over to the city editor, who glances over it and passes it on to the head copy-reader. Thence it goes through the same course as the first dispatch.

After the copy of the dispatch has been set up in type, it is taken to a small hand press, and several impressions called “galley proofs,” or “proofs,” are printed, or “pulled,” from the type. One of the proofs, with the original copy, goes to the proof-room to be compared with the copy and carefully corrected by the proof-readers. Another proof-sheet is sent to the managing editor, who is responsible for everything that goes into the paper; a third proof is delivered to the news editor who arranges, or “makes up,” the news stories on each page of the paper before it is printed. After the proof-readers have corrected the proof, and the editors have made any necessary changes in it, the proof-sheets are returned to the operators so that they may make the necessary alterations by resetting whatever is changed. From the type thus corrected a second set of proofs, called the “revise,” is printed and these are distributed to the editors as the first were. The type is then ready to be used in the process of printing the paper.

Half an hour or more before an edition is to be printed, the news editor gathers the proofs of the news stories that are to be put into that edition, and goes to the composing room to arrange this news on the several pages. The importance of the news of the attorney-general’s death would warrant its being given a prominent place on the first page. The most prominent position is the right-hand outside column. If there is no news of greater importance, the news editor directs the “make-up” men in the composing room to put the type of this story in the outside column of the first page “form.” The “form” consists of a “chase,” or steel frame, somewhat larger in inside dimensions than the page as it appears when printed. Into this “chase,” which rests upon a smooth iron-top table, the type is arranged between the brass or lead column rules which make the lines between the columns of type. The advertisements are placed in the forms under the direction of the advertising department just as the news matter is put in under the direction of the news editor, the page and position on the page usually having been stipulated by the advertiser in making a contract for a certain “position” for his “ad.” When each page is filled with type, the whole page is “locked” in the “form” by a series of screws or wedges (called “quoins”), so that the form may be handled without letting the type drop out. If the type falls out and gets mixed up, it is said to be “pied,” and the mixture is called “pi.”

The forms, after being locked, are taken to the stereotyping room where a paper mold, or matrix, commonly called a “mat,” is made of each page. These matrices, bent in semicircular form, are placed in a casting box into which molten lead is poured to make the semicircular lead plates to be used in printing. In large offices the casting of these plates is done by placing the matrix in an automatic stereotyping machine, known as the autoplate, which turns out completed plates in less than a minute. After the plates have been trimmed and planed on the back to make them exactly the right thickness, they are ready to be put on the press.

These semicircular lead plates, which are thus cast in exact reproduction of the page forms of type, are fastened on the cylinders of the press. As the cylinders revolve, ink rollers touch the surface of the plates and ink the projecting letters. The paper from a large roll, as it passes between the cylinders and the blanket rolls which press the paper against the inked plates on the cylinders, takes up the ink and thus has printed on it the impression of the page of type. Besides printing the pages, the press cuts, folds, and counts the papers so that the complete newspaper comes from the press ready for sale or delivery.

As soon as the newspapers are printed, they are turned over to the circulation department for distribution. Some copies go to the mailing room to be labeled with little orange-colored address slips and to be put into the mail sacks, in which they are taken to the post office or mail trains. Other copies are sold to waiting newsboys, and still others are taken in the company’s wagon to news stands and carriers all over the city.

Despite the number and variety of these details in the process of newspaper making, the news of the death of the attorney-general would reach the readers in a comparatively short time after the event occurred. In half an hour from the time the last piece of copy is written, a complete newspaper containing it is printed and ready for distribution.

Speed of Production. The invention and the perfection of various mechanical devices used in newspaper making have made possible this great speed. In the front rank of ingenious pieces of machinery that have added greatly to rapidity in newspaper publishing stands the linotype. This machine, which casts solid lines of type, or “slugs” as they are called, has increased four-fold the speed of production and has made possible much larger editions. The monotype, which casts each type separately, has also proved a valuable addition to the means of turning “copy” into type quickly. For the casting of semicircular stereotype plates the autoplate machine is an important time-saving device. The time required for “running off” an edition is now reduced from two- to five-fold by making duplicate sets of these stereotype plates and by putting them on from two to five large presses so that these presses print the same edition simultaneously.

Improvements in newspaper-printing machinery have resulted in huge presses that take paper from large rolls and turn out completed newspapers printed in one or two colors, cut, folded, and counted, ready for distribution. They can be adjusted to print papers from four to forty-eight pages in size, and can produce twelve-page papers at the rate of 144,000 copies an hour. Magazine sections and “comics” are printed in four colors, usually yellow, red, blue, and black, on large presses under conditions practically the same as those just described.

In order to insert the latest news without taking the time necessary to make up new forms, prepare new matrices, and cast new stereotype plates, a device called the “fudge” is employed. After the first page form of a late edition has been used to make a matrix, about six inches of type is taken out from two columns in the lower left hand corner or the upper right hand corner of the page, and a new matrix and a stereotype plate are made in which this corner is a blank. This new plate with the blank space is then put on the press in place of the regular first page plate. As fast as late news is received, it is set up on linotype lines, or “slugs,” and these lines are clamped on a small cylinder in the press. When the paper runs through the press, these linotype lines on the cylinder are printed, often in red ink, in the space on the front page left unprinted by the blank in the plate. To save more time with this device, a telegraph wire is run to the press room and a linotype machine is installed beside it, so that the latest news can be cast on linotype “slugs” and put on the “fudge” cylinder as fast as the reports are received by telegraph. Results of baseball games, races, and other sporting events can be printed to advantage by means of the “fudge.”

Recently a mailing machine has been introduced that folds, wraps, and addresses each copy separately as fast as papers are fed into it.

In no other process of manufacture that is as complicated as newspaper making, it is safe to say, has equal speed of production been attained.

Handling a Big Story. The scene in a metropolitan newspaper office following the receipt of the first news of the “Titanic” disaster, as graphically portrayed by an editor of a New York morning paper, illustrates the conditions under which important news, received late, is hurried into print.[1] The account in part is as follows:

At 1:20 a.m. Monday, April 15, [1912], the cable editor opened an envelope of the Associated Press that had stamped on its face “Bulletin.” This is what he read:

Cape Race, N. F., Sunday night, April 14.—At 10:25 o’clock tonight the White Star Line steamship “Titanic” called “C. Q. D.” to the Marconi station here, and reported having struck an iceberg. The steamer said that immediate assistance was required.

The cable editor looked at his watch. It was 1:20 and lacked just five minutes of the hour when the mail edition goes to press.

“Boy!” he called sharply.

An office boy was at his side in a moment.

“Send this upstairs; tell them the head is to come; double column, and tell the night editor to rip open two columns on the first page for a one-stick dispatch of the ‘Titanic’ striking an iceberg and sinking.”

Every one in the office was astir in a moment and came over to see the cable editor write on a sheet of copy paper the following head [which he indicated was to be set up in this form]:

TITANIC SINKING

IN MID-OCEAN; HIT

GREAT ICEBERG

“Boy!” he called again; but it was not necessary—a boy in a newspaper office knows news the first time he sees it.

“Tell them that’s the head for the ‘Titanic.’”

Then he wrote briefly this telegraphic dispatch, and as he did so he said to another office boy at his side: “Tell the operator to[Pg 13] shut off that story he is taking and get me a clear wire to Montreal.”

This is what he wrote to the Montreal correspondent, probably at work at his desk in a Montreal newspaper office at that hour:

Cape Race says White Star Liner “Titanic” struck iceberg, is sinking and wants immediate assistance. Rush every line you can get. We will hold open for you until 3:30.

“Give that to the operator and find out if we caught the mail on that ‘Titanic’ dispatch,” he said quickly to the boy.

In a moment the boy returned.

“O.K. on both,” he said.

The city editor, who had just put on his coat previous to going away for the night, took it off. The night city editor, at the head of the copy-desk, where all the local copy (as a reporter’s story is called) is read, and the telegraph editor stood together, joined later by the night editor, for the mail edition had left the composing room for the stereotypers and then to the pressroom and from thence to be scattered wherever on the globe newspapers find readers.

The “Titanic” staff was immediately organized, for at that hour most of the staff were still at work. The city editor took the helm.

“Get the papers for April 11—all of them,” he said to the head office boy, “and then send word to the art department to quit everything to make three cuts, which I shall send right down.”

Then to the night city editor: “Get up a story of the vessel itself; some of the stuff they sent us the other day that we did not use, and I ordered it put in the envelope. Play up the mishap at the start. Get up a passenger list story and an obituary of Smith, her commander.”

There was no mention of Smith in the dispatch, but city editors retain such things in their heads for immediate use, and this probably explains in a measure why they hold down their job; also having, it might be added, executive judgment, which is sometimes right.

“Assign somebody to the White Star Line and see what they’ve got.”

The night city editor went back to the circular table where the seven or eight men who read reporters’ copy were gathered.

“Get up as much as you can of the passenger list of the ‘Titanic.’ She is sinking off Newfoundland,” he said briefly to one.

And to another: “Write me a story of the ‘Titanic,’ the new White Star liner, on her maiden trip, telling of her mishap with the ‘New York’ at the start.”

And to another: “Write me a story of Captain E. J. Smith.”

[Pg 14]

Then to a reporter sitting idly about: “Get your hat and coat quick; go down to the White Star Line office and telephone all you can about the ‘Titanic’ sinking off Newfoundland.”

Then to another reporter: “Get the White Star Line on the phone and find out what they’ve got of the sinking of the ‘Titanic.’ Find out who is the executive head in New York; his address and telephone number.”

And in another part of the room the city editor was saying to the office boy: “Get me all the ‘Titanic’ pictures you have and a photo or cut of Captain E. J. Smith.”

Two boys instantly went to work, for the photos of men are kept separate from the photographs of inanimate things. The city editor selected three:

“Tell the art department to make a three-column cut of the ‘Titanic,’ a two-column of the interior, and a two-column of Smith.”

In the mean time the Associated Press bulletins came in briefly.

Paragraph by paragraph the cable editor was sending the story to the composing room. What was going on upstairs every one knew. They were sidetracking everything else, and the copy-cutter in the composing room was sending out the story in “takes,” as they are called, of a single paragraph to each compositor. His blue pencil marked each individual piece of copy with a letter and number, so that when the dozen or so men setting up the story had their work finished, the story might be put together consecutively.

“Tell the operator,” said the cable editor again to the office boy, “to duplicate that dispatch I gave him to our Halifax man. Get his name out of the correspondents’ book.”

“Who wrote that story of the ‘“Carmania” in the Icefield’?” said the night city editor to the copy-reader who “handled” the homecoming of the “Carmania,” which arrived Sunday night and the story of which was already in the mail edition of the paper before him. The copy-reader told him. He called the reporter to his desk.

“Take that story,” said the night city editor, “and give us a column on it. Don’t rewrite the story; add paragraphs here and there to show the vast extent of the icefield. Make it straight copy, so that nothing in that story will have to be reset. You have just thirty minutes to catch the edition. Write it in twenty.”

“Get the passenger lists of the ‘Olympic’ and the ‘Baltic,’” was the assignment given to another reporter, all alert waiting for their names to be called, every man awake at the switch.

In the mean time, the story from the Montreal man was being ticked off; on another wire Halifax was coming to life.

“Men,” said the city editor, “we have just five minutes left to make the city [edition]. Jam it down tight.”

Already the three cuts had been made, the telegraph editor was handling the Montreal story, his assistant the Halifax end, and[Pg 15] the cable editor was still editing the Associated Press bulletins and writing a new head to tell the rest of the story that the additional details brought. The White Star Line man had a list of names of passengers of the “Titanic” and found that they numbered 1300, and that she carried a crew of 860.

In the mean time proofs of all the “Titanic” matter that had been set were coming to the desk of the managing editor, in charge over all, but giving special attention to the editorial matter. All his suggestions went through the city editor, and on down the line, but he himself went from desk to desk overlooking the work.

“Time’s up,” said the city editor; but before he finished, the cable editor cried to the boy: “Let the two-column head stand and tell them to add this head:”

At 12:27 this Morning Blurred Signals by Wireless Told of Women Being Put off in Lifeboats—Three Lines Rushing to Aid of 1300 Imperiled Passengers and Crew of 860 Men.

“Did we catch it?” asked the cable editor of the boy standing at the composing-room tube.

“We did,” he said triumphantly.

“One big pull for the last [edition], men,” said the city editor. “We are going in at 3:20. Let’s beat the town with a complete paper.”

The enthusiasm was catching fire. Throughout the office it was a bedlam of noise—clicking typewriters, clicking telegraph instruments, and telephone bells ringing added to the whistle of the tubes that lead from the city room to the composing room, the pressroom, the stereotype room and the business office, the latter, happily, not in use, but throughout the office men worked; nobody shouted, no one lost his head; men were flushed, but the cool, calm, deliberate way in which the managing editor smoked his cigar helped much to relieve the tension.

“Three-fifteen, men,” said the city editor, admonishingly; “every line must be up by 3:20. Five minutes more.”

The city editor walked rapidly from desk to desk.

“All up,” said the night city editor, “and three minutes to the good.”

At the big table stood the city editor, cable editor, night city editor, and managing editor. They were looking over the completed headline that should tell the story to the world.

“That will hold ’em, I guess,” said the city editor, and the head went upstairs.

The men waited about and talked and smoked. Bulletins came in, but with no important details. Going to press at 3:20 meant a wide circulation. At 4:30 the Associated Press sent “Good-night,” but at that hour the presses had been running uninterruptedly for almost an hour.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Find out all that you can about the organization of the paper on which you are employed.
2. Know the names, at least, of the heads of all the departments.
3. Learn as much as possible about advertising and subscription rates and methods.
4. Familiarize yourself with the details of all the mechanical processes connected with newspaper making.
5. Interest yourself in the welfare of the paper as if it were your own property.

CHAPTER II

NEWS AND NEWS VALUES

Problems of the News. As news is the sine qua non of the newspaper, the problem of newspaper making resolves itself into the three questions: What is news? Where and how is news to be obtained? and, How is news to be presented to the reader? The first question involves the definition of news and the determination of its value, the second concerns the gathering of news, and the third has to do with structure and style in the writing of news.

What is News? Although every good newspaper worker recognizes news at once, and almost instinctively decides upon its value, most of them find it difficult to express in brief form what news is and what determines its value. In a symposium recently conducted by an American magazine,[2] a number of editors throughout the country undertook to define news, giving the following definitions:—

News is whatever your readers want to know about.

Anything that enough people want to read is news, provided it does not violate the canons of good taste and the laws of libel.

News is anything that happens in which people are interested.

News is anything that people will talk about; the more it will excite comment, the greater its value.

News is accurate and timely intelligence of happenings, discoveries, opinions, and matters of any sort which affect or interest the readers.

Whatever concerns public welfare, whatever interests or instructs the individual in any of his relations, activities, opinions, properties, or personal conduct, is news.

News is everything that happens, the inspiration of happenings, and the result of such happenings.

News is the essential facts concerning any happening, event, or idea that possesses human interest; that affects or has an influence on human life or happiness.

News is based on people, and is to be gauged entirely on how it interests other people.

News comprises all current activities which are of general human interest, and the best news is that which interests the most readers.

The essentials of news, as brought out by these definitions are: (1) that it must be of interest to the readers; (2) that it includes anything and everything that has any such interest; and, (3) that it must be new, current, timely. Furthermore, these definitions emphasize the fact that the value of news is determined (1) by the number of people that it interests, and (2) by the extent to which it interests them. The composite of these definitions, therefore, would be: News is anything timely that interests a number of people; and the best news is that which has the greatest interest for the greatest number.

By the application of these tests to each event, idea, or activity, the reporter can determine for himself what is news and what is not, as well as what value a piece of news possesses. He must ask himself concerning each piece of news that he gets: “Is it new and timely?” “How many readers will it interest?” “Has it great interest for a large number?”

Many times an incident seems, at first glance, to possess little that will interest, but, on closer examination, reveals some phase that is of considerable news value. Keen observation and insight to see the significant aspect of a person, an event, an idea, often leads to the discovery of news that may escape the notice of less acute observers. The reporter must find for himself those aspects of the day’s events which are of the greatest interest to the greatest number.

Timeliness in News. Freshness, timeliness, newness is one vital qualification for all news. “Yesterday” has almost ceased to exist for the newspaper man. Even “to-day” has become “this morning,” “this noon,” “this afternoon.” “Up to date” has given way to “up to the minute.” Improved mechanical equipment, which makes possible lightning speed in turning news stories into a complete newspaper in less than half an hour, has made possible a degree of freshness in the news that would seem marvelous were it not a daily, in fact, almost an hourly phenomenon. Competition among newspapers, and the publication of frequent editions, increase the necessity for the latest news. The reporter must catch this spirit of getting the news while it is news, and of getting it into print before it loses its freshness.

What Interests Readers. How general will be the interest in any activity, idea, or event is determined by what the average person likes to hear, read, or see. Whatever gives him pleasure or satisfaction, interests him. Consideration of the fundamental bases of news values, therefore, involves a determination of the general classes of things that give pleasure and satisfaction to the average individual.

The Extraordinary. The unusual, the extraordinary, the curious, wherever found, attracts attention and is interesting because it is a departure from the normal order of life. Humdrum routine whets the appetite for every break in the monotony of regularity. So long as the daily life of the average man conforms to the generally accepted business and social standards and is not affected by any unusual circumstances, it has little interest for his fellow men. As soon as he violates the usual order, or is the victim of such violation, his departure from the level of conformity becomes a matter of greater or less interest according to the extent of the departure. Because hundreds of thousands of bank employees are honest, the dishonesty of one of them is news. So all crime, as a violation of established law and order, is news, unless, as unfortunately is sometimes the case, it becomes common enough to cease to be unusual. Every notable achievement in any field of activity, because it rises above the level, is news. A record aeroplane flight, an heroic action, the discovery of a new serum, the invention of a labor-saving device, the finding of remains of a buried city, the completion of a great bridge,—all are sufficiently out of the ordinary to attract attention. Accidents and unexpected occurrences, because they break in upon the usual course of events, are matters of news. The thousands of trains that reach their destination safely are as nothing compared to one that jumps the track. Millions of dollars’ worth of property that remains unharmed from day to day does not interest the average man, but the loss of some of it by fire, wind, or flood immediately lifts the part affected out of the mass and gives it interest to hundreds of persons in no way concerned in the loss. It is not the crimes and misfortunes of others that give the reader pleasure; it is the fact that these are departures from the normal course that makes them satisfy his desire for something different from the usual round of life.

In almost every event the good newspaper man can find something that is out of the ordinary, and by giving due emphasis to this unusual phase can give interest to what might otherwise seem commonplace. What that something will be is determined by the reporter’s or the editor’s appreciation of what will appeal to the average reader as the most marked departure from the customary and the expected. If, as in a recent accident, the front trucks of a trolley car jump the track and upset a baby carriage, throwing out the baby; and if the baby alights unharmed on a pillow that was tossed out of the carriage by the collision, such peculiar circumstances the reporter knows will appeal to most readers as the interesting feature of the accident. That a sneak thief should be caught as he was escaping from a house with a few dollars’ worth of plunder, will attract the average reader much less than the fact that he jumped through a plate-glass window in his effort to escape, or that he gained access to the house by wearing a Salvation Army uniform, or that he carried away a pie as part of his booty. How a man lost a purse containing $50 is scarcely worthy of notice, but how, while looking for his purse, he found a diamond ring, is strange enough to make good reading. A lecture at an agricultural society meeting on the advantages to the farmers of the state of raising barley would not ordinarily be considered of much interest to city readers, but an interruption of the lecture by an advocate of prohibition with the charge that to urge barley growing is to aid the brewing interests, might make a good news story. The character and the extent of the departure from the usual, considered from the point of view of most of the readers, measure the news value of any phase of an event that is out of the ordinary.

Struggles for Supremacy. Struggles for supremacy, also, have an almost universal appeal. Competition in business, contest in sport, rivalry in politics, are based on the love of fighting to win. Strikes and lockouts, as part of the contest between labor and capital, appeal to this interest. So does the fight to secure control or monopoly in any part of the commercial field. The enthusiasm manifested over baseball, football, boxing, racing, and other sports grows out of the love of contest for supremacy. In political warfare the interest of many is largely in the struggle for victory, with the power that victory brings, rather than any results that will affect the individual directly. Accounts of all these forms of fighting to win make good news stories.

“Human Interest.” The fellow feeling that makes all the world akin, the sympathy that binds together men who have little in common, is the basis of interest which we have in the actions, thoughts, and feelings of others. The “human interest” which newspaper and magazine editors demand, involves emphasis on the personal element in the affairs of life. The characters that appear in news stories, fiction, or special articles must be made to appeal to the readers as real flesh and blood men and women. The human side of events is what the average reader wants. How one man is saved by a new serum is read with more attention than is a discussion of the therapeutic value of the serum. The privations of an arctic explorer in reaching the pole have almost as much interest for most readers as the discovery of the pole itself. The experiences of strikers and their families are read by many who know little and care less about the economic conditions that produce the strike. So vitally do we feel ourselves concerned with the fate of our fellow men, even when we do not know them personally, that accounts of human life lost or endangered are read with great eagerness. “Many lives lost!” is the cry that the newsboy knows will sell the most papers. From the point of view of the newspaper the greater the number of lives thus involved in the event, the better is the news.

The Appeal of Children. The unusual appeal that children make gives news of their activities especial value. Whenever a little child plays a part in an event, it is pretty sure to be the best feature of the story. The letter which a small girl writes to the mayor asking that her pet dog be restored to her from the dog pound, will take a place in the day’s news beside the interview with the mayor outlining his policies of city government for the following two years. A child witness holds the attention of the entire court room and is “featured” in the story of a trial, partly, no doubt, because the appearance of a child in these circumstances is unusual, but largely because of our interest in children. Just as a child’s plea to a judge saves its worthless father or drunken mother from a prison sentence, so the story of that plea will move every reader. Anecdotes and sayings of children readily find a place in newspapers and magazines.

Interest in Animals. The popular interest in animals, wild or tame, in captivity or at large, makes news stories about them good reading. Whether we are attracted by the almost human intelligence that animals often display, or by their distinctly animal traits, we read of their doings with keen interest. Anecdotes of animal pets if well told are always readable. The fascination which the “zoo” or the circus menagerie has for most people is akin to the pleasure given by anecdotes of animals in captivity. Every city editor knows the value of the zoölogical garden as a source of effective stories when other fields fail. Wild animals at large, particularly when they come into any relation with men, afford good material for the reporter or correspondent.

Amusements and Hobbies. The favorite pleasures and amusements of readers form another large group of activities that must be considered in measuring the value of news. Besides the contest element in sports that interests the spectator, there is the attraction of athletics for the players. Golf, tennis, automobiling, and similar activities furnish news that is read by those who engage in these diversions. Accounts of the theatre, of concerts, and of all forms of amusements are read by the thousands who patronize these entertainments. Pastimes and hobbies, such as amateur photography, book-collecting, fishing and hunting, canoeing and sailing, whist and chess, have enough devotees to give value to news of such avocations. Here again the number of readers to whom such news appeals determines the space and the prominence that it is worth.

Degree of Readers’ Interest. Persons, places, or things that go to make up news excite a degree of interest proportional to (1) the reader’s familiarity with them, (2) their own importance and prominence, (3) the closeness of their relation to the reader’s personal affairs.

Local Interest. Local events interest readers because they know the places and often the persons concerned. Local news, accordingly, takes precedence over news from elsewhere of equal or greater importance as measured by the general standards of news value. Interest in most news stories may be said to vary inversely in proportion to the distance between the place of the event described and the place where the paper is published. Just as the splash is greatest where a stone strikes the water, the ripples growing less and less marked as the force of the shock spreads out over the pond, so the impression made by an occurrence grows less and less the farther one goes from the scene of action. We read more eagerly the account of a small fire in a building that we pass every day than the dispatch telling of a fire that wiped out a whole town two thousand miles away. The arrest of a man for speeding his automobile will cause more comment among his friends than the capture of a gang of automobile bandits that has terrorized another city. Local phases, or “local ends,” as they are called, of events that take place some distance away quite overshadow in interest more important phases of the event itself. Every effort is made in the newspaper to bring events, ideas, and activities elsewhere into some local relation.

Interest in the Prominent. The interest which all readers have in what is familiar to them extends to persons, places, and things that they may not know personally but that they recognize as important or prominent. They like to read about men and women who are leaders in social, business, or political activities in the city, the state, the nation, or anywhere in the world, even though these persons exist for them only in name. A high position itself gives added importance to news concerning the person who occupies it, although many readers may not have heard of him before. Thus, in order to appeal to this general interest in the doings of persons of position, some less scrupulous reporters and editors describe the characters in their news stories as “prominent,” “well-known,” “a college graduate,” “a beautiful young society girl,” when the facts do not warrant it. Personages who are well known do not need such introduction; their names alone serve to identify them. The value of news concerning a person may be said to vary in direct proportion to his prominence. A slight accident to a candidate for the presidency of the United States attracts much more attention than a serious one to a candidate for Congress. A story of the wedding of the daughter of a multi-millionaire has thousands of readers because of the prominence of her father, whereas the account of the wedding of the corner grocer’s daughter attracts only a small number who know the families. The daily life of the great affords daily pleasure to the humble.

Places that readers have often heard of, but in many cases have never seen, such as New York, Paris, Washington, Coney Island, Niagara Falls, possess an attraction that makes news from them the more interesting even though it may consist of no more than gossip and trivial happenings. Well-known places as the setting for events give added importance, therefore, to the news value of these events. Institutions, such as universities of national reputation, the Library of Congress, the Rockefeller Institute, the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Salvation Army, because they are generally known, likewise attract attention to news involving them. Familiar names of great ocean steamships, of large commercial companies, and of important railroad systems, increase the news value of stories in which they appear. Size and prominence, then, of places and things, like importance and prominence of persons, determine news values.

Home and Business Interests. The most vital concerns of both men and women, however, are their business and their home, their prosperity and their happiness. Whatever in the daily round of events affects these interests most directly will get their closest attention. Upon this principle depends the news value of many newspaper stories. Stock brokers and investors read the stock market reports; buyers and farmers, the produce and live stock quotations; owners and agents of real estate, the records of transfers and mortgages; business men generally, commercial and industrial news, because of the relation of such news to their own business affairs. A marked rise or fall in the price of butter, eggs, meat, or other staple articles of food concerns not only the dealers but housewives and other purchasers of such commodities. Announcement of the proposed construction of a new trolley line appeals to readers whose transportation facilities or property are affected. Income tax legislation, parcel post, adjustments of railroad rates, state or federal supreme court decisions, the tariff, and other political and economic problems, usually interest the average reader in proportion as he thinks that they will affect him and his business. For most women readers home-making and fashions are of vital concern. Besides matters pertaining to the cost of living, which affect men and women alike, pure food laws and their enforcement, schools, the health and welfare of children, the servant problem, the milk and the water supplies, as well as the latest styles of dress,—all come very close to the everyday lives of women, who constitute no small part of the number of newspaper readers. Incidental concerns of both men and women readers, such as organizations to which they belong, general movements with which they are connected, or the social life of which they are a part, give interest for them to news concerning these activities. News values, therefore, are measured by the extent to which news affects directly the lives of readers; the greater the effect and the larger the number of readers affected, the better the news.

Combination of Interests. If one event possesses several of these different kinds of interest it is very good news, because of the greater number of readers to whom it appeals and because of the stronger appeal that it makes. Thus, for example, the “Titanic” disaster was extremely unusual in that the largest ocean liner on its first trip was sunk by an iceberg while proceeding at a high rate of speed on a clear night. Greater still was its interest because of the very large number of human lives involved. Added to this was the fact that many of the passengers were prominent. The result was that news of the disaster was read with the greatest eagerness by all classes everywhere in this country as well as abroad. The combination of sources of interest and the greater degree of interest that results must be taken into consideration in measuring the final value of news.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Ask yourself concerning every piece of information, How many readers will it interest? How much will it interest the average reader? Is it really new and timely?
2. Examine every phase of an event or idea for what will be of greatest interest to the greatest number.
3. Look always for what will appeal to the average reader as most unusual, curious, remarkable.
4. Consider the things that give most persons great pleasure and satisfaction.
5. Don’t overlook the “human interest” element in the day’s events.
6. Remember that a good fight interests many, whether it is in politics, business, or sport.
7. Don’t neglect children in the news; though small they make a big appeal.
8. Keep on the look-out for good stories of animals.
9. Provide reading for men and women with hobbies.
10. Measure the value of your news on the basis of its local interest.
11. Remember that readers are most interested in persons and places that they know.
12. Consider the news value given by the importance and prominence of persons and things.
13. Bring your news as close as possible to the reader’s home and business.
14. Sharpen your “nose for news” on the grindstone of experience.

CHAPTER III

GETTING THE NEWS

The Problem of News Gathering. The mystery of newspaper making, to the uninitiated, is how editors and reporters find out everything that happens and how they get it into print in a very short time. It seems strange to the average person that when an accident occurs in the block in which he lives, the first news of it often reaches him through the newspaper. The apparent omnipresence, not to say omniscience, of the reporter leads to the not unnatural assumption that the news gatherer walks about the city waiting Micawber-like for “something to turn up.” The size of the staff of reporters that would be required to maintain a patrol of the streets would approximate that of the police force, and would bankrupt the most prosperous newspaper. Such a system is not only impossible but quite unnecessary. News gathering is really no mystery at all, but merely a good example of efficient organization.

In organizing its news collecting, the newspaper only takes advantage of information filed for various official purposes by many different persons in no way connected with the newspaper. Policemen, firemen, sheriffs, coroners, and practically all officials of local, state, and national governments, as well as doctors, lawyers, and merchants are all unintentionally serving as reporters of news. The public records in all public or private offices are the reports which these men, many times quite unconsciously, furnish for the newspapers. What the news editors do is to see that a careful watch is maintained by their reporters at all places where news is thus recorded so that they may select whatever part of it is of interest to their readers.

News Sources. The places where news is recorded, not primarily for the newspapers but really to their great advantage, and the kinds of news to be found at each place are indicated by the following list of news sources:—

News “Runs.” To get all the news that develops at each of these and many other similar places, the city editor divides the news sources into “runs” or “beats,” and details a reporter to each “run.” The reporter assigned to get or “cover” the news of police headquarters is said to have the “police run”; another assigned to the city hall has the “city hall run,” or is “city hall reporter”; one who gets the news of the child welfare movement, of social centers, benevolent organizations, etc., is said to have the “uplift run”; another is on the “hotel run.” To cover adequately these news sources, the reporter visits each office on his run from one to six times a day, examining records, interviewing officials, and chatting with secretaries and clerks. The number of times that he visits an office and the length of time that he stays are determined approximately by the amount and value of the news likely to be obtained.

As the reporter is held responsible for all the news of the places on his “run,” he must not let anything escape his notice, because a keener, quicker-witted man on the same “run” for a rival paper may get what he misses. When a reporter obtains a piece of news that reporters on other papers do not get, he is said to have a “scoop” or “beat,” and the unsuccessful paper and its reporters are said to have been “scooped.”

City News Associations. In large cities, like New York and Chicago, the gathering of all the official or routine news is done by a central news association which furnishes each paper that belongs to the association or which pays for its services, with a mimeographed copy of every news story that its reporters secure in covering all the usual runs. By this method each paper is saved the expense of providing for the scores of runs necessary in a large city in order to cover adequately all the news sources each day. When the city editor gets a news bulletin or a complete story from the news association, he can have it rewritten or can send out one of his reporters if he desires to have the event more fully covered. Such a system of local news gathering makes possible a staff of reporters relatively small as compared with the size of the city. Reporters employed by the city news association work under conditions practically the same as those in a newspaper office. Inasmuch as the stories that a news association reporter writes are edited in at least half a dozen newspaper offices by different editors and copy-readers, the reporter has the advantage of seeing how various papers treat the same news story.

Assignments. In organizing news gathering, the city editor and his assistants keep a “future” book or file with a page or compartment for each day in the year. Into this are placed, under the appropriate day, all notes, clippings, and suggestions regarding future news possibilities. If, for example, on December 10, the state legislature passes a law in regard to the size of berry boxes, to take effect on March 1 of the following year, the city editor puts a clipping of the dispatch from the state capital telling of this action, or a note recording the fact, into the compartment or page labeled February 25, so that a week before March 1, he may assign one of his reporters to find out from wholesale commission dealers, berry-crate manufacturers, and the inspector of weights and measures, what steps are to be taken to carry out the provisions of the law. A similar news record is kept by the telegraph and state editors covering future events in their fields, so that correspondents may be given instructions and advice.

The city editor also has an assignment book or sheet on which is entered every important news possibility for the day, with the name of the reporter assigned to cover it, and with any information or suggestions that the editor wants to give the reporter. When the reporter arrives at the office to begin his day’s work, or when he reports to the office by telephone, he gets his assignments for the day. These assignments are usually connected with his run, so that while he is on his daily round of news gathering he may get in addition the special news assigned to him.

“Covering” Important Events. To secure an adequate report of an important event, such as a state political convention, a visit of the President of the United States, a serious crime, or a wide-spread flood, the city editor arranges the work of the various members of his staff so that every important phase of the event will be “covered.” On the occasion of a day’s visit of the president, for example, one reporter is assigned to follow the chief executive about all day from the time he arrives until he leaves, and to write the general story of his visit. Another is detailed to report his arrival, the ovation given him, and possibly the short speech that he makes in response. A third is told to “cover” the reception tendered by the Merchants and Manufacturers Club; a fourth to report the luncheon given for him at the City Club; and a fifth who can write shorthand to get a verbatim report of his speech at the Coliseum in the afternoon. Practically every event that can be anticipated is provided for in advance by the city editor, and to that extent is easier to handle than the unexpected ones.

When Big News “Breaks.” Important events that occur unexpectedly are the real test of the editor’s ability to organize his staff quickly and effectively. What is involved in arranging to get all phases of a big news story is shown by the manner in which such an event as the attempted assassination of Mayor Gaynor of New York on August 9, 1910, was handled by the New York papers. The following summary of an account given by one of the city editors illustrates the methods employed.[3]

The first news of the attempt to assassinate the mayor came at 9:30 A.M. in the form of a news association bulletin which read:

Mayor Gaynor was shot this morning while on the deck of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse in Hoboken. It is rumored he is dead.

The city editor on a morning paper at once got in touch with as many of his reporters as he could reach on the telephone. The first three reporters that he telephoned to were told the substance of the bulletin and were sent to Hoboken to get the details.

The second bulletin from the news association, received a few minutes after the first, was as follows:

The mayor was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital, Hoboken.

As soon as another reporter was available, the city editor told him to go to St. Mary’s Hospital to see the doctors and to report the result at once. The fifth reporter was sent to find Mrs. Gaynor at her city home or at her country house, as the city editor knew that she was not accompanying the mayor on his trip abroad.

The third news association bulletin, or “flash,” gave these facts concerning the assassin:

The man who shot the mayor has been arrested. His name is James J. Gallagher. He lives at No. 440 Third Ave.

The city editor thereupon gave a reporter this assignment. “Go up there; get all you can about him. Get a picture. Find out to what political party he belongs. Run him to the ground and phone me later; I may be able to give you something additional.” To another reporter the city editor said: “Gallagher is to be arraigned in the police headquarters in Hoboken; go over there quickly.”

The next bulletin opened up a new phase of the subject, the motive for the crime:

Gallagher was a night watchman in the dock department until July 1, when he was discharged from the city employ.

After the reporter who had been sent out to get the history of Gallagher telephoned that Gallagher had been a disgruntled employee of the city who had been constantly writing letters of complaint to his superiors, the city editor assigned a reporter to get the facts, saying: “Gallagher was a chronic kicker. Go down to the Department of Docks and to the Civil Service Commission and get copies of all the correspondence.”

A reporter was sent to see John Purroy Mitchel, the acting mayor, another to find out the city charter provisions regarding a possible vacancy in the office of mayor under such circumstances. A rewrite man was told to get from the office collection of biographical sketches, or “morgue,” the material on file concerning the life of the mayor and to write an obituary. A tip by telephone from a man who had once employed Gallagher to the effect that he had often done strange, uncanny things, led to a reporter’s being sent to get further particulars from this informant.

The complete list of assignments as they appeared on the city editor’s sheet was as follows, each being preceded by the name of the reporter detailed to cover that particular phase of the event: (1) Main story of Gaynor shooting, (2) Interviews on board the Kaiser Wilhelm, (3) Gallagher on board the Kaiser Wilhelm, (4) Gallagher, the man, and his correspondence, (5) Gaynor at St. Mary’s Hospital, (6) The arraignment of Gallagher and his plans, (7) Mrs. Gaynor and family, (8) John Purroy Mitchel, the acting mayor, (9) City Hall, (10) What the charter says, with interviews, (11) Obituary of Gaynor, (12) The strange, uncanny things Gallagher did.

Getting the Facts. A large part of news gathering consists of getting information from persons by asking questions. To ask questions that will elicit the desired facts most effectively is not so easy as it seems. Most persons, although not unwilling to give information, are not particularly interested in doing so, and in replying do not discriminate between what is news and what is not. Tact and skill are necessary to get many persons to tell what they know. A stranger who insists on asking questions is very naturally regarded with suspicion. Even when it becomes known that the stranger is a newspaper reporter, he is not always cordially received. Often he finds that it is easier to get the facts when his identity as a reporter is revealed. Nevertheless, there are not infrequent occasions when all the skill of an astute lawyer examining a witness is required to get the desired information. Reporters should never hesitate to ask tactfully as many questions as are necessary, and to persist until they get what they want.

The way in which the reporter works in gathering together the various phases of an event before he is ready to write the story is best shown by an example. The city editor, let us say, receives a bulletin to the effect that an unknown, well-dressed man of about sixty years has been seriously injured by falling off the platform in the subway station at 65th Street and Western Avenue, and that he has been removed to St. Mary’s Hospital. The city editor sends out one of his reporters to find out what he can about the accident.

The reporter starts at once for the subway station. At the corner near the station he sees a policeman with whom he carries on the following conversation:

Reporter.—Did you send in a report on the old man who fell on the subway tracks an hour ago?

Policeman.—Yes.

R.—Do you know who he is?

P.—No, I couldn’t find out his name.

R.—Was he badly hurt?

P.—I guess he was. His head was cut behind, and he hadn’t come to when the ambulance took him to the hospital.

R.—How did it happen?

P.—I don’t know. The first I knew a kid came running up to me and told me a man was hurt in the subway. When I got down there, they had him on the platform, and a crowd was standing around him. I saw the old man was hurt pretty bad, so I telephoned for St. Mary’s ambulance. We put some water on his face, but he didn’t come to. When the ambulance doctor came he said he was alive all right.

R.—How did he fall off the platform?

P.—I don’t know; I guess he fainted.

R.—Thanks; I’ll go down and see the ticket chopper.

The reporter thereupon goes down into the subway station. The ticker chopper, he finds, has just come on duty and does not know anything about the accident. He therefore decides to inquire of the girl in charge of the news-stand. The conversation between her and the reporter is as follows:

Reporter.—I hear that an old man was hurt down here. How did it happen?

Girl.—He fell on the tracks and cut his head.

R.—What was the matter with him?

G.—I don’t know; I guess he got dizzy.

R.—Did you see him fall?

G.—No; I was busy selling a lady a magazine when I heard some one yell.

R.—How did they get him out?

G.—Two men jumped down to get him, but they couldn’t lift him up on the platform. Then they heard the train coming and jumped over to the side.

R.—Did the motorman stop the train when he saw them?

G.—No; I ran over to the ticket chopper’s box and grabbed his red lantern, and jumped down to the track and waved it.

R.—Good for you! Weren’t you afraid of being run over?

G.—I didn’t think of being scared. I just kept waving the lantern, and the motorman saw it and put on the brakes. My, but the sparks flew!

R.—How soon did he stop?

G.—Oh, the train was only about ten feet away when it stopped, and I kept stepping back all the time to keep out of the way.

R.—Well, you must have had a pretty close call. Who got the old man out?

G.—The motorman and one of the guards climbed down and lifted him up with the two other men.

R.—What did they say about your stopping the train that way?

G.—Oh, nothing. One man said, “Good for you, little girl,” and another man wanted to know my name, and said I ought to have a medal, but I told him I hadn’t done any thing and didn’t deserve a medal.

R.—Did you give him your name?

[Pg 39]

G.—Yes, because he kept asking me and telling me that he thought I ought to have a medal.

R.—Well, I want your name, too, for the News.

G.—No; I don’t want my name in the newspaper for I didn’t do anything.

R.—But I must tell how you stopped the train in writing about how the man was hurt.

G.—All right; my name is Annie Hagan.

R.—Where do you live?

G.—At 916 East Watson Avenue.

R.—Have you been working here long?

G.—No; I just started last week. I quit school and got this job here.

R.—You didn’t hear any one say who the old man was?

G.—No; I guess he was alone.

R.—Did the doctor say how badly he was hurt?

G.—No; he felt his pulse, and listened to his heart, and said he was alive all right.

R.—Thanks; I’ll go over to St. Mary’s and see how he is getting along.

On reaching the hospital, which is only two blocks from the subway station, the reporter asks for the superintendent, with whom he carries on the following conversation:

R.—I want to find out about the old man who fell off the platform in the 65th Street subway station an hour and a half ago. How badly was he hurt?

S.—What was his name?

R.—I don’t know.

S.—I’ll look up the record. Here it is. He died at 1:15. His skull was fractured, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

R.—Did they find out who he was?

S.—No; this card is the only clue we have.

R.—May I see it?

It is a business card of the Blair Photographic Studio, 712 Broadway, on the back of which is written in pencil the words, “Oliver, Ithaca.” To save time, the reporter telephones from the office of the hospital to the Blair Studio, and the conversation over the telephone between the reporter and the clerk is as follows:

Reporter.—An old man who was hurt in the subway this noon had in his pocket one of your cards with “Oliver” written on the back. Do you know who he is?

Clerk.—That must be the old man who came in this morning to see Mr. Williams, one of our retouchers, but Mr. Williams went to Ithaca last week.

R.—Was Mr. Williams’ first name Oliver?

C.—Yes; his initials were O. R., and the old man said he was his uncle.

R.—Where did Mr. Williams live here?

C.—I don’t know. But hold the line; I’ll ask Mr. Baxter.

C.—Mr. Baxter says that Mr. Williams’ address was 3116 Easton Street, near Brown.

R.—All right. Thank you. Good-bye.

From the hospital the reporter hurries to the place where Mr. Williams lived before he left for Ithaca. The conversation between the landlady of the rooming house at 3116 Easton Street and the reporter follows:

Reporter.—Did Oliver R. Williams live here?

Landlady.—He ain’t here now. He moved away last week.

R.—Did a well-dressed old man ever come to see him when he was here?

L.—What do you want to know for?

R.—Oh, the old man fell in the subway this noon and was badly hurt. He said Mr. Williams was his nephew.

L.—I always said something would happen to him. He fainted on the steps here one day just after he rung the bell, and when I got to the door he was all in a heap right here. I knew he wanted Mr. Williams, because he came to see him a week before, so I called him, and Mr. Williams came and got him some whiskey, and after a little he came to. Mr. Williams told me after he went away that his uncle had heart trouble. Did he get hurt bad?

R.—Yes, he died at the hospital an hour ago.

[Pg 41]

L.—Oh my, that’s too bad! He was a nice old fellow and Mr. Williams thought a lot of him.

R.—What was his name?

L.—Mr. Williams called him Uncle Frank, and when he introduced him to me after he came to, he called him Mr. Dutcher.

R.—Do you know where he lived?

L.—No. I don’t think he lived in the city because he didn’t come here often, and when he came to, Mr. Williams told him he oughtn’t to come all the way alone.

R.—Do you know what his business was?

L.—No. He looked like he had some money.

R.—When was it that he fainted here?

L.—Let’s see. It was about three weeks ago, I guess.

R.—Did Mr. Williams have any relatives in the city?

L.—I don’t know. I guess not. He came from up state somewhere. He only lived here since January. He didn’t like the city very well. He said he couldn’t sleep.

R.—Thank you.

The reporter then stops at the drug store on the next corner to find out whether or not the name of Frank Dutcher appears in the city directory. No such name is to be found in this directory or in the telephone directory. As no more information is apparently obtainable, he returns to the News office and reports to the city editor what he has found. The city editor tells him to write about 500 words playing up the girl’s part in stopping the train, and saying that the man is “supposed to be” Frank Dutcher.

Putting the Facts into the News Story. The story that the reporter writes is as follows:—

By jumping to the subway tracks and waving a red lantern before an oncoming train at the risk of her life, Miss Annie Hagan, in charge of the news-stand in the subway station at 65th St. and Western Avenue, saved a man, supposed to be Frank Dutcher, from being crushed to death as he lay unconscious across the tracks. The[Pg 42] man’s skull was fractured by the fall from the platform to the tracks, and he died soon after being removed to St. Mary’s Hospital.

The accident occurred shortly before noon when the station was crowded. The man, who was well dressed and appeared to be about 60 years old, was seen walking down the platform when he suddenly staggered and pitched forward. Before anyone could run to his assistance, he fell head foremost on the tracks.

Knowing that a train might come at any moment, two men jumped down to the roadbed and tried to lift the man, but found it impossible to get him up to the level of the platform. While they were striving to get him off the tracks, the rumble of the oncoming train warned them of their danger. After another vain attempt to lift the unconscious man up to the platform, they jumped to the side of the track to save themselves.

Miss Hagan, realizing the situation, ran to the ticket chopper’s box and seizing his red lantern jumped down to the tracks. Waving the lantern before her she ran along the track in the glare of the headlight of the train. When the motorman saw the red light, he applied the emergency brakes, and the locked wheels slid along the track sending out a shower of sparks.

The train came to a stop within ten feet of the plucky girl, who then called to the motorman and one of the guards to help lift up the injured man. When he had been placed on the platform, she climbed up and started back to the news-stand as if nothing had happened.

“You ought to get a Carnegie medal,” declared one of the bystanders, who asked the girl her name and address, evidently to present her claims for the life saving award. Miss Hagan modestly disclaimed any credit for her heroism, and at first[Pg 43] refused to give her name, but was finally prevailed upon to do so.

The unconscious man was taken in an ambulance to St. Mary’s Hospital, where it was found that he was suffering from a fractured skull. He was rushed to the operating room, but he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

The only means of identifying him was a business card of a Broadway photographer with the name, “Oliver, Ithaca,” written in pencil on the back. At this studio it was found that an elderly man had inquired this morning for Oliver Williams, a retoucher, who last week went to Ithaca, N. Y. At Williams’ former rooming place it was learned that his uncle, Frank Dutcher, who answered to the description of the victim of the accident, had suffered from an attack of heart failure while visiting his nephew recently and had fallen unconscious on the doorstep. As the name of Frank Dutcher does not appear in the city directory, it is believed that the dead man was not a resident of this city but had come to pay his nephew a visit.

An analysis of this story shows how the reporter wove together all the important pieces of information which he had gathered by interviewing the policeman, the news-stand girl, the hospital superintendent, the clerk in the studio, and the landlady, none of whom are specifically mentioned as the sources of his information. In accordance with the instructions of the city editor, he “played up” the “feature” of the story, the bravery of the girl, by putting it at the beginning and by describing the accident in detail to show her heroism.

Following up the News. Many news stories, like the one just considered, do not exhaust the news possibilities of the event, but may be followed up in later editions or in the next day’s issues by completing what was necessarily left incomplete for lack of time, or by giving new phases of the event that have developed since the first story was written. A reporter on a morning paper, for example, would be given a clipping of the above story taken from the afternoon edition, and would be told by the city editor to see the coroner to get the results of his telegram to Williams, the man’s nephew, at Ithaca, and any other information available regarding the identity of the old man. Often unexpected and important news develops, which makes the “follow-up,” or second story a bigger one than the first. Each reporter and correspondent should read carefully as many newspapers as possible before he begins his day’s work so that he may get suggestions for “follow-up” stories on his “run,” or for “local ends” of news stories sent in from outside the city. In large offices, one of the editors goes over all the local newspapers to clip out the stories to be “followed up,” or to be rewritten in the office.

Interviewing. In obtaining the information for the foregoing story by means of conversations with several persons, the reporter’s aim was to get what they said rather than how they said it; that is, he wanted primarily the facts that they had to give, not the way that they expressed these facts. In the news story it was not necessary to refer specifically to the persons who furnished the information or to quote what they said. In many instances, however, it is important to “interview” persons in order to obtain their opinions or their versions of current events and to give what they say just as they said it. The terms “interviewing” and “interview” in newspaper work are often limited to this method of reporting practically verbatim what is said by the persons “interviewed.” Interviewing of this type requires great skill and tact, and successful interviewers are highly valued on all newspapers.

The two problems that the reporter has to meet are how to gain access to the person to be interviewed and how to induce him to talk for publication. Busy men have not time or inclination to give interviews to every reporter who desires them. Many times such men do not wish to say anything for publication on the desired subject, and absolutely refuse to talk. The resourcefulness of the reporter is tested again and again in getting access to men who are surrounded in their offices by office boys, private secretaries, and clerks, and who on public occasions such as banquets and receptions are sometimes equally well guarded against newspaper men. When it is impossible to see the man personally, it may be possible to submit to him several written questions and thus lead him to issue a statement answering or evading the questions.

Even when an audience is secured with the person to be interviewed, his not infrequent unwillingness to talk for publication has to be overcome. On some occasions to ask immediately and directly for the desired information is the best way to secure results. At other times, to engage him in conversation on some subject in which he is interested and then to lead to the one on which the reporter wishes to interview him, proves successful. Young reporters often insist on giving their own views on the subject on which they are trying to interview a person. The reporter should remember that he is an impartial observer, not an advocate on one side or the other. If in an effort to get information from the person whom he is interviewing he suggests opposing opinions, these opinions should not be given as his own but as those of others. Tact and a knowledge of human nature are essential.

In interviewing, as in all reporting, the newspaper man should not take notes in the presence of the person with whom he is talking unless he feels sure it can be done without affecting the freedom and ease with which the man will talk. As soon as a reporter begins to take notes, the speaker at once realizes that his statements are to appear in black and white for the world to read. That realization leads to caution, and caution leads to silence, partial or complete. To get the person to talk as freely and naturally as possible is the object of all interviewing, for the best interviewers want more than words; they want the fullest expression of personality, an expression that is only possible when all feeling of restraint is absent. The good interviewer cultivates verbal memory so that he can reproduce verbatim all the significant statements which he has obtained as soon as he is out of the presence of the man that he has interviewed. At the first convenient place immediately after the interview is over, the reporter writes out as much as he desires to print, word for word as he remembers it.

Reporting Speeches. In reporting speeches, addresses, lectures, and sermons, the newspaper man either takes long-hand notes and writes out later what he wants to use, or writes a long-hand verbatim report of such parts as he desires. Few reporters can write short-hand, and the few who can generally do not use it extensively because of the length of time required to transcribe short-hand notes. It is much quicker, and therefore more important in newspaper work, to write a connected or “running” story, or verbatim report of a speech or lecture while it is being delivered, by selecting significant statements and by omitting the explanatory ones. With a little practice, the average person of intelligence can remember a statement, word for word, as the speaker makes it, long enough to put it in writing, and then by repeating this process for every important statement, can give an accurate verbatim, but necessarily condensed, report of any speech. As newspapers generally want only a small part of the average address, the reporter has little difficulty in writing a good account of it in long-hand. When a complete verbatim report is desired, a short-hand reporter is assigned to cover the address.

“Covering” Trials and Hearings. The same general principles governing the reporting of speeches apply to the reporting of trials where testimony is given in response to questioning by attorneys, or when witnesses appear before investigating committees of the state legislature, Congress, or other bodies. Questions and answers may be taken down, or if the substance of the testimony is desired in either verbatim or indirect form, the reporter can fit together the answers into a continuous account of what the witness testifies, neglecting partially or entirely the questions that elicit the testimony. A “running story” of the trial or investigation is generally written in the room where it is going on, so that the copy may be put into type as fast as possible. In reporting important trials the newspaper sometimes arranges to get a complete verbatim report from the official short-hand court reporter or occasionally from an expert stenographer employed for the purpose, and from this complete record those facts that are desired for publication are selected.

Advance Copies. It is always a great advantage to a newspaper to secure in advance a copy of a speech, a report, a decision, or any document, so that it may be put in form for publication and may be set up in type ready to print as soon as possible after it is given to the public. Such advance news is marked to be “released” for publication when it becomes public. For example, when a copy of the speech to be delivered by the governor of the state at the laying of a corner-stone at eleven o’clock in the morning on Washington’s Birthday, is obtained a day or two in advance, it is marked “Release 12 M., Feb. 22.” The result will be that in the first edition of the afternoon paper published after 12 o’clock noon on February 22 as much of the speech as is desired can be printed, perhaps a few minutes after the governor has concluded his address. Newspapers always regard most scrupulously the release date which the reporter or correspondent puts at the top of his advance story. To violate the confidence of men who furnish news in advance by publishing it before it should be released, is considered by newspaper men a serious breach of trust. Reporters and correspondents should, therefore, mark plainly at the top of the first sheet of copy the word “release” followed by the hour and date when it can be printed. If the date and hour at which the news will become public cannot be fixed in advance, the copy is marked, “Hold for Release, which will probably be at 12 M., Feb. 22”; and the reporter or correspondent notifies his paper of the exact time of release as soon as it is fixed.

Getting News by Telephone. The telephone, both in local and in long distance service, is extensively used in getting news and in communicating it to the newspaper office. Editors often telephone their instructions to reporters and correspondents. Newspapermen use the telephone to “run down” rumors and “tips,” to verify news reports, to get “interviews,” and, in short, to obtain all kinds of information. Although some men refuse to be “interviewed” over the telephone, it is often possible to get “interviews” more easily by this means than by any other. Reporters, or “watchers,” at police headquarters and at other news sources telephone important information to the city editor so that he may assign men to get the news involved. When lack of time prevents the reporter from returning to the office to write his story, he telephones the facts to a “rewrite man,” who puts them in news-story form. Or the reporter may dictate his story over the telephone to a man in the newspaper office, who, using an overhead receiver like that worn by telephone operators, takes it down rapidly on a typewriter. Experienced reporters can dictate their stories in this way with only their notes before them. The long distance service is used in the same manner by correspondents when it can be more advantageously employed than the telegraph.

Photographs. Illustrations, or “cuts,” have come to be an important part of almost all newspapers. Although most of the photographs used for illustrations are made by the staff photographer or are secured from companies that make a specialty of taking pictures of current events, reporters and correspondents are often able to supply their papers with pictures of persons, places, or events that are a part of the day’s news. Good photographs may sometimes be secured from amateurs who happen to get snapshots of some interesting occurrence. Every reporter and every correspondent should have a camera and should learn how to take pictures to illustrate the stories that he writes, even though he may not have occasion to take such photographs frequently. Unmounted photographic prints with a glossy surface and with strong contrasts are the most satisfactory ones from which to make newspaper halftones. A brief description of the picture should be written on the back of every photograph. Unmounted photographs should always be mailed flat. Correspondents are paid for photographs that are used by newspapers.

Special Kinds of News. Special kinds of reporting, such as is done by sporting, market, financial, railroad, labor, marine, society, dramatic, and musical editors, naturally requires special training and experience in the subject matter of these fields. The methods of gathering these special kinds of news are not particularly different from those of collecting general news. The sporting editor and his assistants often have to write a “running” account of a baseball game or football game as it progresses. The musical and dramatic critics, of course, express their opinions on productions, instead of simply reporting what took place at the theatre or concert. The railroad, labor, market, or marine editors report the news in their particular fields, sometimes in special forms, such as market reports or quotations, but their work of news gathering is like that of the general reporter.

Qualifications of the Reporter. Rapidity, perseverance, accuracy, intelligence, and tact, as well as the “news sense,” or “nose for news,” are the essential qualifications for successful reporting.

Nowhere is it truer that “time is money” than in newspaper making. The reporter, as the news collector and news writer, must save as much time as possible by working fast. To know just where to get the news and how to get it quickly, always means great economy of time and effort. Rapid, accurate judgment of news values, likewise, is an important qualification for a good newspaper man. “Get all the news and get it quick,” was the command that a certain city editor of the old school used to thunder at his cub reporters.

Perseverance. To get all the news, or sometimes to get any news, demands perseverance. The reporter must follow one clue after another until he finds what he is looking for, or is convinced that there is nothing to find. By stopping in his pursuit before he has all there is to get, he may miss the biggest “feature” of the story. Every neglected clue may mean a “scoop” by a rival. To return empty-handed is to admit defeat. News hunting is often discouraging business, but the reporter must always keep up his determination by a firm belief that what is eluding him may be a big story, probably the biggest story of his career.

Accuracy. Accuracy must extend to every detail of reporting. As the reporter is seldom on the spot when an unexpected event happens, he must rely upon the accounts of it given by eye witnesses. These accounts often differ materially because of the common inaccuracy of observation and judgment. The reporter must weigh the testimony of each witness, much as a juryman does in a trial, and must decide which version is the most probable one. When time permits, he can verify doubtful details by questioning other witnesses on the particular parts in which the versions differ. He should always make every reasonable effort to get all particulars as accurately as possible.

Great care should invariably be taken to have names and addresses correct. The reporter will do well to ask his informants to spell unfamiliar names for him. City, telephone, and society directories, the various kinds of “Who’s Who” volumes, and similar lists, are convenient sources for getting names, initials, and addresses. Even the necessity for speed in newspaper work is not a valid excuse for carelessness and inaccuracy in news gathering. The minutes required to verify names, addresses, and other details, are always well spent. Rumors and unconfirmed statements generally should be carefully investigated before they are given much credence, especially when they reflect upon the reputation of persons, organizations, or business enterprises. A false rumor given wide currency through a newspaper may ruin a man or a woman, or seriously injure a bank or business firm. No correction or retraction that a newspaper can make ever counteracts completely the effects of the original story. A rumor is often valuable as a news “tip,” but like all news tips it needs to be traced to its source and confirmed by evidence before it is really news. Often it is mere gossip or the product of a fertile imagination, with little or no basis in fact. False and inaccurate statements are not what newspapers or their readers want.

Tact and Courtesy. On the stage the reporter runs about with note-book and pencil in hand; in real life, he carries some folded sheets of copy paper on which to take notes when necessary, in a way to attract the least possible attention. He neither conceals nor displays his profession. An impersonal, anonymous observer of persons and events, he does not obtrude his personality upon those with whom his work brings him in contact. Tactful, courteous, friendly, he elicits his information as quickly as possible. When a more aggressive attitude is necessary to secure what he wants and has a right to have, he is equal to the occasion. But whatever may be the circumstances, the reporter never forgets that he is a gentleman, and that the newspaper which he represents never expects him to do anything to get the news that he or it need be ashamed to acknowledge to the world. Some papers may not hold up this ideal to their reporters and editors, but every self-respecting newspaper must.

To cultivate personal acquaintance with those with whom news gathering brings the reporter in contact, is the best means of increasing his ability to get the news. When men come to have a friendly interest in the reporter and his work, and find that they can trust him to report accurately the news that they give him, they often go out of their way to help him. Many a “scoop” has been the result of the friendly aid of some one who had news to give and who saved it for the reporter in whom he had become personally interested. In other instances, where official news must be given to all alike, the favored reporter may be given a “tip” in advance as to some important phase of this official news which he can use to advantage in his paper, or he may be able to get an advance copy of a report or of a public document so that his paper will have a good story on it ready to print as soon as it is given to the public.

Through his personal relations with men, however, the reporter is sometimes put in a difficult position. In conversation with friends, for example, he may learn of important news that would make a good story and perhaps give him credit for a “scoop.” But he must remember that when he obtains news in the confidence of private conversation, he has no right to use it without the consent of those from whom he gets it in this way. At other times he may be given news with the request that it be not published, and again he must beware of violating confidence. No self-respecting reporter will fail to regard the trust placed in him by those with whom he comes in contact either in social or professional relations. Another problem confronts the reporter when friends or acquaintances request him to suppress the whole or a part of a news story that it is his duty to write. Since a reporter is supposed to give all the important facts in a fair and impartial manner, he has no right to omit any of them without the knowledge of his superiors. The best way out of the difficulty, therefore, is to tell those who desire the suppression of any news that the decision in such matters rests with the editor and not with the reporter.

How the Correspondent Works. The work of the correspondent is very much the same as that of the reporter. Like the reporter, he gets assignments or instructions from time to time; he asks his superiors how much of a story they want on a particular event; he watches the news sources in the city or town for which he is responsible. As he is frequently on the staff of a local paper as well, he has the advantage of whatever news is collected for this paper. Whenever an important event is to take place in the district which he covers, he receives instructions a day or two in advance from the telegraph editor telling him what the paper wants and how much he is to send. If the telegraph editor desires some phase of an unexpected happening looked up by the correspondent, he telegraphs to him the necessary directions. The correspondent, likewise, telegraphs to the editor whenever he has a story on which he wants instructions. When a correspondent telegraphs for instructions, he is said to send a “query” or “to query” his paper. A query usually consists of a brief statement of the news in a sentence or two followed by the number of words in which the correspondent thinks he can write the story adequately. The typical form of a query would be:

Buffalo Express, Buffalo, N. Y.

Easthampton, N. Y., Jan. 16.—Western Steel Co.’s mill burning, loss $150,000, two firemen killed. 300. Filed 9:23 P.M.

Wilson.

The telegraph editor can use the facts thus given in the query by turning the dispatch over to the copy desk to be edited for the next edition; and at the same time he may telegraph to Wilson, the Easthampton correspondent, to send 150 instead of 300 words on the fire. The correspondent, on receiving these instructions, telegraphs at once as much of the story as he can in 150 words. He always puts at the end of the dispatch before his signature the hour at which he files the story at the telegraph office, so that he will not be held responsible for any delay in transmitting or delivering the telegram.

When the correspondent has a number of news stories of interest on which he desires to have instructions, he sends his “queries” in the form of a “schedule” in which each story is numbered. For example:

Philadelphia Times, Philadelphia, Pa.

Erie, Pa., March 10.—No. 1. Northern Hospital for Insane burns, all inmates rescued. 800.

2. C. H. Hartman, cashier Miners’ Bank, commits suicide. 250.

3. Principal Walters of high school prohibits football. 100.

4. Mayor Altmeyer removes Health Commissioner Murphy for incompetency. 150.

5. Minister delivers strong sermon on “Is There a Devil?” 300.

R. N. Wilson.

The telegraph editor might reply to this schedule with the following instructions, which would indicate how much the correspondent is to send on each of the stories that he has scheduled, as well as the fact that nothing is wanted on story No. 5.

Philadelphia, Mar. 10.—R. N. Wilson, Erie, Pa. Rush one and two; 50 three; 100 four.

Times.

The correspondent is paid a regular salary if the amount of news that he sends daily is considerable, but more often he is paid every month at a regular space rate for the amount printed of the news that he sends during the month. On some papers the correspondents clip out all of their news stories and paste them together in a “string” which they send in once a month, so that the telegraph editor may pay them according to the length of the “string.” In many offices the telegraph editor keeps a record by crediting every correspondent with what he furnishes, and sends monthly a check for the amount due.

News Associations. Most of the news of the state, nation, and world generally is furnished to newspapers, not by their own correspondents, but through one of the several news or press associations, such as the Associated Press, the United Press, and the International Press Service. The Associated Press is a coöperative news-gathering and news-distributing organization with a membership consisting of many of the leading papers throughout the country. The expenses of the association are divided equally among the newspapers that are members. Each paper that belongs to the association agrees to furnish all the others with the news that it gets in the local field. The Associated Press also has correspondents everywhere in the world, most of whom are paid for what news they furnish, while others at important news centers are regularly employed to gather and send news to the association. To facilitate the handling of the news, the Associated Press has divided the country into four divisions with a central office and a superintendent in each; and in these divisions there is a bureau at every important news center with a correspondent who is responsible for all the news in his district of the division. Associated Press correspondents send the news of the cities, towns, or sections for which they are responsible to the district bureau, or the division office, where it is edited and distributed to the newspapers of the division, and is sent on to the other division offices to be edited and distributed to papers in these divisions. The United Press is a corporation which furnishes its news service to afternoon papers at a rate determined by the distance of the newspaper from the distributing point and by the amount of news sent. It differs from the Associated Press in the fact that it is not a coöperative organization. The International Press Service connected with the papers controlled by Mr. W. R. Hearst also furnishes newspapers generally with news service.

The instructions given by the Associated Press and the United Press to their correspondents, from which the following extracts are taken, indicate the general rules to be followed by a correspondent who is sending out news that is of more than local interest.

Be able always to give a valid reason for sending a dispatch.

File news with the telegraph operator at the earliest possible moment. Dispatches should be filed before 9 A.M. for the noon editions; before 12 M. for the 3 o’clocks; and before 2 P.M. for the 5 o’clocks; nothing should be filed after 2:15 P.M. except night matter, which should be marked N.P.R. (night press rate). If there should be news of great importance, file a bulletin of 100 words at any hour. All matter for afternoon papers should be filed at the earliest possible moment without regard to editions.

When the news is of extraordinary character, or very sensational, file at once a bulletin of 100 words, and wait instructions before sending the details, as the number of words desired will be ordered. Should the news prove to be more important than the facts first available indicated, a second bulletin of 100 words should be filed as soon as the additional facts are known.

The news in every dispatch should be given in the first paragraph, details following. A story should be told as briefly as is consistent with an intelligent statement of the facts.

Notify, if possible, the general office by mail at least a week in advance in regard to the date of every meeting of national and state organizations, and of any gathering or coming event not of a local character, including the state and congressional conventions of political parties announced to be held in your city. Instructions will be given you as to the[Pg 58] number of words to be sent in covering the events designated. All matter should be telegraphed unless “by mail” is specified in an order.

Advance copies of speeches and addresses of public men, and important platforms and resolutions of assemblies and conventions, whenever possible should be secured in advance and mailed to the general office to be held until released. All advance matter is to be sent “subject to release.” The time of release of advance matter should be stated instead of the edition for which the matter is released.

Accuracy, speed, and brevity are what we desire.

The correspondent should be fair toward all interests.

Do not send matter of merely local interest. Any matter sent must be of general or exceptional state interest.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Always have at hand several soft black pencils.
2. Take notes on folded copy paper rather than in a notebook.
3. Keep a pocket date-book for all future events and news possibilities.
4. Get all the news; don’t stop with half of it.
5. Run down every clue whenever the character of the news warrants it.
6. Work rapidly; don’t putter.
7. Don’t make the necessity for speed an excuse for carelessness or inaccuracy.
8. Be especially careful about names, initials, and addresses.
9. Don’t take rumors for facts.
10. Persevere until you get what you were sent for; don’t come back empty-handed.
11. Be resourceful in devising ways and means of getting news.
12. Study your paper to see to what kind of news it gives greatest space and prominence.
13. Familiarize yourself thoroughly with the whole city, and especially with every place on your own run.
14. Never neglect even for a day a news source on your regular run.
15. Make acquaintances among all classes of people with whom your work brings you in contact.
16. Interest your friends and acquaintances in your work so that they will coöperate with you in getting news.
17. Gather all news quietly and unobtrusively.
18. Be tactful with every one; never make an enemy.
19. Never betray a confidence no matter how big the “scoop” would be if you did.
20. Remember that you can always be both a gentleman and a good reporter.
21. Don’t take notes in interviewing.
22. Always know exactly what information you desire before beginning to interview a person.
23. Get advance copies of anything to be quoted directly or indirectly in a news story.
24. Mark the release date plainly at the beginning of all advance copies or stories.
25. Get photographs of persons and events if possible, and write a description on the back of the photographs.
26. File telegraph stories at the earliest possible moment.
27. Always follow instructions.
28. Mail stories, either by regular or special delivery, whenever they will surely reach the newspaper in time for the edition for which they are intended.
29. Never put off till to-morrow sending news that is new to-day.

CHAPTER IV

STRUCTURE AND STYLE IN NEWS STORIES

Writing the News. After the reporter has found the news and has collected all the important details concerning it, he must write it up for publication. To present the news effectively is as important as to get it. Many a good piece of news has been spoiled in the writing. The raw material of fact must be transformed skillfully into the finished product of the news story. The reporter is supposed to be able to write an adequate report. When he does not, the copy-reader or the “rewrite man” is called upon to make good the reporter’s failure. Ordinarily the copy-reader needs only to polish off the rough edges. The work of the good reporter ought to require little or no editing. The careless, slovenly writer is not a welcome addition to the staff of any paper. The less editing a reporter’s copy requires the more satisfactory will he be.

Essentials of Good Copy. The first essential of good copy is legibility. Typewritten copy, double or triple spaced, is always preferred. In long-hand writing, likewise, liberal space should be left between the lines and for margins. In such copy the “u’s” should be underscored and the “n’s” overscored in order to differentiate them. Proper names in long-hand copy should be printed to avoid errors in spelling. If the story is begun halfway down the first page, the copy-reader will have enough space on that sheet to write the headline. Quotation marks, or “quotes” as they are called, should be enclosed in half-circles, thus, “⁾stunt,⁽” to indicate whether they are beginning or end marks. A small cross may be used to advantage for a period. Numerical figures and abbreviations that are to be spelled out should be enclosed in a circle. Each paragraph should be indented, and the first word of it should be preceded by an inverted “L,” thus ⅃; if a new paragraph is desired where there was none in the copy as first written, the paragraph sign (¶) should be used. At the end of every complete story should be placed the end mark (#); if the story is incomplete, the word “more” is written beneath the last sentence. Additions to follow the last sentence of the story are marked with the name of the story and the abbreviation for additions; thus, “Add 2 Hotel Fire” means that the piece of copy is the second addition to the hotel fire story; “Add 1 Wilkins Suicide” means the first addition to the story of Wilkins’ suicide. Additions to be inserted in the story are marked “Insert A—Johnson Will Case” for the first insert in the “Will Case” story; “Insert B—Trolley Collision” for the second insert in the collision story. The place at which the new piece of copy is to be inserted is often indicated thus: “Insert after first paragraph of lead—Murder Trial.” Copy must never be written on both sides of the paper.

Style and Structure. In the writing of the news story two elements must be considered: (1) the style; and (2) the structure. The first has to do with the expression; the second with the arrangement of material.

Clearness. Clearness is the first requisite of newspaper style as it is of all writing. Newspapers are read rapidly, and rapid reading is possible only when the words yield their ideas with little effort on the part of the reader. The less the effort required to get the meaning, the more easily and rapidly can he read. Clearness is most readily obtained by comparative simplicity of style. However effective elaborate sentence construction, learned diction, and carefully wrought figures of speech may be in other kinds of writing, they ordinarily have no place in the news story. This does not mean that literary devices must be abandoned in newspaper writing or that newspaper style is bald and unattractive. News stories demand all the literary ability that the reporter possesses, for besides presenting the news clearly they must be interesting and attractive. Effectiveness in a simple style lies in that choice and arrangement of words which enables the reader to get the meaning with the least effort and the greatest interest.

Conciseness. Conciseness is the second essential of the style of the news story. This, again, does not mean that only the bare skeleton of news is required, for good news stories are clothed with flesh and blood to make them real and to give them human interest. Conciseness demands that not a single needless word shall be used, that every detail shall be necessary for the effectiveness of presentation, and that the length of the story shall be exactly proportionate to its interest and to its news value. If the reporter tests the value of each detail and can give a good reason for using it, he will not go far wrong as to the length of his story. If he can give an equally good reason for every word that he uses, his style is likely to have the desired conciseness.

Originality. Originality of expression in newspaper work is the quality that distinguishes the good writer from the fair and the mediocre ones. Constant rapid writing on similar subjects leads to the use of the same words and phrases over and over again. Trite, hackneyed expressions can be used with less effort and greater rapidity than is required to find new and fresh phrases, unless the writer has accustomed himself to think clearly and accurately in concrete, specific terms. The only way that the newspaper writer can make his work rise above the level of the average is by seeing more in persons and events than does the ordinary reporter and by expressing what he sees with greater freshness and individuality. The classic bit of advice given by Flaubert to De Maupassant, the French master of the short story, is of the greatest value to the newspaper reporter who would cultivate in his style both conciseness and originality. It is in part as follows:

Everything which one desires to express must be looked at with sufficient attention, and during a sufficiently long time, to discover in it some aspect no one has as yet seen or described. The smallest object contains something unknown. Find it.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is only one noun to express it, only one verb to give it life, only one adjective to qualify it. Search, then, till that noun, that verb, that adjective are discovered; never be content with “very nearly”; never have recourse to tricks, however happy; or to buffooneries of language, to avoid a difficulty.

This is the way to become original.

Typographical “Style.” For such details of typographical “style” as capitalization, abbreviation, hyphenation, and use of numerical figures, every newspaper has a set of special rules, generally printed in a so-called “style book,” that are invariably followed by copy-readers and compositors. When a reporter begins work on a newspaper, he should study carefully all these peculiarities, so that he may follow them in preparing his copy. He also should learn as quickly as possible the paper’s printed style rules, or, if there are no printed rules, he should study the news stories as examples of the practice followed in the office. Some newspapers have an “index expurgatorius,” or list of words and phrases to be avoided. These “don’ts” generally embody common errors of diction, but they not infrequently include also some pet aversions of the editor-in-chief, the managing editor, or the city editor, that are matters of preference rather than of good usage. Reporters will do well to observe carefully how their stories are changed by editors and copy-readers, and in all matters of style should make their work conform to the preferences of their superiors.

Paragraph Length. One of the distinctive peculiarities of newspaper style is the brevity of the paragraph. The width of newspaper columns permits about seven words in a line. The result is that a paragraph of the length usual in prose style generally, i.e., from 150 to 250 words, would occupy from 20 to 35 lines and would appear disproportionately long for its width. Paragraphs that are long, or appear to be so, make a piece of writing look solid and heavy, hence uninviting to the rapid reader. In newspaper work, accordingly, it has come to be recognized that shorter paragraphs are more effective. Paragraphs of from 50 to 150 words are considered the normal type for newspaper writing.

This means that often a paragraph, and particularly the first paragraph of a news story, consists of but one sentence. Paragraphs of two or three sentences are very frequent. A comparison of the structure of these short paragraphs with that of paragraphs in other kinds of prose, shows that what would be subdivisions, each with a sub-topic, in the common type of longer paragraphs, become independent paragraphs in newspaper style. The unity of the newspaper paragraph, therefore, is not less marked because of its brevity.

Sentence Length. Journalistic style has sometimes been said to be characterized by short, disconnected sentences that produce a choppy, staccato effect. Kipling, for example, is often described as “journalistic” in his abrupt short-sentence style. As a matter of fact the style of the American news story is marked neither by distinctly short sentences nor by particularly abrupt transitions. The sentences in news stories, on the whole, are as long as those in modern English prose generally. The first sentence of the story, which gives the gist of the news contained, is many times from 50 to 75 words in length, and is therefore to be classed as decidedly long.

Emphatic Beginnings. The emphasis given by initial position is especially important in news stories. The beginning rather than the end is the most emphatic position. The reason is obvious. As the eye glances down the column in reading rapidly, the first group of words in each paragraph stands out prominently. Any climactic effect with the strongest emphasis at the end is lost to the rapid reader unless he follows the development of the thought from sentence to sentence to the close of the paragraph. The important element if placed at the end of a long sentence, likewise, loses its emphasis for a rapid reader.

This principle of emphasis at the beginning determines the structure of the news story. Into the first paragraph, as the place of greatest prominence, is put the most important part of the news. Into the first group of words of the first sentence of each paragraph is placed, if possible, the most significant idea of the paragraph. The least important details go to the latter part of the story, so that unless the reader is particularly interested he need not follow through the account to the end; and so that, if necessary, parts may be cut off entirely without causing any loss that will be evident. The fitting together into columns of stories of different lengths after they are in type often requires that the last paragraph or paragraphs be cut off. This possibility adds to the importance of putting the least significant elements into the latter part of the story, and of concentrating the essentials at the beginning. It also requires that each paragraph be so rounded that it may serve as the end of the story if those following it have to be thrown away.

The “Lead.” The beginning, or “lead,” of the story is the part that requires the greatest skill in the choice, the arrangement, and the expression of the essential elements of the piece of news. Nowhere is it truer than in the news story that “Well begun is half done.” In the typical “lead” the reporter gives the reader in clear, concise, yet interesting form the gist of the whole story, emphasizing, or “playing up,” the “feature” of it that is most attractive. The “lead,” as the substance of the story, should tell the reader the nature of the event, the persons or things concerned, as well as the time, the place, the cause, and the result. These essential points are given in answer to the questions: What? Who? When? Where? Why? How?

The “lead” may consist of one paragraph or of several paragraphs according to the number and complexity of the details in the story. For short stories a one-paragraph “lead” consisting of a single sentence is often sufficient, because the gist of the news can be given in from 30 to 75 words. For a long, complex story consisting of several parts, each under a separate heading, an independent lead of a number of paragraphs may be written as a general introduction to the different parts. Usually, however, the lead is an integral part of the story, giving the substance of the news in a paragraph or two, in such form that all the rest of the story may be cut off without depriving the reader of any essential point.

“Playing up the Feature.” Before the reporter begins to write, he must determine what is the most significant and interesting phase of his piece of news; in other words, the “feature” of it. It is this phase that must be emphasized, “played up” or “featured,” as newspaper men say. As the “feature” of a piece of news is the most interesting phase of it, the reporter must apply to his raw materials of fact the tests of news values discussed in Chapter II. The element of his news, therefore, that will be of greatest interest to the greatest number as measured by these tests, he should select as the “feature.” In addition to the “feature” he must present all the important facts that are necessary to make clear the “feature” and its relation to the rest of the news of which it is a part.

In accordance with the principle of emphasis at the beginning of the paragraph, the “feature” of the story should be placed in the first group of words of the opening sentence of the lead. Although any of the essential points may be “played up,” some are less likely than others to deserve that emphasis. The time of the event, for example, is generally not a significant point in the story, and therefore stories should seldom begin with “Early this morning,” “At two o’clock this afternoon,” “Yesterday,” or similar unimportant phrases. Occasionally the exact hour of some action, such as the adjournment of Congress or of the state legislature, which has been anticipated but could not be definitely fixed in advance, has enough interest to warrant giving it the initial position in the lead. The names of persons should not be placed at the beginning unless they are sufficiently prominent to deserve this emphasis. When a man is not known to a number of readers, his name is of less interest than details of the news in which he is involved. Names of prominent persons, on the other hand, attract the desired attention at the beginning of the story. The place of the event is generally indicated by the date line in telegraph news, and is not played up in local news stories except in unusual cases. News stories should not begin with “At 116 Western Avenue,” “In the lobby of the Manhattan Theatre,” “On the corner of Williams and Chestnut streets,” “Near the New York Central Station,” for rarely is the exact location the most important point. Peculiar or important causes, results, or circumstances are likely to be the best features, because, as has been said, unusual, curious, new phases of activities have the greatest interest for most readers. How each of the different essential elements of the lead may be given emphasis in the initial position is shown in the following examples:

The Time

At 3:30 this afternoon the session of the legislature came to an end when the senate adjourned sine die.

The Place

In the lion’s cage of Barnum’s circus was performed last night the marriage ceremony uniting Miss Ada Rene, trapezist, and Arthur Hunt, keeper of the lions, Justice of the Peace Henry Duplain officiating from a safe distance outside the cage.

The Name

Governor Wilkins denied the rumor today that he will call a special session of the legislature to consider the defects in the primary election law passed at the last session.

The Event

Fire completely destroyed the four-story warehouse of the Marburg Furniture Co., 914 Oxford Street, today, causing a loss of $30,000, covered by insurance.

The Cause

The desire to have maple syrup on his pancakes led to the capture of Oscar Norrie, who was arrested by Deputy United States Marshal Congdon this morning charged with desertion from the army. He was on his way from his mother’s home, 116 Easton Street, to the nearby grocery store to buy some syrup.

The Result

Twenty miners are entombed in the Indian Creek Coal Company’s main shaft as the result of an explosion early this morning which blocked up the entrance, but which did not, it is believed, extend to the part of the mine where the men imprisoned were at work.

The Significant Circumstance

Posing as a gas meter inspector, a thief gained access to the home of John C. Schmidt, 1416 Cherry Lane, yesterday afternoon, and carried off a gold watch and a pocketbook containing $20.

How to Begin. The grammatical form in which the feature is presented in the first group of words of the lead varies according to the character of the point to be emphasized. Some of the convenient types of beginning are: (1) the subject of the sentence, (2) a participial phrase, (3) a prepositional phrase, (4) an infinitive phrase, (5) a dependent clause, (6) a substantive clause, and (7) a direct quotation.

The subject of the sentence frequently contains the most telling idea of the lead and therefore occupies the emphatic position at the beginning, as in the following stories:

(1)

Three unknown bandits robbed a conductor on the Hartford and North Haven Electric Railroad at the Westlawn siding shortly before midnight, and secured about $25. One of the robbers covered the motorman with a revolver while the other two went through the pockets of the conductor. No passengers were in the car.

(2)

Government ownership of telegraph lines is urged by Postmaster-General Hitchcock in his annual report made to Congress today.

(3)

Fire of unknown origin damaged the four story warehouse of Louis Berowitz & Co., wholesale wine dealers, 131 Arlington Court, early this morning, causing a loss of $5,000.

(4)

Vivid blue and green lights playing about Brooklyn Bridge led early risers to believe that the structure was on fire. A broken live wire coming in contact with a steel girder, electricians found, was responsible for the unexpected illumination.

A participial phrase, as the first group of words, is often a convenient form in which to “play up” a significant feature. The participle must always modify the subject of the sentence. The “hanging” or “dangling” participle which does not modify the subject, and the participle used substantively as the subject, are faults to be avoided. The effective use of the participial phrase is shown in the following leads:—

(1)

Speeding homeward from Europe to see their daughter who is ill in Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Spraugton arrived here on the Mauretania this morning and an hour later were on board an 18-hour train for Chicago.

(2)

Run down by her own automobile which she was cranking, Dr. Kate Mather, 151 97th Street, was seriously injured last night, near St. Luke’s Hospital.

(3)

Accused of embezzling $4,700 from the Erie Trust Company, John Fletcher, a bookkeeper employed by the company for three years, was arrested this morning.

(4)

While demonstrating a patent fire escape of his own invention, Oscar Winkel, a machinist, 1718 Amsterdam Avenue, fell from the second story of the apartment house at that number, and escaped with a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder.

Prepositional phrases, either adjective or adverbial, may be used to bring out an emphatic detail; for example:

(1)

With a million coal miners striking in England, with nearly a million out in Germany today, and with the prospect of a walk-out in France tomorrow, the coal supply of Europe will be seriously affected.

(2)

By sliding down three stories on a rope fire-escape, John Wilcox, wanted in New York for forgery, eluded City Detectives Dillingham and Bronson last night, while they were trying to gain access to his room in the Western House.

(3)

In the guise of a postoffice inspector, a bandit gained access to the mail car on the Occidental Limited of the Western Pacific Railroad, and after overpowering the clerks, rifled the registered mail sacks.

Infinitive phrases may be employed to advantage, as in the following cases:

(1)

To rescue his three-year-old son from death when his own home burned yesterday afternoon, fell to the lot of John Morrissey, of Engine 14, when, with his company, of which he was temporarily in charge, he responded to an alarm of fire from Box 976, near his home at 161 10th Street.

(2)

To prevent private monopoly of the water powers of the state, Senator H. G. Waters introduced a bill into the senate this noon providing for the purchase or control by the state of desirable sites for the development of water power.

Causal, concessive, conditional, and temporal clauses at the beginning of a story make possible the desired emphasis in an effective form; for example:

(1)

Because a multiplex money-making machine failed to transform tissue paper into crisp dollar bills, Jacob Montrid yesterday afternoon swore out a warrant for the arrest of Isaac Rosenbaum, 116 East Broadway, who had sold him the machine for $800.

(2)

Although Senator Cameron again refused yesterday to say that he would be a candidate for reëlection, his opponents claim that he has been planning a systematic campaign in his district for several weeks.

(3)

Unless the $150,000 guarantee fund for the democratic national convention Is raised before tomorrow night, the executive committee of the Commercial Club will not extend an invitation to the national democratic committee to hold the convention in this city next July.

(4)

While a surgeon was dressing a bullet wound in his arm at Williamstown Hospital, George Johnson, colored, was placed under arrest by Detectives Gilchrist and Hennessey, charged with shooting and seriously wounding Frank F. Taylor, a colored barber, 117 Washington Place.

A substantive clause as subject of the first sentence of the story is often convenient, particularly for an indirect quotation in reports of speeches, interviews, testimony, etc. The different forms available are shown in the following leads:

(1)

How the Standard Oil Company grew from a firm with $4,000 capital in 1867 to a $2,000,000 corporation in 1875, was told this morning by John D. Rockefeller in the course of the direct examination conducted by his attorney, John G. Milburn, in the suit for the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust before Special Examiner Franklin Ferris in the Custom House.

(2)

Why the United States needs an income tax, was explained by Senator William E. Borah in his address before the Progressive Republican Club in the Auditorium last night.

(3)

That the United States government should operate a number of coal mines in Alaska and that it should take as its share approximately 25 per cent of the net profits on all coal development by private lease on the public domain in the territory, was the plan offered today by Senator Hitchcock of Nebraska, a member of the territories committee which is hearing the Alaska railroad testimony.

A direct quotation at the beginning is the means of getting before the reader at once the important statement of a speech, report, interview, confession, etc. The following examples and those given in the discussion of reports of speeches and interviews in Chapter VI illustrate the effective use of the quotation.

(1)

“I took the shoes so that my little girl could go to school on Monday,” was the defense that John Hoppiman offered in the Police Court this morning when charged with stealing a pair of shoes from the Palace Shoe Company’s store on Eagle Street last night.

(2)

“No cigarettes sold to minors” is the sign conspicuously posted in all places where tobacco is sold, because the new ordinance recently passed by the board of aldermen went into effect today.

Beginnings to be Avoided. The rule that a news story should never begin with the articles “a,” “an,” or “the,” is neither supported by actual newspaper practice nor based on entirely sound principles. Good emphasis at the beginning is what such a rule strives to secure and in so far as it calls attention to the desirability of beginning the story with an important word in place of an article, it is justified. Often, however, in order to get the most significant element into the first group of words it is absolutely necessary to use one of the articles. Sometimes an article is unnecessary before the noun at the beginning; for example: “Fire destroyed,” etc., is more concise than, “A fire destroyed,” etc., and, “Government ownership of telegraph lines was urged,” than, “The government ownership of telegraph lines was urged.”

Numerical figures should not be used at the beginning of any sentence in a news story. To avoid putting the figures first when round numbers are given, such forms may be used as, “About 250 students,” “Over 1,200 chickens,” “Nearly 750 gallons of milk.” If it is considered desirable to have numbers at the very beginning, they may be spelled out, thus: “Three thousand citizens greeted,” etc., “Two hundred pounds of candy were strewn along Broadway,” etc.

Explanatory Matter. In the lead of all stories of events that are closely associated with preceding events, such as “follow-up” stories, it is customary to give briefly sufficient explanatory information to make the event described clear in its relations to the earlier ones. This is necessary because readers may have overlooked the stories of the preceding occurrences. An explanatory phrase or clause is generally sufficient, but sometimes a whole sentence is necessary.

Unconventional Leads. In place of the usual summary lead containing all the essential points of the event, some stories begin with the particulars leading up to the event and thus keep the reader in suspense as to the nature and result of the happening until he has read the greater part of the story. These stories in their structure approximate fictitious narratives such as the short story. Various forms of beginnings that depart from the normal summary lead are illustrated by the following examples:

(1)

Half a dozen clerks were standing near the big vault in the Chelsea National Bank this afternoon, their backs toward the street.

A blinding flash filled them with terror, and taking it for granted that another earthquake had visited the[Pg 76] city, they jumped into the big vault and shut the door.

When they tried to get out they could not. Some time later when the cashier saw the door closed, he opened it and found the clerks nearly smothered.

A Wilson banner, soaked with rain, had fallen across a trolley wire and caused the flash.

(2)

“What time is it, please?” asked an innocent looking blond boy in short trousers of Harry G. Lampe on the steps of his hotel at 101 Johnson Street last night.

“I haven’t a watch,” said Lampe politely. The boy pulled one out and explained that it was 7:30, whereupon they fell into a conversation and Lampe went upstairs in great good humor, only to come running down again. Two sets of false teeth were gone from his back trousers pocket—all the teeth he had in the world.

The boy was seen talking to a group of men and was taken to the White Street station.

Strange to relate, Sergeant William McCarthy, until recently a marine in the Washington Navy Yard, was there explaining to the desk lieutenant how a blond haired boy had just asked to carry his suit-case containing clothes, discharge papers from a twenty-three years’ army service, and medals for bravery.

“Sure, he said he’d show me a good hotel and we came to a doorway that was dark. Just like that the wallops came, and me not being able to see who was hitting me. They took my bag and my watch and when I got up and felt for my purse they grabbed that, too; $140 was in it.” The door opened on the stealer of teeth. “That’s him, B’ George!”

So it happened that the child stood before Magistrate Hinton in the[Pg 77] Tombs court today on two charges of larceny.

“Stand up,” said the court, and noting everything, blond curls downward, pronounced: “You are a most interesting psychological and sociological study, sir.”

Detective De Groat said that the youth worked for a gang as Oliver Twist once did. Despite his youth and apparent innocence, therefore, he was held in $2,500 bail for the Grand Jury.

(3)

Two men knocked on the door of Mrs. Mary Martin’s apartment at 210 Easton Place yesterday afternoon and said they had come to fix the gas meter. Mrs. Martin through the keyhole told them to go right away, but they kicked down the door instead and walked in.

The woman got out on the fire escape and yelled for help, while the men put the parlor clock in a bag and rummaged about in search of money.

Policeman Cox answered Mrs. Martin’s call for help and ran upstairs. The men heard him coming and scrambled out of a skylight to the roof. Cox followed, but the two had disappeared.

In their flight, however, they spilled a bag of flour over their clothes, and so when Policeman Cox, two hours later, saw two men with their shoulders white with flour, carrying a bag down First Avenue, he arrested them.

Mrs. Martin identified the men as William Kelley and James Hammond, and said they had both lived in the house where her apartment is.

They were locked up on a charge of burglary.

(4)

Mary Hand, 7 years old, who was run down by a mail automobile last night in Third Avenue at Seventy-fourth Street, said she wasn’t hurt and asked to go home.

[Pg 78]

“Please don’t arrest that man,” she added, pointing to the driver; “he didn’t mean to hurt me.” So Policeman O’Reilley took the chauffeur’s name and address, Henry P. Miller, 117 Walnut Street, and let him go on his way with the mail.

The policeman insisted on sending Mary to the hospital though she wasn’t scratched. She had been there just one hour when she died. The hospital folk said they couldn’t account for it, except by undetected internal injuries that she might have sustained.

The little girl was the daughter of John Hand, 214 East Holton Avenue. On hearing of her death the police at once began a search for Miller, the chauffeur.

Another example of this type of story that follows the chronological order instead of beginning with a summary of the facts, is the following from the New York Sun, in which it was printed at the top of a column on the first page:

Tom Flynn, a coal passer who works next to the Fort Lee Ferry over on the Jersey side, was gazing dreamily out over the Hudson early yesterday morning. Suddenly he dropped his shovel and let out a wild yell.

“Gee whiz, look Bill!” he said to his fellow worker. “There’s a deer out there on the ice.”

About 200 feet off shore a red doe was floating down stream, poised on a large cake of ice. Pretty soon another cake drifted along and jostled the doe’s floe and she slid gracefully into the water and started for shore.

Flynn gave the alarm, and although this is not the open season in New Jersey, the game laws were disregarded and in a few minutes fifty odd deckhands, ticket takers, and commuters were engaged in a deer hunt.[Pg 79] Boat hooks, brooms, and shovels were immediately pressed into service, and the excited crowd waited for the deer to come ashore.

When the doe saw them she changed her direction, veering toward the ferry-boat Englewood, which is hibernating in the Edgewater slip, and took refuge in the lee of the paddle wheel. Having rested, the deer swam out into open water, headed directly for the ferry slip and splashed merrily about below the astonished crowd of amateur stalkers. Someone got a rope and attempted to noose the animal, but she couldn’t see it that way, calmly ducked and continued to cavort about in the water.

Finally the doe became bored, dove under the edge of the slip, and was lost to sight momentarily. She then appeared on the other side of the ferry house. Before the crowd could reach her, she scrambled ashore opposite Terry Terhune’s Dairy Lunch, looked wonderingly into Gantert Bros,’ thirst quenching parlors, dashed up Dempsey Avenue and with a whisk of her tail disappeared up the mountain beyond Palisade Park.

“Well, suffering Jumbo!” said Tom Flynn, “these guys don’t know nothing about deer catching,” and he went sadly back to his coal car.

Several weeks ago three deer escaped from the Harriman preserves up the river, and the doe of yesterday’s chase is supposed to be one of them.

Originality in the treatment of the ordinary material of a news story is illustrated in the following beginning of a report of a conference on rural problems.

The little red schoolhouse and the big yellow ear of corn, how to develop each and how to correlate their interests, was the problem discussed yesterday afternoon by a committee[Pg 80] of the Wisconsin Bankers’ association and a number of distinguished educators and public officials. After the meeting at agricultural hall was over, it was apparent that the problem of the big ear of corn was in a fair way of solution, but the little red schoolhouse still remained an enigma.

The various speakers painted glowing pictures of how two ears of corn could be made to grow where one or none is growing now, and how farm life could be beautified and uplifted so that the boys and girls would quit rushing to the cities to add to the poverty of the nation and would remain on the soil to add to the country’s wealth. How to hook the country schoolhouse on this uplift movement did not seem so easy. The various educators present who knew something of the problem it presented, smiled at the altruistic simplicity of the bankers in taking up the problem and were loud in their praise of the monied men for so doing. The bankers could count on co-operation, they said.

The meeting was an informal conference between the committee on agricultural development and education of the Wisconsin Bankers’ association and other organized activities along allied lines, and was held in a classroom of agricultural hall. L. A. Baker, of New Richmond, chairman of the committee, presided.

How a bit of police court news may be worked up into a story the lead of which piques the reader’s curiosity, is shown in the following story from the New York Sun:

It took only two eggs in the hands of Annie Gallagher, a cook, buxom and blond, to spoil a sunset. That is why Annie was in the West Side police court yesterday. She had been summoned by Jacob Yourowski.

Yourowski, who is a sign painter, works at 355 Columbus avenue, next door to 64 West Seventy-second street, where Annie is employed. He was painting a sunset as a background for an advertising sign last Monday when the trouble began.

“I was on the ladder,” he told Magistrate Steinert, “when I was struck by some eggshells. I watched the open window where this woman is employed and pretty soon I saw her peeking out. At first I took it as a joke.”

“Pretty soon there were some more shells. I caught her looking out the window. So in a playful manner I made believe to throw back at her.”

“Judge, then the eggs came at me strong. They weren’t only shells; they had the goods. Pretty soon my sunset looked like an omelet. Then I got mad.”

“Yes,” interrupted Annie, “and in his anger he threw ice in the window at me. One piece struck me and hurt me. Then I got mad and dumped the hot water on him.”

The cook was held in $300 bonds to insure future good behavior.

Another example of an opening that stimulates the reader’s desire to know more of an unusual incident is seen in the following story:

If it hadn’t been for a woman’s curiosity Wadislaus Brinko, who owns a Lithuanian rooming house at 231 East Hain street, wouldn’t have confessed to the police yesterday that he shot and killed Jacob Watus, a roomer in his house, on Oct. 23.

A coroner’s inquest was proceeding in a routine way the day following the shooting and the jury was about to render a verdict of death by suicide, when Mrs. Anna Hannok, 416 Highland place, appeared on the scene. She had been attracted by the crowd outside the undertaking rooms, she said.

[Pg 82]The testimony up to the time of Mrs. Hannok’s appearance had plainly indicated suicide. Suddenly she electrified the jury by pointing to Brinko and crying:

“Ask him where he got the gun.”

The inquiry, interrupted by this dramatic incident, was adjourned until yesterday. Shortly before the inquest was resumed, Brinko broke down and admitted that he had killed Watus. He asserted, however, that it was an accident.

Distinctive beginnings which are also calculated to attract attention by reason of the question form are shown in the following stories taken from the Chicago Tribune:

(1)

Have you lost a $1,000 bill?

No, this isn’t a joke; have you?

Somebody was so careless as to drop a $1,000 bill in the lobby of the Majestic Theatre on Friday afternoon. And if some theatre-goer had held his head a trifle lower he might have seen the currency and not stepped on it.

The bill was dropped near the box office as the audience was entering the house for the matinee. Just when it fell to the tile floor and how long it was kicked around nobody knows. Herbert Klein, the doorman, happened to glance at the floor and saw a piece of paper. Persons were walking over it. He took another look and then he reached for it. Walking back to the door where the light was better he slyly took a peek at it. He saw the big yellow “M” and whistled. He hurried to the office of A. S. Rivers, treasurer of the theatre. He did not wait for the elevator.

Mr. Rivers placed the $1,000 bill in the vault, where he thinks $1,000 bills belong. He was somewhat surprised yesterday when there was no inquiry for the money. Then he became suspicious. Thinking the bill might be[Pg 83] one of the notes of the $173,000 in government money that disappeared from the Chicago subtreasury two years ago, he notified Capt. Thomas I. Porter and Peter Drautzberg of the secret service bureau.

The number of the bill was sent to the treasury department at Washington. It is not known whether the government possesses the numbers of the $1,000 bills which were missed from the subtreasury.

(2)

“Shall we shoot old preachers?”

Several aged ministers attending the Rock River conference at the First Methodist Church of Evanston sat bolt upright in their seats last evening when Rev. George P. Eckman, editor of the Christian Advocate of New York, asked the question. They blinked hard and in unison when he repeated it.

“Shall we shoot old preachers?”

A general sigh of relief was heard when he offered his explanation.

“We might as well shoot them,” he said, “as let them starve on the pitiably small incomes which some of them have. Shooting them would be more humane. They have served long and useful lives. Why should their last days be spent in want and suffering?”

Rev. Eckman was the principal speaker at the anniversary of the Society for Superannuated Preachers. He dwelt at length on the increasing hardships that confront the preacher who has grown too old to perform active service.

(3)

Who is responsible for the collapse of the Pearl Theatre in Western avenue?

Who permitted the construction of a roof which the results show was a menace to the lives of many people[Pg 84] from the time the theatre was opened?

How much of the blame is on the city building department?

How much blame attaches to the city council?

How about the architect and the owner of the theatre?

How many other Chicago theatres—picture theatres and theatres of various types—are as dangerous potentially as was the Pearl theatre?

Questions such as these will be met by the council committee on buildings, which tomorrow will take up an inquiry into the Pearl 5-cent theatre case. The roof of the Pearl, Western avenue and Downey street, caved in last Monday morning and a disaster was averted because no show was in progress at the time.

A type of lead that has some vogue has a very short first sentence that usually states the most significant fact in the story. This short statement may be followed by a longer explanatory one that contains the other essential details, or by a series of short sentences each of which contains an important detail. This kind of lead is in reality only the breaking up of the long one-sentence lead containing all the essentials, into two or more shorter sentences. Greater emphasis is thus gained for the particulars set off in the short sentences. Examples of these leads are:

(1)

Col. Roosevelt is back. He spoke tonight at Madison Square Garden to 15,000 people. They cheered him for forty-two minutes.

There was no indication throughout this storm of applause that it was anything but spontaneous. It was directed at Col. Roosevelt himself.

(2)

The “fatherless frog” is in Washington. He arrived here this morning. He has two big bulging green[Pg 85] eyes, a big white throat, and for all the world looks just the same as millions of his brothers who occupy thrones on lily pads in some muddy creek. According to Prof. Jacques Loeb of the Rockefeller Institute of Research, however, this particular Mr. Frog, on exhibition before the Congress of Hygiene and Demography here, was hatched from the egg of a female by chemical process.

While visitors are greatly interested in this orphan frog, learned professors are busy challenging his chemical parentage.

Professor Loeb says that his fatherless frog is the culmination of years of effort and that with but little more study he will be able to produce other forms of life resulting from his study of parthenogenesis.

In the less conventional types of leads, various beginnings are used, often to excellent advantage, for novelty and variety. The two examples given below show some marked departures from the usual kinds of beginnings.

(1)

I SOLD YOU THE GLASSES

NOT THE COMET

By this sign displayed to-day in an optical shop in Fifth Avenue, a dealer in binoculars, who is weary of explaining that he is not responsible for unsatisfactory views of Halley’s comet, hopes to make plain his position to customers that desire to return their purchases.

(2)

WANTED—Young woman as governess for ten year old child, to travel through Europe this summer. Give references, age, and experience. Address E 740, Times Office.

This[Pg 86] innocent looking advertisement in the Times led to the arrest of William Houghton, alias Wilson Hulton, at the National Hotel yesterday afternoon on the charge of swindling Miss Fannie Hopkins, Denver, out of $200 last month, by means of a similarly alluring advertisement in the Denver papers.

“Boxed” Summaries. To give greater prominence to interesting statistics, summaries, excerpts, and lists than is possible in the lead, these facts are often put before the regular lead, usually surrounded by a frame or “box,” and printed in black face type. Although this arrangement is determined by the editors and copy readers, the reporter may select and group significant facts in such a way that those who edit his copy can readily mark them to be “boxed” and set in the desired kind of type. Lists of dead and injured in accidents; telling statements from speeches, reports, or testimony; statistics of interest; summaries of facts; and brief histories of events connected with the news story at hand, are frequently treated in this way. If not placed before the lead, these “boxed” facts are put at a convenient place in the body of the story. Brief bulletins, likewise, containing the latest news are often “boxed” and set in heavier type.

(1)

Over a million dollars’ worth of property on South Point was consumed[Pg 87] within two hours yesterday afternoon when fire destroyed Elevator B of the Northern Elevator Company and the dock of the Western Pacific Railroad Company, and imperiled surrounding property valued at another million.

(2)

REPUBLICAN STATE PLATFORM

Repudiation of Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.

Non-Partisan Tariff Commission.

Government Regulation of Monopolies.

Taxation of Water Powers.

Conservation of Natural Resources.

National Income Tax.

Limited Hours of Labor for Women and Children.

Popular Election of U. S. Senators.

Employers’ Liability Laws.

Workingmen’s Compensation Acts.

With the adoption of a strong platform on state and national issues, the Republican State Convention came to a close late last night.

(3)

TAFT ON THE IRISH

They have accentuated American wit.

They have added to American tenderness.

They have perhaps instilled in the American a little additional pugnacity.

They have increased his poetic imagination.

They have made him more of an optimist.

They have suffused his whole existence with the spirit of kindly humor.

Eight hundred members of the Charitable Irish Society gave President Taft a notable ovation at their 175th annual dinner held at the Hotel Somerset last night.

(4)

TROLLEY CRASH VICTIMS

The Killed

Muckly, Mrs. Theresa, 47 years, cook, 1916 Flushing Avenue.

Flesner, Jacob, 26 years, machinist, 2717 Hawthorn Street.

Block, Marie, 16 years, cash girl, 616 Parkway.

The Injured

Claxton, Mary, 10 years, 1414 Cedar Street, broken nose, scalp wounds, St. Mary’s Hospital.

Shumacher, Mrs. Ida, 42 years, 191 12th Avenue, right arm broken, internal injuries, St. Mary’s Hospital.

Perkins, Charles, 31 years, 157 Washington Street, dislocated hip, scalp cut, Roosevelt Hospital.

Three passengers were killed, three seriously injured, and a dozen more badly shaken up when a south bound trolley car on the Wellington Park line crashed into one ahead that had stopped to take in passengers, at Fifty-second Avenue and Howard Place last night.

The Body of the Story. Following the lead is the body of the story, which generally consists of a more or less detailed account of the event. The main part of the report usually presents the incidents in the order in which they took place. In choice and arrangement of particulars, therefore, it does not differ from narration in general. As in all narration, so in news stories, it is essential to pick out those particulars that are most interesting and most significant in relation to the feature of the news. If the details are arranged in chronological order and this order is made evident by means of connective words and phrases, the reader can follow the account easily from beginning to end.

All of the methods used by writers of fiction to make short stories and novels realistic and attractive may be applied to the writing of news. Concise descriptive touches that suggest the picture rather than portray it by detailed description, are always effective. Accounts of eye-witnesses, exclamations and remarks made by the bystanders, comments by those concerned, dialogue between persons involved, when given in the form of direct quotations, all add to the life and interest of the story. Every legitimate literary device can be used to advantage in the writing of the day’s news, provided that it does not require too much space, for above everything else the news story must be concise.

Good emphasis at the beginning of each paragraph should always be sought, because in rapid reading, as has already been pointed out, the eye catches first the initial group of words at each indention. Unimportant connective phrases and clauses should seldom be given this position of prominence, but should be buried in the sentence. The emphasis at the end of each paragraph in the news story is not great and can therefore be disregarded. Although each paragraph need not end emphatically, it should be rounded out to give the effect of completeness.

The organization of details in the body of a story is shown in the account of a train robbery given below:

Spokane, Wash., March 15—In the guise of a postoffice inspector, a bandit obtained admittance to the postal car on the Great Northern Oriental Limited at Bonners Ferry, Idaho, early this morning, and after overpowering the two clerks, calmly rifled the through registered mail pouches while the train was proceeding to Spokane.

During the run of over 100 miles to Spokane, the robber received the mail at three stations where the train[Pg 90] stopped and threw off the newspaper mail.

Just before the train entered the yards here, the bandit leaped from the car and, with the booty in a small satchel, made his escape. It is not known how much money and valuables the bandit obtained, but it is supposed he got a big haul. Six registered mail sacks were cut and their contents rifled.

When the train reached this city, John Wilson, one of the postal clerks, was found locked in the clothes closet, while Henry Devine, the other, was under the table with a jumper drawn over his head and his arms tightly bound with a rope. It was then that the story of the robbery was learned.

When the train stopped at Bonners Ferry at four o’clock this morning, a man came to the door of the postal car, and throwing in a mail sack and a small satchel, announced that he was R. F. Burton, a postoffice inspector.

“I will return in a few minutes and ride with you to Spokane,” he said to Wilson, the clerk on duty. Devine, the other, was asleep under the table that was covered with mail sacks.

After the man left the car, Wilson awoke Devine, and told him that an inspector was to ride with them to this city, and that he, Wilson, would awaken him again shortly.

Just before the train started from the Idaho town, the man entered the car again. “Is there any mail for me?” he inquired of the clerk. “There ought to be some. Please look.”

Wilson looked over some mail and when he turned around to inform the supposed inspector that there was none, he found a big revolver pointed at his head.

The robber, after warning the clerk to make no outcry, ordered him to[Pg 91] get into the clothes closet, which is scarcely large enough to permit a man to stand erect.

Ignorant of the robbery that was going on in the car, Devine continued to sleep. Finally when the train was leaving Big Bend, Devine awoke and, looking up from underneath the table, saw the stranger opening letters.

As Devine crawled out, the bandit whipped out a revolver from his overcoat pocket.

“Keep quiet, or I’ll blow your head off,” he commanded.

The robber then threw a jumper over the clerk’s head, bound his hands behind him, and pushed him under the table where he had been asleep.

When a story covers considerable time because the incidents leading up to the principal event took place a week or more before, care must be taken to keep the time element before the readers in order to make the series of incidents clear in their relation to one another. The following story shows the arrangement of material in such a story:

Because he unknowingly tried to swindle the same young woman twice within three weeks by means of a “want ad,” Arthur M. Howell, who says his home is in Yukon, Alaska, was arrested at the Hixon Hotel last night. The similarity of a “want ad” in the Sun a few days ago to one in a Denver paper recently, led Miss Emma Bunde of Denver, who had been swindled out of $280, to notify the local police, and through her efforts Howell was placed under arrest.

When, three weeks ago, an advertisement appeared in the Denver paper for a young woman to act as secretary to a business man during a three months’ trip through Europe, Miss Emma Bunde, then a stenographer in a railroad office in Denver,[Pg 92] answered it, offering her services. In reply to her application, Howell arranged a meeting with her and engaged her for the position.

At her new employer’s suggestion, she withdrew her savings amounting to $280 from one of the Denver banks, and accompanied him to Kansas City. When they arrived there, he offered to take her money for safe keeping and she entrusted the whole amount to him. At the same time he gave her $25, as an advance payment on her salary, and told her that they would continue their journey that afternoon after he had transacted some business.

When she returned to the hotel after a shopping tour in which she had bought a dress for $22.50, she found a note from her employer, which informed her that he had been suddenly called to Columbia, Mo., on business. A railroad ticket and sleeping car reservation were enclosed with the note which requested her to proceed to St. Louis that night and meet him the following day at a hotel in St. Louis.

Miss Bunde went to St. Louis and awaited the arrival of Howell at the hotel designated. After waiting in vain for a week, she decided that she was the victim of a clever swindling game. Being without funds she wrote to friends here and with their aid came to this city.

In looking through the “want ads” in the Sun last Friday, she came upon an advertisement for a young woman secretary to accompany a business man on a tour throughout the states and Alaska. The similarity of this “ad” and that which she had answered in Denver, led her to inform the police of her suspicion that the author was the same person who had taken her money. Detectives were at once detailed to watch for Howell when he called for replies to his advertisement at the Sun office.

The[Pg 93] young woman in reply to the advertisement again offered her services as secretary, giving a fictitious name but her real telephone number. The advertiser failed to call for his mail for nearly a week, and the detectives abandoned their watch. Then on Wednesday Howell called at the Sun office where he found twenty letters, including the one from Miss Bunde.

Unfortunately for the swindler, the first letter that he opened was evidently Miss Bunde’s, for he called her up Wednesday afternoon and made an appointment at the Hixon Hotel for last evening.

She at once notified the police and Detective Sullivan was detailed to accompany her to the hotel. When Howell appeared and recognized Miss Bunde as his Denver victim, he endeavored to leave but was arrested by Sullivan.

At the police station he gave his address as Yukon, Alaska. In his pockets were found letters from several Kansas City women who had replied to his advertisements in that city, and the police believe that he is wanted in other places on similar charges.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Write legibly; use a typewriter whenever possible.
2. Double or triple space your typewritten or longhand copy.
3. Never write on both sides of the sheet.
4. Make your meaning absolutely clear to the rapid reader.
5. Be concise; don’t use needless words.
6. Use superlatives sparingly.
7. Find the one noun to express the idea, the one adjective, if necessary, to qualify it, and the one verb needed to give it life.
8. Get life and action into your story whenever circumstances warrant.
9. Use original expressions; avoid trite and hackneyed phrases.
10. Remember that every one of your mistakes adds to the work of your superiors.
11. Study and follow the peculiarities of the style of your paper.
12. Make your paragraphs short and concise.
13. Avoid choppy, disconnected short sentences.
14. Don’t overload the first sentence by elaborating on the essential points.
15. Select the most interesting phase of the news as the “feature” of the story.
16. Put the “feature” in the first group of words at the beginning of the lead.
17. Answer satisfactorily in the “lead” the questions—Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?
18. Seldom “play up” the time or place as the feature.
19. Avoid the hanging, or dangling, participle, particularly at the beginning of the lead.
20. Don’t put important particulars of the story in the last paragraphs where they may be cut off in the “make-up.”
21. Avoid beginning successive paragraphs with the same phrase or construction.
22. Use an unconventional form of “lead” when the news justifies it.
23. Tabulate on a separate sheet significant statistics, lists, excerpts, or summaries, so that they may be “boxed.”
24. Don’t suppress news; refer all requests for such suppression to your superiors.
25. Put the mark (#), or the figures 30 enclosed in a circle, at the end of every story.

PRACTICE WORK

(1) Point out the faults in the following story and correct them by rewriting it.

Suspected of starting over a score of fires in the downtown district within a month and confessing starting nineteen, with six[Pg 95] false alarms in three months, Henry Handifort, a South Side boy, was arrested after a fire early today.

In a confession to the police Handifort, who is 16 years of age, said he began his career as a firebug when 5 years old, but after starting three fires was so punished by his parents that he refrained from further operations until a few months ago. He said his ambition was to be a fireman and that he started the fires to be on hand when the firemen came so he could help them. He said he enjoyed seeing the apparatus turn out.

The fires to which he confessed caused a total loss of $25,000. His climax came Sunday night, when three fires caused $8,000 loss. The boy, then under suspicion, was watched carefully, and a fire early today brought his arrest.

(2) What are the faults in the following story printed in a weekly paper, and how should they be corrected in rewriting?

Mr. Ed. Williams of this city met with a very severe and painful accident in the zinc works in this city.

Mr. Williams, who is employed as a cart driver at the works, was performing his usual duties, when in some way the horse became frightened and started to run away. Ed was thrown out of the heavy ore cart and fell in such a position, that the wheels of the cart passed over his body, causing severe injuries to his head and fracturing four ribs, besides bruising him internally. He was at once taken to the hospital rooms of Dr. Hulton, where his injuries were dressed. He was then conveyed to his home, where he is recovering nicely at present. It will be some time however before he will be at his post again.

(3) What is the weakness of the following story and how could you improve it by rewriting?

Mrs. William Black, wife of the caretaker of the Yewdale Yacht Club house, which is on the end of the long bulkhead of the South Basin at the foot of Ring street, Lawton Park, sent her eleven-year-old daughter, Madelaine, to Dresden Avenue yesterday morning to get some oranges.

Mrs. Black sat by an upper window of the club house waiting for Madelaine to come back. Pretty soon the little girl put in an appearance. The wind was blowing so hard that the mother feared for the child’s safety and she arose to go to her assistance. When she looked out of the window again, Madelaine had disappeared. She hurried out and saw the child’s cloak floating on the water.

Charles Blaine, a sailor on the yacht Elizabeth E., and Otto Grey of the schooner John Bull, dived for the body several times before Blaine succeeded in bringing it up.

The child’s father is on a fishing trip to Block Island.

(4) Play up the unusual element in this story by putting it in the first group of words.

Mrs. Minnie Greene, a colored janitress, was burned to the point of death by a fire started by the son’s rays focused by a large reflector which she carried. Mrs. Greene, with the big brass reflector under her arm, was standing in front of the First Presbyterian church when suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her left leg. Looking down she saw that her skirt was afire. Screaming in terror she ran down the street and in and out of three stores before she could be stopped by two policemen. It is not believed that she can recover.

(5) Compare the leads of the two following stories of the same event, pointing out their merits and defects; then write a new lead embodying the best points of each.

(1)

Princeton, N.J., Nov. 3—Governor Woodrow Wilson had a narrow escape from serious injury at an early hour this morning when the automobile in which he was returning home from Red Bank ran into a rut in the main street leading into the little village of Hightstown, throwing him with great force against the top of the limousine, inflicting a painful cut in the top of his head.

When he appeared in his library this afternoon to meet many callers and the newspaper men the governor wore across the top of his head a broad plaster bandage, covering part of the scalp that had been shaved when the cut was dressed.

Captain “Silent Bill” McDonald, the Texas ranger traveling companion of the governor, received a severe jolt, but escaped any other injury than a bruise on his neck.

(2)

Princeton, N.J., Nov. 3—Gov. Woodrow Wilson wears a strip of collodion and gauze across the top of his head covering a scalp wound three inches long which he received early on Sunday in a motor mishap on the way home from Red Bank, N.J. His automobile struck a mound in the road and jolted him up against a steel rib in the roof of the limousine car.

The wound is not serious and the democratic presidential nominee will fulfill his speaking engagements in Paterson and Passaic, N.J., on Monday.

At night the governor was in the parlor of his home the center of a group of friends. There was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had met with any mishap. He said he did not feel the wound in the slightest degree and had not even developed a headache from it.

“I guess I’m too hardheaded to be hurt,” he said smilingly as he received the correspondents.

The mishap occurred in the early hours of the morning. The governor had spoken at Red Bank and left for Princeton, a distance of forty-five miles, shortly before 11 o’clock. He rode in the limousine car of Abraham I. Elkus, a New York lawyer who lives at Red Bank, accompanied by Capt. William J. McDonald, his personal body guard, who was shaken up and bruised.

(6) Criticize the following story and rewrite it in accordance with your criticism.

Another hero of the sea was disclosed today through a collision of the Norwegian steamer Noreuga with the Norwegian sailing ship Glenlui. It appeared that he saved, not only the passengers and crews, but the ships.

The Noreuga arrived at Norfolk last night in a sinking condition in tow of the revenue cutter Onondaga and is preparing to dock. The Glenlui is expected later.

The Noreuga will be repaired at the Newport News ship yards, where its eleven passengers, including eight women, and its freight will be transferred to the steamship Mexicana. The passengers were brought to port on the Onondaga.

The man to whom credit is given is the wireless operator on the Noreuga who declined to tell his name and whose desire to avoid notoriety was respected by Captain Hansen.

When the crew favored deserting the stricken Noreuga after the collision last Friday the wireless operator refused to leave his post. With death riding the gale he continued to flash his appeals for help. He succeeded finally in raising both shore stations and vessels of the Atlantic fleet. The rescue of the Norse vessels was accomplished as they were about to founder.

(7) From the following account, as given by an eye-witness, write a news story for a local daily paper.

John Quinn, foreman of the E. J. Mackey Co., 356 W. 40th St., gave the following account of an accident in his plant this noon:

“I was working on the fifth floor of our new six story warehouse just before dinner time today when Oscar Taub who lives out at 216 W. 139th St., one of the men who works for us, came up and said that Mr. Mackey wanted him to find out how much whiskey there was in the big tank on my floor. Taub put a ladder against the side of the big tank and, catching hold of the cord of one of the electric lights, started up to the top of the tank. When he got up to the top he called to me saying that there were 7,705 gallons of whiskey in it. When he started down the ladder again, the bulb of the electric light slipped from his hand and broke on the edge of the tank.”

“Then there was a big explosion and I saw Taub flying through the air against the side of the wall about 30 feet away.[Pg 98] Then the whiskey in the tank started to burn and the flames spread out along the ceiling as if the tank were a big furnace. When I saw that the whiskey was afire, I jumped over to turn on the outlet valve so that the whiskey would run off into the drain pipe. I turned on the water so it would run into the tank and put out the fire. I hurried over to see if Taub was hurt, for the water had put out the blaze and all of the whiskey was running out into the sewer. I found Taub lying against the wall unconscious with his hands and face burned. I was just going to carry him over to the elevator when the firemen came rushing up. I told them the fire was out and asked them to help me carry Taub downstairs. Then Mr. Mackey called the ambulance and they took Taub who had regained consciousness and was groaning with pain from his burns to Roosevelt Hospital.

“There wasn’t any damage done but we lost all the whiskey and I guess the building would have burned if I hadn’t let the whiskey run out and turned on the water. The ambulance doctor said Taub would be able to get back to work in about a week.”

(8) Compare these three stories in regard to the effectiveness of the introductory statement.

(1)

Within hailing distance of several costly north shore residences, Henry Hoskin, 132 Welcome place, was held up late last evening and robbed of $14 and a watch. Hoskin was crossing Bellevue place on Lake Shore drive when a black limousine car drove up and a man with a revolver leaped out in front of the pedestrian. Hoskin turned over his money promptly. The robber jumped back into the car, where Hoskin could see two others, and the car dashed on to the north.

(2)

The latest thing in highway robbery is to have a $7,000 limousine and a handsome chauffeur, and then to watch for victims strolling through fashionable neighborhoods. Henry Hoskin, who lives at 132 Welcome Place, was a victim at 1 o’clock this morning.

“I was just passing Harold McCormick’s mansion at the Lake Shore Drive and Bellevue Place,” he said,[Pg 99] “when it happened to me. The finest looking limousine I ever saw slowed up right in front of the McCormick house. The machine looked so expensive that I thought the occupant must be the millionaire himself—until out he leaps at me with a revolver leveled at my head. It took the man about four seconds to get my money—it was only $14. And then I was ordered to be on my way.

“There were two of the robbers, the operating man and the chauffeur, who looked like a real one.”

Hoskin told his story to the police at the East Chicago Avenue Station and they started a search for the robbers.

(3)

Stepping out of one of the finest limousine cars ever seen in Lake Shore Drive, three young men held up a pedestrian early today at the point of their pistols in front of the Harold McCormick home. The victim, Henry Hoskin, 132 Welcome Place, told the police of the East Chicago Avenue Station that he would not have been more surprised if the St. Gaudens statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Park had stepped off its pedestal and picked his pocket.

“I was just passing Harold McCormick’s mansion at the Lake Shore Drive and Bellevue Place,” he said, “when it happened to me. The finest looking limousine I ever saw slowed up right in front of the McCormick house. The machine looked so expensive that I thought the occupant must be the millionaire himself—until out leaped three men with revolvers leveled at my head. It took the men about four seconds to get my money—it was only $14. And then I was ordered to be on my way.

“The three robbers were well-dressed young fellows. The chauffeur wore a uniform and looked like a real chauffeur.”

(9) Analyze the treatment of material in the second story below and compare it with that in the first.

(1)

A quarrel over the merits of the North and South in the civil war resulted in the shooting through the right cheek of John White, 3100 Renton street, at the saloon of William Lubin, Brinton avenue and Hamilton street, by Charles McGuire. The latter was arrested.

(2)

The war of the rebellion was resumed in Chicago yesterday after a preliminary skirmish on Saturday. Three men were engaged, and after the smoke of battle had cleared away the casualties were found to be: one shot, one prisoner of war, and one incapacitated for conflict.

The skirmish and ultimate battle occurred in the saloon of William Lubin, Brinton avenue and Hamilton street. Charles McGuire and his brother carried the colors of the South and John White defended the North.

The three men were drinking together on Saturday when the issues between the North and South caused a dispute. They parted in wrath.

“We’ll show that fellow where he gets off at,” the McGuire brothers are reported to have said as they left for the loop to buy arms to protect the honor of the South.

Charles McGuire, with a revolver as his artillery, went alone yesterday to the saloon. His brother, not feeling well, remained at home. Soon Charles met White and had no trouble in drawing an attack from him.

He drew the revolver and shot White through the cheek. Then the police arrived and took Charles prisoner. White was rushed to St. Anne’s hospital.

CHAPTER V

NEWS STORIES OF UNEXPECTED OCCURRENCES

Kinds of Occurrences. Reports of unexpected occurrences of various kinds may be taken as typical of news stories generally. Fires, railroad and trolley wrecks, mine and tunnel accidents, floods and storms, marine disasters, explosions, runaways, automobile accidents, etc., form one large group of events in this class. Murders, suicides, robberies, embezzlements, and all other crimes constitute the second important division. The application to each of these groups of the principles of structure and style discussed in the preceding chapter will be considered separately.

Fires and Accidents. In news stories of fires and accidents, the number of lives lost or endangered, the character and extent of the damage, and the cause are the features in which readers are most interested. Lists of the killed or injured are always included in local stories, and should be sent in telegraph stories when the persons are known in communities in which the newspaper circulates. The names, the addresses, the occupations or business connections, and often the age of persons killed, are given, and the same details are reported for the seriously hurt, as well as the extent of the injuries and the hospital to which each person is taken. The form in which such lists are arranged is shown in the explanation of “boxed” lists (pages 86–88). The extent and the character of the damage caused by a disaster are important, particularly when the amount or the area affected is large. Curious and unusual causes and results, remarkable escapes, pathetic or humorous incidents, and novel circumstances generally are frequently “played up,” particularly in telegraph stories of occurrences in which the persons involved are known only locally. In such cases the peculiar circumstances are the only reason for publishing the stories outside of the community in which the events happen. Unusual incidents are also good in the lead of local stories when the other phases are not more important.

The chief considerations in writing the body of news stories of unexpected occurrences are to select and emphasize important details, to eliminate or subordinate minor ones, and to connect firmly the different parts of the narrative. Whether the reporter is limited to a given number of words or is instructed to write as much as the news is worth, he must choose and reject particulars with great care, remembering always that what he retains must be so arranged that to the rapid reader the relation of one part to another will be perfectly clear. In a complex story with a series of incidents taking place simultaneously, different threads of narrative must be woven together skillfully to make it evident how the several incidents took place at the same time.

Greater life, action, and interest can always be given to accounts of fires, accidents, and disasters that cause loss of life, by giving in direct quotations the accounts of eye-witnesses and survivors. When the magnitude of the catastrophe warrants it, every effort is made to get interviews and statements from persons involved. Conversation between those concerned in the event can sometimes be used effectively. Every form of direct quotation gives variety and interest to the news story and is therefore an excellent method to use.

In the excitement naturally produced by the news of a disaster, many rumors quickly gain currency. The first estimates of the number of lives lost or endangered and of the extent of the damage are frequently too large. The young reporter must not let himself be carried away by wild reports, and should discount liberally these estimates. By keeping calm no matter how great the catastrophe and attendant excitement, he not only can judge the more accurately of the character of the information that he gets from others, but he inspires a certain amount of calmness in those from whom he is getting his information and thus secures the facts more accurately. He should not accept reports of a disaster without question and investigation, or if it is impossible to investigate them, he should give them as rumors and not as facts. To magnify a catastrophe often means to cause needless anxiety to many whose relatives or friends may be involved in it. As in all reporting, a simple narrative, picturing clearly, accurately, and interestingly the unexpected occurrence, is the best news story.

The Lead of the Fire Story. Because accounts of fires involve all the points to be considered in the average news story, they are taken as typical of the whole group of accidental occurrences. In fire stories the feature to be “played up” may be, (1) the cause, (2) the extent of the damage, (3) the danger to surrounding property, (4) the number of lives endangered or lost, (5) prominent persons or places involved, or (6) any unusual incident or phase. The following examples illustrate methods of giving prominence to each of the significant details at the beginning of the lead.

Cause

(1)

Spontaneous combustion of turpentine and paints caused a fire that completely destroyed the one-story frame paint shop of John Nelson, 213 Higginson Street, shortly before midnight, causing a loss of $5,000.

(2)

Candles on a Christmas tree set fire to lace curtains in the home of Robert Whitcomb, 1716 Charter Street, last night, and before the blaze was extinguished $500 damage had been done to the house and furnishings.

(3)

The breaking of an incandescent light set fire to a can of gasoline in the garage of the Wheeler Automobile Company, 731 Winter Place, early this morning, and two taxi-cabs were badly scorched.

Damage and Danger

(1)

Over a million dollars’ worth of property was consumed on South Point within two hours yesterday afternoon when fire destroyed Elevator D of the Consolidated Elevator Company, and the docks and sheds of the Western Pacific Railroad Company.

(2)

Nearly 3,000,000 feet of lumber were burned at Mystic Wharf early this morning with a loss of $120,000 to the Export Lumber Company and the Atlantic Coast Lumber Company.

(3)

About $2,000,000 worth of property was threatened by fire in the manufacturing district along the Ohio river front last night when the plant of the Rockton Woodworking Company was completely destroyed with a loss of $125,000.

Lives Lost or Endangered

(1)

Nearly 300 frightened girls ran down stairways, jammed themselves into elevators, or jumped to roofs of adjoining buildings this noon when fire did $20,000 damage to the twelve story building at 652 Bleecker Street.

(2)

Nine firemen were overcome by ammonia fumes while fighting a fire in the cold storage warehouse of R. C. Rinder, 48 to 52 May Street, this morning.

(3)

One person was suffocated, one fatally and three seriously burned, and the lives of many others endangered when fire swept through the five-story flat house at 122 West 127th Street today.

(4)

Three children were burned to death this noon while locked in the house by their mother, Mrs. Frank Lincoln, 1719 Belleville Place.

Persons and Places

(1)

Market Square Theatre was damaged by fire to the extent of $5,000 late last night, evidently the result of a lighted cigar or cigarette thrown on the gallery steps at the close of the performance.

(2)

Robert Camp’s summer home at Rockton, L. I., was completely destroyed yesterday by fire said to have been started by tramps. The loss Mr. Camp estimates at $25,000, fully covered by insurance.

(3)

Wilton C. McClay, broker, 71 Exchange Place, was suffocated by smoke in his rooms in the Oxford Arms early this morning, when fire, originating in a defective flue, damaged the building to the extent of $1,500.

Unusual Circumstances

(1)

Overcoats used as life nets saved the lives of a dozen women and children last night when fire, believed to be of incendiary origin, gutted the three-story frame tenement at 137 Hoverton Avenue, Brooklyn.

(2)

Rotten hose, which burst as fast as it was put in use, imperiled the lives of firemen today in a fire that destroyed the foundry of the National Tubing Co., Wilson and Pierce Streets.

(3)

More than 300 chickens and ducks were cremated last night in a blaze in the basement of the meat market of John Holton, 16 Erie Street.

(4)

To rescue his money, which he hoped would raise him from the rank of workman to that of merchant, Woo Wing Lee, Chinese laundryman, 3031 Nicollet Avenue, ran back into his burning laundry today and was so badly burned that physicians say he cannot live.

Fire Stories. After the lead has been completed, the main part of the story remains to be written. The structure of the body of the story offers no particular difficulties in arrangement as the incidents usually follow each other in the order of time. In the account of a fire, it is usual, after the lead, to give the facts concerning the discovery of the fire, the sounding of the alarm, the arrival of the fire department, the progress of the fire, and the different incidents, with little or no variation from chronological order.

How a fire story is arranged is shown in the following example:

By sliding down a swaying extension ladder through fire and smoke, with an unconscious woman in his arms, Fireman Daniel Walter rescued her from death in a fire that early this morning swept through a five-story apartment house at 122 West Thirty-ninth Street, and caused a loss of $15,000. Mrs. Mary Owen, the woman saved, is in a serious condition as a result of inhaling smoke, but at the Harlem Hospital it was said that she would probably recover.

When the firemen on Truck 30 reached the burning building, they saw Mrs. Owen leaning out of a front window on the fifth floor, screaming for help and apparently preparing to jump to the street.

“Don’t jump,” shouted the firemen. “We’ll be up there in a minute.”

She stood motionless in the window with the smoke pouring out around her when the big eighty-foot extension ladder began to rise slowly in response to vigorous cranking. While the ladder was swaying like a pendulum as it ascended, Fireman Walter and Driver Frank Lawson began to climb up.

“Hold on just a second longer,” shouted Lawson as he saw that Mrs. Owen was again leaning forward as if about to jump.

When he reached the top of the ladder a moment later, Mrs. Owen swayed and fell back into the room. At the same instant flames burst out of the windows on the third floor and swept through the ladder.

“You go down,” called Walter to Driver Lawson below him on the ladder. “I’ll get her and slide for it. Be at the bottom to catch us.”

Lawson slid back through the flames, and Walter climbed into the[Pg 108] window. Mrs. Owen was lying unconscious on the floor with her dress ablaze. Walter beat out the flames and then wrapped his coat around her to protect her from the sparks and embers that were swirling through the window.

Laying the unconscious woman on the window-sill, Walter climbed out on the ladder. Then he reached over and took Mrs. Owen, placing her across his arms. Seeing that a slow descent through the flames bursting out of the windows on the floors below meant certain death, Walter wrapped his legs around the sides of the ladder and took hold of both sides with his hands, balancing Mrs. Owen across his arms.

“Catch us down there,” he shouted and started to slide down the ladder through the flames and smoke, as though it had been greased.

For a few seconds he was hidden from view; then he reappeared with his clothes ablaze but with his burden still safe across his arms. Firemen caught him as he reached the sidewalk, and took Mrs. Owen who was still unconscious.

It was all the police reserves could do to keep the crowd from breaking through the fire lines to congratulate Walter and carry him off on their shoulders. They cheered again and again as he was hurried into the Harlem Hospital ambulance. His hands and face were scorched, but after his burns had been dressed at the hospital he gamily returned to his quarters in the fire station.

Mrs. Owen was the only occupant of the house who did not succeed in reaching the fire escapes in the rear of the apartment and thus getting out safely.

The fire started in the basement, evidently from an overheated furnace, and shooting up through the air shafts, spread into the apartments on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. As[Pg 109] most of the tenants left the doors of their apartments open when they fled, the draught swept the fire through floor after floor. The interior of the whole five floors was destroyed. Three alarms were turned in and the fire was not under control until 10 o’clock.

Stories of Accidents. News stories of accidents are constructed on the same plan as those of fires, and the features are practically the same. The story of the accident in the subway (page 41) and the following one may be taken as typical reports of accidents.

In attempting to protect the lives of others against danger from a broken electric light wire, Patrolman Patrick Wilson, 751 Erie St., was electrocuted at 3:30 this morning on Depere Place between 75th and 76th streets. The body of the policeman was discovered an hour later by Oscar Wilkins, a milkman, as he was driving along Depere Place on his morning rounds. A small red burn across the back of his right hand and a live wire with a rope attached dangling from a tree a few feet away, showed how Wilson had lost his life.

Patrolman Wilson talked with Police Sergeant William Strong about the broken wire on Depere Place near 75th Street about 3:15 this morning. As he did not report to the police station from the patrol box as usual at 3:35, it is assumed that he was killed shortly before that time.

“There’s a live wire hanging down from a tree on Depere Place,” said Wilson to Sergeant Strong when they met shortly after three o’clock. “I’m afraid someone will be killed. I’ve been watching it all night. I believe I will try to fasten it up in the tree so that no one will run into it.”

[Pg 110]“You had better be careful; you may be killed,” suggested Strong.

“No danger of that,” he replied. “The wire is insulated.”

“Well, you had better get a rope at the car barns, anyway,” urged the sergeant, and Wilson agreed to go over to the barns on 75th Street for a rope. He was last seen alive when he left the car barns with some rope about 3:20.

Evidently he threw the rope over a branch of the tree, and then tried to put the deadly wire through a noose in one end of the rope so that it could be drawn up into the tree out of the way of passers-by. The wire must have squirmed around unexpectedly striking Wilson on the back of the hand and killing him instantly.

Wilson, who was 27 years old and had been on the police force for five years, is survived by a wife and two small children.

Stories of Crime. Accounts of crime, or “police news stories,” are constructed on practically the same principles as those of fires and accidents. In all crimes in which human lives are destroyed or endangered, the essential points are the names of the persons involved, the nature of the crime, its cause, its results, and, if the perpetrator escapes, clues to his identity and whereabouts. In murders, attempted murders, suicides, and defalcations, the motives for the crime are always matters of great interest. The value of what was stolen or what might have been stolen should be given in reports of robberies or embezzlements. Ingenious methods used to gain entrance to places robbed make interesting features. In defalcation or fraud peculiar means of deception employed may be “played up.” The “human interest” in the accused or the victim must not be overlooked in crime stories. When either individual is well known, his name is the important “feature.”

The reporter must always remember that a person charged with a crime is not a criminal until he is proved guilty in court. Unless he confesses, the person charged with crime is presumed to be innocent until convicted. In writing police stories, therefore, the reporter should always make it plain that the person involved is “charged” with a crime, and that he is “alleged,” or “said,” by the police to be guilty. While he is charged with the crime, he may be said to be, not “the murderer,” but “the alleged murderer”; or not “the embezzler,” but “the alleged embezzler.” The reporter should present both sides of the case by giving the prisoner’s version, as well as that of the police, not only because it is just to do so but because it is usually good news.

Stories of crime, like all other news stories, should be told in a simple, direct style that presents in an accurate and interesting manner the account of the crime as it was actually committed. Exaggerated and sensational stories of crime or those in which attempts are made to arouse sentiment for or against the perpetrator or his victim, have no place in the news columns of reputable newspapers. If readers are to be appealed to to right a wrong, such appeals should be made in the editorial columns and should not be allowed to color the facts in the news stories. The actual facts truthfully presented make the best possible appeal. To try, in the newspapers, a person accused of crime, before or during his legal trial, is not to give him the fair trial to which he is entitled.

The way in which various phases of crime may be “featured” in the lead without making the story in any way sensational is shown by the following examples, in which some interesting or extraordinary phase of the crime is put in the emphatic position at the beginning of the story.

(1)

After confessing to a shortage of $21,500 lost in speculation, Robert Crook, Jr., assistant paying teller of the Security Loan & Trust Co., was arrested this afternoon on the charge of embezzlement.

(2)

“I played the ponies and lost,” is William Dieb’s explanation of the theft of $1,200 from Wilson Brothers, clothiers, 121 Williamson Street, where for eighteen months he has been employed as cashier.

(3)

On the charge of robbing thousands of women and other small investors of nearly $25,000 by fake mining schemes, Allan Gotham, a mining broker with offices at 117 Chambers Street, was arrested by U. S. Marshal Harshaw this morning.

(4)

To avenge a beating, Giovanni Ricci, a laborer, shot and instantly killed Guiatto Cimbri, section foreman on the Pennsylvania Railroad, this noon, near Harcourt Road, just west of this city. Ricci immediately disappeared among the freight cars in the railroad yards nearby, and as the other workmen were unable to find any trace of him, it is believed that he boarded a freight train as it drew out of the yards.

(5)

By leaping from his aeroplane at a height of 2,000 feet, Luis Reveri, a young Spanish aviator, committed suicide early today, following a quarrel late last night with a young woman to whom he is said to have been engaged.

(6)

Seized by thugs in broad daylight while crossing the railroad tracks at the foot of Washington Street, this noon, William Williams, a stone mason from Chicago, was robbed of a gold watch and $20.

(7)

With all the skill of professional thieves, two neatly dressed little girls robbed several stores in the neighborhood of Amsterdam Avenue and 159th Street yesterday, by arranging that the younger, about 12 years old, should engage the proprietor in conversation while the older, about 14 years, proceeded to take whatever she could carry away conveniently.

(8)

Sticky fly paper pasted on show windows to prevent the crash of falling glass, was used by burglars who broke the plate glass windows of three jewelry stores on Third street last night, and got away with about $15,000 worth of plunder.

The following story of a robbery shows how various details are grouped in the lead and in the body of the story:

Westhampton, Ind., April 10.—By drilling through a fourteen inch fireproof wall of the vault of the temporary post office from an adjoining store, expert cracksmen got away with $18,653, all in stamps, some time last night. So skillfully did they operate that mail clerks at work all night fifty feet away from the vault knew nothing of what took place. The police and post office inspectors have no clue.

The robbery was discovered at 7:30 o’clock this morning by Oscar Otter, a clerk in the United States[Pg 114] Furniture Co., which occupies the store adjoining the post office. When Otter was unable to open either of the front doors of the store with his keys he became suspicious and called Patrolman Frank Parker. Throwing their weight against the doors they forced an entrance and found that both had been fastened by large screw eyes.

On examining the store, they discovered below the main stairway on the first floor a hole in the wall about eighteen inches square. An electric drill with wires attached to an electric light socket under the stairs showed how the robbers had succeeded in cutting through the fourteen inch fireproof wall. Drills, chisels, and a small bottle of nitroglycerine were found a few feet away covered with dust. The floor in front of the hole and the wall about it were covered with blankets and quilts taken from the company’s stock, apparently to deaden the sound of drilling. The bricks of which there was a small pile had evidently been drawn out one by one as fast as they were loosened, with the aid of a small pulley and tackle that were lying in the hole.

Some footprints in the dust at the foot of the stairs indicated that one of the men had been stationed there as a look-out to command a view of the street through the big plate glass windows of the store. These with the tools and tackle were the only clues.

Patrolman Parker notified the detectives of the central police station while Mr. Otter informed Postmaster White. When the post office vault was opened everything was found to be in confusion. The stamp cases had been rifled to the extent of over $18,000 worth of stamps of all denominations. The cash boxes had evidently been overlooked for they were found to be intact.

[Pg 115]“At no time of the night was the post office unguarded,” said Postmaster White. “Arthur Cummings and Henry Leister, mailing clerks, were in the mailing and sorting rooms until they were relieved by the day force. Patrolman Cutting, a messenger, and mail wagon drivers were in and out of the office at all hours of the night.”

Post Office Inspector A. B. Holmes of Cincinnati was notified of the robbery by telegraph, and Inspector G. C. Helms of Fort Wayne, whom he detailed to come here to investigate, arrived late tonight.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Find an interesting “feature” in every unexpected occurrence.
2. Give all the facts and stick to them.
3. Don’t be carried away by wild reports; investigate every rumor.
4. Keep cool, no matter how great the disaster.
5. Don’t overestimate the extent of the damage and the number of persons killed or injured.
6. Remember that not all persons who appear in the news are necessarily “prominent” or “well known.”
7. Avoid describing persons or property as “endangered” or “threatened” when they are not actually in danger.
8. Don’t overload your story with minor details.
9. Give life and action by using direct quotation whenever it is appropriate.
10. Include verbatim accounts of eye-witnesses or survivors in big disasters.
11. Make clear to the rapid reader the exact relation of all incidents to the principal event.
12. Look for the motive in murders, suicides, embezzlements, and similar crimes.
13. See the “human interest” in police news.
14. Don’t call an accused person a criminal unless he confesses or has been convicted of crime before.[Pg 116]
15. Don’t try criminal cases in your news stories; leave that to the court.
16. Give both sides; the accused as well as the accuser has a right to be heard.
17. Avoid predictions of “sensational developments” when they are not likely to occur.
18. Don’t put a “mystery” in your story when none exists.
19. Remember that the truth, and nothing but the truth, interestingly written, makes the best news story.

PRACTICE WORK

1. Criticise and rewrite the following fire story:

In a fire which destroyed the plant of John B. May & Co., paint and varnish makers, 20 East Harmon street, late yesterday, five men who took desperate chances in escaping from the blazing structure were injured and Mme. Celloni’s famous bohemian restaurant was temporarily put out of commission.

Mme. Celloni’s, for twenty years renowned as a gathering place for Chicago’s litterati, adjoins the burned building on the south. It was flooded by water, shaken by explosions and overrun by firemen, who fought to confine the flames to the May rooms.

The damage to the building, which was a three-story brick, and contents of the paint house is $65,000. The loss on paintings, decorations and furnishings in Mme. Celloni’s is placed at $5,000. All is reported covered by insurance.

The injured men were employes of the paint company. Driven by a succession of explosions to the roof, they were hemmed in by flames. They slid down a rope to safety. The injured are:

Joseph Hinners, 312 North Wilson avenue; hands and face burned.

Michael Lorenz, 614 William square; hands burned, right wrist sprained.

William Gee, 6651 North Washington street; hands cut and burned.

James Green, 84 New street; body bruised and contused.

Charles Speer, 916 First street; body bruised.

The men were at work on the third floor when the alarm was sounded. The stairway was in flames and three explosions of wood alcohol tanks in the basement and minor explosions caused by the ignition of smaller containers of oil on the third floor drove them to the roof.

[Pg 117]

A line was passed to them from the street. Hinners, a foreman, made it fast. He ordered his men to precede him down the rope. When he undertook his slide for life the entire building was afire. The flames licked the slender cord and, just before Hinners reached the ground, it was severed.

Miss Mary Devine of Walnut Park, stenographer for John B. May, was in the office of the building with Mr. May when the fire was discovered. Although the other employes fled she remained and assisted Mr. May in placing valuable papers in the safe before leaving. There were fifteen persons in the building when it took fire, Mr. May said.

The fire is believed to have originated in the rear of the basement where the wood alcohol was stored. The explosions splintered the rear partitions and ceilings and spread the flames.

The building was an old one and burned rapidly. Within a few minutes after the alarm was sounded the flames enveloped it. Twelve engine companies were summoned and Fire Chief Classon took personal charge of the work. Tenants of the apartment building on the north of the paint company fled, but their rooms were not damaged.

The fire was fought with difficulty. Firemen “Jim” Moore and Samuel Walters of engine company No. 11 risked their lives on a ladder to keep the flames from an oil tank in front of the third floor which threatened to ignite the top apartments of Mme. Celloni’s.

Firemen caused most of the damage to Mme. Celloni’s. Costly tapestry and hangings were knocked down and trampled under foot. The place will be reopened soon. It has long been the meeting place of the “true bohemians” of Chicago’s literary world and art circles.

The building occupied by the May company was owned by Esther McNain of Hyde Park.

2. Analyze the following story; can you improve it by rewriting?

Riverside residents’ New Year resolutions were jolted at the outset. Just at the break of the first day of 1913 the 110 foot water tower, sole source of supply for the town, burned to the ground.

From 5:30 to 10 o’clock no water was to be had. Then hard personal effort by members of the village board resulted in fire hose being connected with outlying hydrants of Berwyn, next village east; water trickled once more into kitchen sinks of Riverside homes. There was not sufficient power, however, to force the water to second floors.

The cause of the fire is unknown. It is believed to have been caused by a defective chimney, as the fire originated near the roof.[Pg 118] The flare of light over the roofs and through the trees warned the suburb. The citizens promptly filled bathtubs, buckets, pitchers, and all other available receptacles. This exhausted the supply in the mains and the firemen found they had no pressure of water with which to fight the fire.

Half an hour after the blaze was discovered the tower was transformed into a pillar of flame. The fire swept around it in a circling whirlwind, crackling and snapping until it reached the top, when it billowed into a black cloud. Most inhabitants of Riverside and nearby towns came to the blazing tower. The firemen found themselves helpless. In an hour the chemical truck from Cicero arrived, but the fire had too big a start.

When the tank collapsed there was a dense smoke and a scattering of brands, but the effect of the loosened water did little to extinguish the fire.

The water tank was built in 1870 and was a landmark for many years, especially valued by automobilists entering and leaving Chicago along the Riverside road. There was $15,000 insurance, but the total loss was estimated to amount to approximately $50,000.

During the interval when Riverside was without water children were sent both to Lyons and to Berwyn for bottled water. Then John H. Rogers, a grocery man, obtained wagons and automobiles and brought 2,000 gallons of water into the town from a nearby bottling works. At the breakfast hour automobiles were lined up in front of his store with customers waiting their turn to be served with water.

In many residences where hot water heat is used it was necessary to let the fire go out. For the relief of these persons Arthur Hughes, commissioner of public works, sent men to bring what water wagons and sprinkler carts they could from the neighboring towns. Water for the heaters and also for live stock thereby was provided.

The town board held an emergency meeting in the morning and made preliminary arrangements for a new plant. The water is pumped from two artesian wells 2,000 feet deep.

“We will have a temporary power plant in here by next Saturday,” announced Henry G. Riley, president of the board. “When we are ready to install our new plant it will be on a different plan than this one, which was inefficient, anyway.”

3. Are the essential facts presented most effectively in the “leads” of the following stories?

(1)

Belleview, Wis., Jan. 3.—William Schmidt, a farm hand of Branch Township, confessed to-day that it was he who attacked Miss Lizzie Martin of this city last Saturday, and injured her so[Pg 119] severely that she died a week later. Schmidt insisted that he had mistaken Miss Martin for a man on whom he sought revenge, and that he had not meant to kill her.

Until Schmidt confessed the police and the county authorities were without a single clue as to Miss Martin’s slayer. Bloodhounds and Belgian sheep dogs had been used to trace the slayer, but they had failed. Several men, black and white, had been arrested, but each one proved his innocence. Rewards totaling more than $2,500 had been offered, but not until a day or so ago was the least clue found.

Then Miss Mildred Green, a trained nurse, attending a case on a farm near Richland, noticed that a new farm hand was extremely nervous, and that he talked of almost nothing but the Martin murder. He discussed the probable penalty for such a crime, and was eager to know whether any trace had been found of the slayer. The nurse, convinced that the man, who was Schmidt, knew something of the crime, told Dr. Henry F. Schley, a local physician, of her suspicions, and last night Dr. Schley brought Schmidt here.

The physician got a room for Schmidt in a local hotel, and this morning communicated with Prosecutor Frank Firling. The latter, with several policemen, concealed himself in a room in the hotel through the walls of which holes had been bored into the adjoining room, and then Schmidt was led into this second room. There, under Dr. Schley’s questioning, he gradually made a full confession, which was overheard by Firling and the policemen, who entered the room and arrested him.

Schmidt took his arrest very calmly. In fact, he seemed to be relieved after he had made his confession. He even whistled cheerfully as he was taken to jail. Later he was arraigned before the Justice of the Peace and held without bail on a charge of murder, to await the action of the January Grand Jury.

Prosecutor Firling, beyond saying that Schmidt had made a confession, was not much disposed to talk about the case. He said, however, that Schmidt denied that robbery was his motive, and that the prisoner said he did not discover that he had mistaken the woman in the darkness for a man against whom he had a grievance, until after he had felled her.

(2)

Paul Schein, said to have confessed to having illicitly distilled liquor in his home at 421 Maryland street, was arrested today by government officers and is locked up in the county jail. He confessed to Marshal Weed this afternoon, according to the marshal. Held as evidence is a copper tea-kettle still, found in his house. Schein is 25 years old.

The discovery of the outfit came as the result of a fire in the home of the accused man. Detectives Harry Weiler and Arthur Winter found the tea-kettle distillery. They took the apparatus[Pg 120] to the police station, learned its purpose, and notified the government authorities.

Special Gauger Frank Heiler was put upon the case, and the arrest of Schein followed. Schein is said to have told Marshal Weed that he made cheap brandy, using dried grape mash. He said, however, that he has only been making the brandy for fourteen days, for his own use. Schein is a wine-maker.

4. Rewrite the following story, giving it a summary lead and improving it in every possible way.

Fresh from an evening of shopping in 125th Street, Mrs. Margaret Werner started down Broadway about 10:30 last night, headed for her apartment at 627 West 109th Street, and talking Christmas plans with her friends, Miss Ethel Hinkey, of 421 Cathedral Parkway, and Jennie Fielding, of 301 Harrison Avenue.

Their thoughts were full of the Yuletide and their arms were full of bundles, and as they were walking down from 118th Street past the long, lonesome stretch of the Columbia University buildings they were so absorbed in their chatting that they paid no attention to three men speeding to catch up with them.

Suddenly two of the men stepped around in front of them, and one reached for the capacious handbag swinging by a strap from Mrs. Werner’s wrist. The other two men devoted themselves solely to keeping the other two women quiet, and Mrs. Werner was practically left to fight it out with the highwayman. She was a pretty good match for him.

Her first thought was to clench her fist grimly on the straps of her handbag. Her second was to scream, and she carried this second idea into such good effect she could be heard a block away, despite her assailant’s swift reach for her throat. Once his fingers closed, she did not make any more noise, but just struggled and twisted while the highwayman thrust her against the wall.

But her first cry had been heard by a broad-shouldered muscular stranger who was swinging up Broadway and changed his walk to an interested run at the sound of the cries for help. He reached out a long arm for Mrs. Werner’s assailant, and after wrenching him around gave him a stinging buffet over the head.

Then the two men locked, and the highwayman’s assistants stood at a nervous and respectful distance while the stranger did his work. He finally had the chief offender so suppressed that his only remaining weapon was his teeth, and these he imbedded in the rescuer’s shoulder.

This was the way matters stood when Mrs. Werner and her friends heard the sound of Patrolman McDonald fairly racing up Broadway from his post two blocks below, where he had been standing when he first heard the cries. At sight of him the two[Pg 121] minor highwaymen just turned on their heels and fled, while McDonald closed on their friend.

The stranger, released from his chivalrous police duties, rubbed his shoulder ruefully, and identified himself as Harry Rogers, a civil engineer. He helped to calm Mrs. Werner, who was very much wrought up, and not at all pleased to find that for all her valiant self-defense two five-dollar bills were missing from her opened bag, to say nothing of her eyeglasses. All her Christmas bundles were intact, however, lying strewn on the pavement at the very spot where she had dropped them and from which the highwayman had pushed her over toward the wall.

As for the highwayman, he went peaceably enough to the West 125th Street Station, where he gave his name as Arthur G. Duffy, his age as 21, his occupation that of a driver, and his address, 961 West Forty-fifth Street. Mrs. Werner’s money was not to be found in his pockets, but her glasses were.

5. What are the faults in the following story, and how can you correct them?

Charles Johnson of 641 Washington Avenue, Jersey City, who is employed as a bookkeeper by the Harrison Felt Company in the company’s Mill No. 3, 16 Erie Street, started out from the factory yesterday morning to draw the money for the weekly payroll, following his custom. An associate of Johnson who usually made the trip to the bank with him was ill, and in his absence the bookkeeper was accompanied by Edward Wiley of 412 Oak Place, Jersey City, the 19-year-old son of the manager of the factory, who is also an employe of the establishment.

The man and the youth, carrying a small satchel, went first to the New York County Bank, Fourteenth Street and Eighth Avenue. A part of the pay roll was drawn out there, and then they went to the Gansevoort Branch of the Security Bank, Fourteenth Street and Ninth Avenue, where were withdrawn the remaining funds needed to make up the weekly wages.

Ordinarily, the weekly payroll of the Erie Street mill reaches a total of $3,000 to $3,500, but at the Christmas holidays a part of the employes had been paid off in advance. As a result, Johnson and Wiley drew from the two banks, instead of the usual amount, just $1,194, in currency and specie of small denomination.

They proceeded west on Fourteenth Street one block to Hudson Street, and south on Hudson Street four blocks to Abingdon Square. Here they crossed the street from east to west, and, going two blocks further, turned into Erie, rounding the corner where stands the saloon of Schmidt Brothers. Scarcely a block away in the same street is the factory of the Harrison Felt Company.

Jutting out on the north side of Erie Street from Schmidt Brothers’ saloon is a glass vestibule, and about ten feet to the[Pg 122] west of it is an iron railing fronting a five-story brown stone apartment house. The railing and the vestibule form something like a retreat from the sidewalk. As Johnson and Wiley neared this spot they saw two men standing in the space between the railing and the vestibule, but took no especial notice of them as they walked along, each holding to the handle of the satchel, Johnson on the outside and Wiley next to the building.

All of a sudden the two men who had been standing in the inclosure, drawing blackjacks from their pockets, pounced down upon the pay roll messengers. The foremost man made for Wiley first, got a wrestler’s hold around his neck and sent him whirling to the pavement as the bandit struck vigorously at his head. At almost the same instant Johnson was attacked by the second robber, who sank his fingers into the bookkeeper’s throat, and hurled him to the sidewalk. The satchel remained in the hands of Wiley.

The bookkeeper and his companion fought valiantly, but Johnson was quickly overcome by the short, heavily built man, while Wiley, still clutching the handle of the satchel, was rolled over the edge of the sidewalk by his assailant. Wiley was still holding to his satchel and trying to keep it from the grasp of his assailant, when a third man, wearing a gray overcoat, ran over from the south side of the street and gave him a violent kick on the arm, releasing his grip on the satchel. The man in the gray overcoat snatched it up and darted off west on Erie Street to Greenwich Street, followed closely by the first two assailants and a fourth man, who had been observed standing on the south side of Erie Street. Johnson and Wiley, regaining their feet, started in pursuit of the fleeing men, both yelling, “Stop thief!”

The man in the gray overcoat, carrying the satchel, turned north into Greenwich Street with another of the bandits close at his heels. The other two, according to confused statements made by the pay roll messengers, turned south into Greenwich Street. The first two men leaped into a black five-passenger automobile waiting just around the corner in front of Pietro Gatti’s barber shop, 551 Greenwich Street. They were whisked away at full speed just as Johnson and Wiley turned into Greenwich Street. They saw the fleeing automobile, several blocks away, swing into Gansevoort Street. The second pair jumped into an automobile waiting in Greenwich Street, south of Erie Street, which started off also at top speed.

Meanwhile a large crowd had collected, but none of those who were in the vicinity in time to see the struggle would venture to give any assistance, because, as several of them afterward said, they thought it was an affair between gangmen, and discretion forbade their interference.

One of the first men to reach the place of the hold-up was Detective Patrick Sullivan, who was standing at Eleventh and Washington Streets, two blocks away, waiting to catch a car. He[Pg 123] arrived in time to see only clouds of dust cast up by the flying automobiles, but he succeeded in getting from some of the eyewitnesses several license numbers.

Mounted Patrolman Hartwig of Traffic Squad C reached the spot with Sullivan, and while the latter was gathering information from the spectators, the former telephoned the Charles Street Police Station and notified Police Headquarters. The reserves under Lieut. Green were rushed to Erie and Greenwich Streets, but arriving there too late to make any arrests, withdrew, leaving the apprehension of the highwaymen to Acting Captain Charles Du Frain.

Capt. Du Frain, after working on the case all day, said last night that he could report but little progress. He declared that the descriptions he had obtained from eyewitnesses were incomplete and confused, and that the numbers of the automobiles were likewise conflicting.

Julius H. Schnitzler, shipping clerk for the Scholz & Gamm pickle firm at 665 Wilson Street, an eyewitness of the affair, said yesterday afternoon that he had seen the hold-up and robbery from his desk, which faces almost the exact spot where the two messengers were first attacked. Before the attack Schnitzler declared that he had observed two men standing across Erie Street. It was most probably they, be said, who gave the signal of the approach of Johnson and Wiley.

Schnitzler said that these men were dressed, one in a black suit with a black derby, and the other in a blue suit under a dark overcoat. The man in the black suit pulled a yellow blackjack, with which he attacked Wiley, while the second man attacked Johnson. Schnitzler further said he had noticed one of the autos when he went to his office shortly before 8 o’clock. His story was corroborated in practically every detail by Arthur Hansen, a clerk in the office with him.

Another complete account of the affair was obtained from Mary Harrigan, a maid in the home of Judge John R. Winch, 961 Greenwich Street, across the street from where the first automobile was kept waiting.

Johnson was able to continue his work at his desk. He corrected some of the details in his first version of the attack, and declared that he had not been struck with a blackjack. He as well as Wiley, however, received a number of bruises in the struggle.

6. Combine the later bulletin (1) with the first news story (2) in rewriting the following material.

(1)

Norfolk, Va., Jan. 4.—A wireless message received tonight from the revenue cutter Apache says the British steamer Indrakuala[Pg 124] rescued six of the crew of the steamer Luckenbach, with which she collided in Chesapeake Bay today. One of the men, W. M. McDonald, a coal passer, died from the effects of the long exposure in the Luckenbach’s rigging.

(2)

Norfolk, Va., Jan. 4.—With the abatement today of the wind and snowstorm that raged over the eastern states last night, came harrowing tales of shipwrecks at sea, thrilling rescues, increased loss of life and damage to property.

Eight men, the survivors of the crew of twenty-two of the steamer Julia Luckenbach, which was rammed and sunk by the British tramp Indrakuala in Chesapeake bay, arrived in Norfolk late today, and after being revived, started for New York.

The eight men clung to the rigging for six hours until they were taken off by the crew of the steamship Pennsylvania. The Indrakuala was badly damaged and had to be beached. She lies about two miles from the Luckenbach, whose spars alone are visible rising out of forty-five feet of water near Tangiers sound.

The eight survivors of the Luckenbach are George Hunt, first officer; William Bruhn, second officer; George Little, first assistant engineer; George Doyle, third assistant engineer; George Davis, quartermaster; William Hoffman, fireman; and Theodore Losher and P. Anderson, seamen.

Describing his experience Davis said tonight:

“None of us knew what hit us. I was knocked down and when I got up water was pouring over me. I saw men climbing into the rigging and I followed. I saw Capt. Gilbert swimming around the ship and calling for his wife, who was an invalid. Both were lost. Waves that appeared to be two hundred feet high broke over the ship and she sank in a hurry. Lifeboats were lowered from the Indrakuala but none came toward us. The ship turned her nose around and started for the beach.”

“We pleaded and cried for help,” said Theodore Losher, “but were either unheard or ignored. The Indrakuala was less than 100 yards away when she started for the beach. I thought every minute we would be blown into the sea. The wind was terrific. Our chief engineer, Kris Knudson, told me he could not hold on much longer, because his hands were frozen. I told him to stick it out a little longer. When the Danish steamer Pennsylvania hove in sight, I called to him, but he was gone.

“We were six hours in that rigging. But there were men on the Pennsylvania. When they saw our signals of distress they put away in small boats in spite of the tremendous seas. The boats would get near us and then be carried fifty feet in the air on the crest of a wave and lost to sight, but those men stuck and took everyone of us off. First Officer Hunt was unconscious when they reached[Pg 125] him. He had been holding on with one hand and holding an unconscious man on his perch with the other.”

The Indrakuala is commanded by Capt. Smith, but the ship does not carry wireless and no statement from him was obtainable tonight.

According to the survivors, Capt. Gilbert and the first and second officers were standing on the bridge when the collision occurred. There was no opportunity to give alarm to those below.

7. What are the objections to the first paragraph as the beginning of the following story, and how can you improve it in rewriting?

About 5 o’clock yesterday morning a wagon load of thieves arrived in front of the tenement house at 841 Holton Place. Leaving one of their number to hold the horse, the others went to the roof of the house and thence to the loft building at 837 Holton Place, on the top floor of which are the store and show rooms of the International Jewelry Company, of which Henry Hertel is President. The thieves cut a big hole through the roof of that building and then with the aid of a rope ladder let themselves down into the show room, where they packed a dozen suitcases belonging to traveling salesmen with loot, the value of which Mr. Hertel last night estimated to be about $5,000.

The International Jewelry Company is wired everywhere with burglar alarms, but the directing mind of yesterday’s theft evidently knew where all the wires were, for the hole was cut in one of the few places in the ceiling which had not been wired. After packing the suitcases the thieves retraced their steps over the roofs of 839 to 841 Holton Place, and then proceeding down the stairways of the tenement house, deposited the suitcases in the wagon and drove away.

The theft was discovered when the place was opened for business yesterday morning. An investigation was started, and tenants in 841 Holton Place told of seeing the wagon in front of that house at about 5 A.M. Detectives from the Reynolds Street Station are working on the case. So far they have reported no progress.

CHAPTER VI

SPEECHES, INTERVIEWS, AND TRIALS

Various Forms of Utterances. As news stories of speeches, sermons, lectures, official reports, and interviews, as well as of testimony, decisions, and arguments in trials and investigations, are concerned largely with direct or indirect quotation of written or spoken expression, the writing of them involves several elements that do not enter into the composition of the typical news story. In the types of news thus far considered, such as fires, accidents, and crime, the story was a narrative of what had happened. Although the facts were gleaned largely from observation and interviews, usually no person’s ideas or opinions were quoted. News stories of addresses, reports, or similar documents, interviews and court trials, on the other hand, have only a small incidental narrative-descriptive element to present the circumstances under which the utterance was made. The large and important part of such stories consists of a reproduction in complete or condensed form of the original expression.

Verbatim Quotation. Direct verbatim quotations of all utterances are generally preferred for news stories, because they are exact reproductions of the originals. Whenever a copy of any of these forms of expression can be obtained, it is desirable for the reporter to get one either before or after the utterance is made, because of the accuracy of the quotation which a copy makes possible. Frequently copies of addresses, lectures, sermons, reports, decisions, and testimony can be had, and exactness of reproduction is thus secured. When a copy cannot be obtained, the reporter is dependent upon himself to get the equivalent of it by taking down as nearly as possible a verbatim reproduction of such parts of the utterance as he desires.

Methods of Reporting Speeches. The two problems in reporting these various forms of oral or written expression are, how to get the exact words of the speakers, and how to condense long utterances effectively.

The body of news stories of speeches can often be written while the speaker talks, in what is called a “running story,” particularly when it is necessary for the reporter to have his copy ready for publication soon after the speaker finishes. In such cases the reporter picks out and combines into a connected verbatim report the most important statements, summarizing briefly the less important ones. To do this he depends on long-hand writing so that what he writes can be used as copy without being transcribed. If time permits, he may take notes during the address, sermon, or trial, and write up his story later. Short-hand, although occasionally convenient, is not commonly used by newspaper reporters, and very few of them can write it.

The greatest skill is required to condense all of these forms of expression within a comparatively limited space. A speech, for example, that in complete form would fill three columns must often be cut down to half a column; and a report that would fill a page often cannot be given more than three quarters of a column. To select and combine separate parts into a unified, coherent reproduction that is only one-fifth or one-tenth of the original, is no easy task. Despite this great condensation the news story must be an accurate presentation of all the important material in the original. When a newspaper reporter or editor is satisfied to pick a few striking statements out of their context, and present them in a new combination, the result too often is that neither the spirit nor the substance of the original is accurately given; in fact, not infrequently the speakers’ ideas are completely, though often unintentionally, misrepresented.

“Playing Up” Misleading Statements. This distortion is often brought about by taking a striking sentence out of its context, in which it may be modified or explained, and by “playing it up” as a feature of the lead in a way that gives an entirely false or very misleading impression of the speaker and his utterance. The accuracy of the quotation under such circumstances does not justify the inaccuracy of the effect produced. Nor does the supposed news value of a striking but misleading quotation at the beginning of the lead justify the misrepresentation involved. Unless when taken from its context a quotation, direct or indirect, gives accurately not only the expression but the point of view and spirit of the original, it should not be used. Generally, by means of some connective or explanatory matter, such a quotation can be made to represent the original accurately. Great care should be taken not to give a wrong impression in the lead.

How to Begin the Lead. In news stories of speeches, lectures, and sermons, or of reports and similar documents, eight different forms for the beginning of the lead may be suggested: (1) a direct quotation of one sentence; (2) a direct quotation of one paragraph; (3) an indirect quotation of one statement; (4) an indirect quotation of several statements; (5) the keynote; (6) the title quoted; (7) the name of the speaker; and (8) the conditions under which the utterance was made. The reporter should choose the form best suited to the subject, the substance, and the occasion of the speech or report.

The single sentence quotation, as in the following form, should be used when the thought or expression which it contains is the most significant feature:

“The sentiment of the working class everywhere is for peace rather than for war,” declared Charles P. Neill, United States commissioner of labor, in speaking on “The Interest of the Wage Earner in the Present Status of the Peace Movement,” before the Lake Mohonk Conference of International Arbitration.

The paragraph of direct quotation is necessary when the most important point of the speech is not expressed in a single sentence but requires several connected sentences, or when the single sentence is sufficiently long to fill a whole paragraph, thus:

(1)

“The treatment for bad politics is exactly the modern treatment for tuberculosis—it is exposure to the open air. One of the reasons why politics took on a new complexion in the city in which the civic center movement originated was that the people who could go into the schoolhouse knew what was going on in that city and insisted upon talking about it; and the minute they began talking about it, many things became impossible, for there are scores of things in politics that will stop the moment they are talked about where men will listen.”

So said Gov. Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey in speaking on “The Social Center: A Medium of Common Understanding” at the opening of the first national conference of civic and social center development last night.

(2)

“Whatever method of control over water-power resources may be deemed most equitable and expedient, it is imperative that a definite policy by both the federal government and the states be speedily adopted, first because of the obvious desirability of utilizing all commercially available water power, and second because of the possibility of public water powers’ passing absolutely into private control.”

With these significant words Herbert Knox Smith, commissioner of corporations, closes a report to the President of the United States on “Water Power Development in the United States.”

The indirect quotation is of advantage when it is not possible or convenient to give a direct quotation, and when it is desirable to give the most important point at the beginning of the lead; for example:

That the tariff problem cannot be successfully solved until Congress has adequate data upon which to base its conclusions, was the statement of Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana in the senate this afternoon in advocating a tariff commission.

“The tariff is fixed by facts; how to get at all these facts is the first question in the whole tariff problem,” said Senator Beveridge. “Common sense and experience, [etc].”

The main points in a report or speech may be effectively summarized in several indirect quotations at the beginning of the story, but the separate clauses must not be too long or complicated in structure. The following examples show how these indirect quotations can be used:

(1)

That the present one cent a pound postage rate on newspapers and magazines should be doubled; that the actual cost of handling such second class matter is 5½ cents a pound; and that the proposal to charge a higher rate on the advertising sections of magazines is not feasible, is the substance of the report of the commission on second class mail matter submitted to Congress by President Taft today.

(2)

That the initiative is the most effective means of giving the people absolute control over their government; that the initiative and referendum do not overthrow representative government but fulfill it; and that truly representative government must represent not misrepresent the people, was the declaration of William J. Bryan in an address before the Ohio Constitutional Convention today.

The keynote beginning gives the dominant idea that runs through the whole utterance, thus:

(1)

The establishment of an expert tariff commission by Congress as the best solution of the tariff problem was urged by Senator Albert J. Beveridge in a speech in the senate this afternoon.

(2)

How every country in Europe has suffered from the increase in the cost of living is shown in a report submitted by President Taft in a special message to Congress last night.

When the subject is stated in a particularly novel or interesting form it may be the best feature of the story and should accordingly be in the lead. For example:

“Why Working Children Need Voting Mothers” was discussed by Mrs. Florence F. Kelley in an address on equal suffrage before a large audience in the Assembly Chamber last night.

The prominence of the speaker or author of the report frequently justifies the placing of his name at the beginning, thus:

(1)

Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock advocates government ownership of the telegraph lines of the country in a report made to Congress today.

(2)

Ambassador James Bryce explained the method of drawing up bills to be presented for adoption by the British parliament, in addressing the members of the congressional committee at the hearing on the bill providing for the congressional legislative library.

Unusual or significant conditions under which the address was delivered, or the report made, may become the “feature” and may be played up, as in these stories:

(1)

Despite the pouring rain, nearly 5,000 people heard Senator La Follette discuss the issues of the campaign at the Auditorium last night.

(2)

By their demonstrations of approval and frequent expressions of enthusiasm the members of the legislature gave evidence of their endorsement of the policies of President Taft when he addressed them in the State House this afternoon.

The Body of the Story. Whatever form of lead is used for speeches, reports, or interviews, the body of the story generally consists of paragraphs of direct verbatim quotations, combined often with summarizing paragraphs. As the interest lies not only in what a man says but also in the way he says it, verbatim quotations are usually preferred to indirect ones. It is frequently necessary to condense speeches and reports so much that large portions must either be omitted or be briefly summarized. It is desirable, as far as possible, to avoid combining in the same paragraphs both direct and indirect quotations, or both direct quotations and summarizing statements.

In paragraphs of direct quotation it is often necessary to insert explanatory phrases, such as, “said Mr. White,” “declared the speaker,” “the report continues,” “explained Mr. White in conclusion,” “the report concludes,” etc., but such phrases should be buried in an unemphatic position in the first sentence of the paragraph. Paragraphs of direct quotation should not begin with such unemphatic phrases as, “Mr. Blank continued by saying, etc.,” “The speaker then said,” “The report continues.” It is likewise ineffective to begin with phrases like, “I believe,” “I feel sure,” “I think,” “I know.” The newspaper reader will take for granted that what the speaker says is what he “thinks,” “believes,” “knows,” or “is sure of,” and the reporter, therefore, may omit these needless phrases entirely or may put them in a less prominent place. Instead of beginning a paragraph with,

“I believe that the income tax is the fairest of all taxes,” said Senator Borah.

it is preferable to omit entirely the phrase “I believe,” or else to put the quotation in the following form:

“The income tax, I believe, is the fairest of all taxes,” said Senator Borah.

In paragraphs of indirect quotations or of summaries, it is as necessary to use explanatory phrases as in those of direct quotations, and this explanatory matter should be put in unemphatic positions. The form of the phrases should be varied as much as possible so that the repetition will not be evident. Among the active verbs that may be used in explanatory matter are: “say,” “point out,” “show,” “declare,” “explain,” “insist,” “ask,” “advocate,” “demand,” “continue,” “conclude.” Passive forms include: “considered,” “discussed,” “given,” “described,” “demonstrated.” It must always be made plain by these and other means that all matter not quoted directly gives the substance of the speech or report.

When the body of the story consists of a series of direct quotations, these paragraphs are introduced by such phrases as: “He said in part,” “He spoke in part as follows,” “The report in brief follows,” “His address in full is as follows,” or “The complete report follows.” Such introductory statements end with a colon, and usually stand alone as a separate paragraph. In a continuous quotation extending through several paragraphs, quotation marks are placed at the beginning of each paragraph but at the end of only the last paragraph of the quotation. Quotations within quotations are set off by single quotation marks, and quotations within quotations within quotations by double marks.

It is not always necessary to arrange the matter in the body of the story so that it will follow the exact order in which it was given in the original. When the lead presents the most important statement, the following paragraphs frequently explain or amplify this statement, and then other parts of the speech follow, although in the original they may have preceded. In rearranging the order of quotations, care should be taken to establish close connection between them and to avoid misrepresenting the thought or spirit of the original. How a long speech is given in brief form partly by direct quotation, partly by indirect quotation, and partly by summarizing statements, is shown in the following example:

Washington, Jan. 2.—Taking up the gage of battle offered by Senator Bailey in his denunciation of direct government measures, Senator Ashurst, of Arizona, the state whose progressiveness delayed her entry into statehood, today made eloquent defense of the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. That the people in the states now using the initiative and referendum, have taken a more active interest in voting upon measures brought before them at the polls than have the members of the United States senate in adopting or rejecting laws, was Ashurst’s reply.

“There is not one record,” he declared, “of an instance where a law has been rejected or accepted under the initiative and referendum by less than 40 per cent of the entire number of voters within a state, yet in the senate itself, composed of 96 members, each paid $7,500 per year to remain there and vote upon measures, generally only 55 to 60 per cent of the total membership vote upon a bill, and frequently a bill is passed or defeated by 29 or 30 per cent of the entire membership.”

The bill to construct a railroad in Alaska, the senator pointed out, passed the senate by a vote of only 32 per cent of the entire membership; on the army appropriation bill in the 62nd Congress only 36 per cent of the membership voted.

“Thus, while it is true that under the initiative and referendum only[Pg 136] about 70 to 80 per cent of the voters of a state go to the polls, at times it is very difficult for the Senate to keep a quorum, notwithstanding that the senators are paid handsome salaries for that very purpose.

“During the trial of the Archbald impeachment case frequently there were only 15 to 20 senators present, though two distinguished republicans and an equal number of distinguished democratic senators to my knowledge have pleaded with senators to remain and listen to the testimony.”

Ashurst then went into an extended legal argument, quoting “fathers of the country,” and the federal supreme court to prove that no special form of government was defined as “republican” in the constitution. He declared that congress was the only court that could declare a given form of government “unrepublican” and that by its action in admitting to membership senators and representatives from states that have adopted the system of direct legislation, congress itself has recognized this form of government to be republican under the terms of the constitution.

Finally the senator defended the right of the people to express themselves directly without regard to precedent, and declared that “in such free expression alone lay the safety of human society, for whose service governments were maintained.”

How to Combine a Series of Speeches. In reporting meetings it is frequently desirable to give indirect or direct quotations from the remarks of the speakers. When several speakers are quoted, the speaker’s name is put at or near the beginning of the paragraph in which he is quoted, so that in a rapid reading of the report, the eye catches at once the change from the words of one speaker to those of another. The following report of a convention illustrates the method of handling a series of quotations, as well as the manner of giving fairly both sides in a debate:

DENVER, Aug. 26.—Benzoate of soda is not harmful when used to preserve food.

This is the declaration of the convention of the association of State and National Food and Dairy departments, which today indorsed the findings of the Remsen referee board, which had given the preservative a clean bill of health.

The vote, which was 57 to 42, was taken after a hot debate.

The federal government was accused of licensing the sale of “medicated food fit only for the sewer.” Dr. Charles A. L. Reed of Cincinnati, in attacking the Remsen board of scientific experts, which urged the government to allow the use of benzoate of soda as a food preservative, made the charge.

“That recommendation to the department of agriculture benefited only two classes of people,” asserted Dr. Reed, “the manufacturers of benzoate of soda and the manufacturers of food of such a character that it could not be sold without being preserved by the addition of a chemical. The government is now licensing food for consumption which has to be medicated and which otherwise would be fit only for the sewer.

“The referee board experimented with healthy young men, but all of these young men were stuffed with great quantities of food while taking the samples of benzoate of soda and the results observed in them would not apply to the average consumer.”

Dr. Reed’s remarks followed speeches by members of the referee board, including one by Dr. Ira Remsen, its chairman.

[Pg 138]A special committee appointed by the association to investigate the referee board, reported adversely upon its findings.

Dr. Russell H. Chittenden of New Haven, Conn., a member of the referee board, said that three-tenths of a gram of benzoate of soda was administered daily to each of six young men subjects during two months. In the one month each man received per day during the first week six-tenths of a gram, the second week one gram, the third week two grams and the fourth week four grams.

“From our experiments, only one logical conclusion seems possible,” said Dr. Chittenden. “Benzoate in small and large doses up to four grams per day is without deleterious effects upon the human system.”

Dr. Remsen, in discussing the report of the referee board, said in part:

“Since the appointment of the board by President Roosevelt my dealings have been directly with Secretary Wilson. The board understands we have nothing to do with the administration of the pure food law. Our function is to answer such questions as the secretary may put. In regard to benzoate of soda the board was asked to determine two points:

“1. Whether benzoate of soda in such quantities as are likely to be used is or is not injurious to health.

“2. Whether the quality or strength of a food to which benzoate of soda has been added is thereby reduced, lowered, or injuriously affected.

“You know the conclusions to which the board has been led by its work. We agreed upon the form of the report and the knowledge I had gained during the investigation of the subject was of such a character that I felt justified in signing the report.”

Dr. Remsen said he had nothing to do with the actual experimenting with benzoate of soda.

[Pg 139]The position taken by Commissioner J. Q. Emery of Wisconsin and his followers, who are vigorously attacking the use of benzoate of soda is: “If there is any doubt as to the harmfulness of chemicals in food the public should have the benefit of the doubt.”

The Form of the Interview. The interview, as a statement made to one man, the reporter, instead of to a number of persons, as in the case of a speech, may have practically the same kind of beginning as the address or report. Owing to the interest in the man interviewed, his name frequently begins the story, but as what he says is likewise of value, some form of beginning that gives his opinions can also be used advantageously. Although in an interview all of the information is obtained from the person interviewed in response to the reporter’s questions, it is not necessary or generally desirable to include these questions in the written story of the interview. Readers are interested in the statements of the person interviewed, not in the reporter’s questions or actions. When a man refuses to give any information by declaring in response to questions that he has nothing to say, it may be desirable as a matter of news to give the reporter’s questions and the man’s non-committal answers. Generally, however, neither the reporter nor his questions and remarks are given a place in the story of an interview. The following examples illustrate the application to interviews of some of the forms suggested for speeches and reports:

(1)

“Two-cent letter postage between the United States and England is a business proposition which should have been put into effect twenty years ago,” was the comment of John Wanamaker, former postmaster general, on the adoption of the reduced rate.

[Pg 140]“I urged this reform in 1890 when I was postmaster general,” said Mr. Wanamaker. “Now I hope that the over-sea postage will be followed by national one-cent postage.

“Within three years the income from over-sea postage under the two-cent charge for stamps will be as great as under the five-cent charge. In fact, two years ago I made the offer to the government in conjunction with several other gentlemen to guarantee that there would be no deficit under the two-cent foreign postage.

“If railroad rates for the carrying of mails were lessened to equality with commercial rates, the two-cent rate might be cut to one-cent without loss to the government.”

(2)

The claim that the equal suffrage bill might be repealed at the coming special session of the legislature because the Political Equality League has not filed expense statements under the new corrupt practice law, is sheer nonsense, according to Miss Mary K. Block, secretary of the league.

“Since equal suffrage was not mentioned in the call for the special session of the legislature, it cannot be considered,” said Miss Block. “The story is the work of those opposed to ‘votes for women’ because they know how strong the sentiment for woman suffrage is in this state.”

Combining Several Interviews. When a number of interviews are included in one story, the lead usually presents the consensus of opinions given, and explains or summarizes the results. The separate interviews may be combined in one of several ways. Not infrequently the name of the person expressing the opinion is put at the beginning of the paragraph and is followed by the quotation. In other cases the quotation for each person is put first in the paragraph, and the explanatory matter follows at the end of the first sentence. The following examples illustrate both forms:

(1)

With almost complete unanimity public officials and other prominent men today disapproved of the plan of the Carnegie Foundation to give ex-presidents of the nation an annual pension of $25,000. That the acceptance of such a gratuity was beneath the dignity of one who had held the highest office in the land, was the general objection to the plan. A few public men lauded the pension scheme as giving an opportunity for the nation to profit by the experience and knowledge of those who had served the people.

“If it has come to the point where ex-presidents cannot take care of themselves, we ought to make provision for their admission to a charitable institution,” said Congressman Henry of Texas.

“It isn’t worth doing,” was the comment of Speaker Champ Clark.

“The scheme doesn’t strike me very favorably,” said Senator McCumber.

“I don’t see any objection to it or any great value in it. I think any man elected for a public office ought to work himself back into citizenship when his term expires,” declared Senator Sutherland of Idaho.

(2)

That the question of adopting the commission form of government for Hamilton should be submitted to the voters at the election next spring, was the opinion expressed by many Hamilton business men and professional men today. The recent adoption of this form of municipal government by several other cities of the state has led to the discussion of the advisability[Pg 142] of adopting the commission system here.

The centralization of authority and the fixing of responsibility in the management of city affairs are urged by its advocates as important elements in the proposed method of administration. A number of business men expressed the belief that better business methods in the city’s finances would result from the new method.

When interviewed today, those who were in favor of the plan included the following:

WILSON R. HARRISON, President of Commercial National Bank—“The question of commission form of government should certainly be submitted to the citizens at the next election, and I believe that the plan will be adopted.”

ARTHUR C. PERKINS, Secretary of the Harrison Building House Association—“Government by commission appeals to me as the best method of managing municipal affairs in a city of the size of Hamilton, and I hope that the question will be brought before the electorate next spring.”

HENRY R. DE RAIN, of Hawley, Jenks, and De Rain, lawyers—“The adoption of the commission form by seventeen cities of the state indicates a widespread appreciation of the advantages of this centralized control of municipal government. Voters here should have an opportunity to put Hamilton in the list of progressive cities of this state.”

(3)

Leaders in finance and business appear to be of the opinion that questions relating to the tariff will be handled conservatively by the Democratic administration. In this belief it is held that the business of the country, which has gained such remarkable[Pg 143] headway, will continue uninterrupted.

James J. Hill, commenting upon the result of the election, declared that the success of the Democratic party would not have an adverse effect on business. He said:

“I feel better over the general outlook than I did before election. An attempt was made to bring about a political revolution, but the American people, while desiring a change, showed their good sense by repudiating the revolutionary doctrines offered them and by sticking to sound principles and established methods of bringing about their wishes.

“Governor Wilson, a deep student of the history of nations, has the training and qualifications which should make him an able president.”

W. E. Corey, formerly president of the United States Steel Corporation, now identified with many industrial and railroad companies, favors a gradual reduction in the tariff, but not a reduction sufficiently drastic to disturb the country’s commercial and financial equilibrium.

“I am convinced,” said Mr. Corey, “that Mr. Wilson will make an able and conservative business president and that the business of the country as a whole will reap great benefits during his administration. That he will handle the tariff and other problems ably and conservatively there seems to be no question.

“All indications point to a continuation of the prosperity the country is now enjoying, and business should be given a further impetus by the outcome of the election.”

Alvin Krech, president of the Equitable Trust Company, predicted a slowing up of business as a result of the Democratic victory and coming tariff revision.

“This will occur,” he said, “until the country can find out definitely what[Pg 144] the new administration intends to do with the tariff, and how drastic and how precipitately the question is attacked. If the new congress proceeds cautiously and gradually there is no doubt that business will finally adjust itself to any changes without serious disturbance.”

B. F. Yoakum, chairman of the board of the ’Frisco Lines, said:

“I am very much pleased with the election of Wilson. From my personal acquaintance with him I am confident he will carry out all the policies he has promised during the campaign. I am sure he is earnestly in favor of everything he advocated, and is entirely competent.

“The Democratic victory does not by any means settle all the big economic questions of the day. In meeting these the Democratic party is on probation. The entire country looks to it for results during the next four years.”

Francis L. Hine, president of the First National Bank, declared that the election of Mr. Wilson presented no immediate possibility of danger for the country, and as regards the future “one can only wait and see.”

News Stories of Trials. In trials in court the reporter has to deal with material not unlike that in speeches, reports, or interviews. The arguments by the attorneys are in the nature of addresses. The questioning of the witnesses on direct and cross examination is not unlike the question and answer method of interviewing. The decisions handed down by the judges are the reports which those officials make. In general, then, many of the same points that have been considered in regard to addresses, reports, and interviews may be applied to court reports.

Writing the Lead. What the lead of the trial story should contain is determined by the status of the case in court. If a verdict or decision is rendered, that news is naturally the feature. If the trial is not completed, either the most significant testimony or the net result of the day’s proceedings may be made the feature. As the trial goes on from day to day, it is necessary to explain briefly in each story, usually in the lead, what the case deals with, who the parties are, and before whom and where the trial is being conducted, so that the situation will be clear to readers who have not seen the preceding stories of the trial. The reporter must not take for granted that, because all this information was given once when the accused person was arrested, or when the trial was begun, he need not give his readers information every day as to the essential elements of persons, time, place, cause, result, etc. Each of these essentials, as in other stories, may be the feature of the lead. When, for example, a jury has been deliberating for a long time in an interesting case, the exact time at which they reached their verdict may be placed in the first group of words, before the verdict itself.

Hearings before committees of legislative bodies that are getting information and arguments from men for and against proposed legislation, and the taking of testimony by investigating committees, partake so nearly of the nature of trials that the forms and methods of the one apply to the other with little or no modification.

Various forms of leads for reports of trials, hearings, and investigations, given below, show some of the possibilities.

(1)

To continue its study of the best methods of issuing railroad stocks and bonds, President Taft’s Railway Securities Committee met today in the banking house of J. W. Smith & Co., 3 William St.

(2)

That the government was a year too late in bringing its suit against the Standard Oil Company for accepting secret rebates, and the suit in which Judge K. M. Landis imposed the $29,000,000 fine, was brought out yesterday in the government suit for the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey under the Sherman Anti-trust Law, before Special Examiner Franklin Ferris in the Custom House.

(3)

Fraudulent scales were used to weigh raw sugar on the Brooklyn piers of the Sugar Trust, according to the testimony of Special Agent Richard Parr of the United States Treasury Department, this morning in the preliminary hearing of the government’s suits against the American Sugar Refining Company before Commissioner Shields in the Federal Building.

(4)

How suddenly and how radically a woman can exercise her inalienable right to change her mind was shown yesterday before Judge Thomas in the probate court, when in the hearing on the contested will of Mrs. Jane L. Whiting it was shown that she had made one will at 3 o’clock on July 4 last, and another at 7 o’clock in the evening of the same day.

(5)

“Go home and serve time with your families,” was the sentence imposed on two men charged with being drunk and disorderly, by Judge Wilkinson in the police court this morning.

(6)

“Would you send this venerable and honorable man to his grave with the taint of criminal conviction upon his great name?”

Thus Delancey Nicoll inquired of the jury today in Judge Hard’s court, where William E. Williams, aged 83, for forty years a leader of the American bar, is being tried with three other directors of the Cotton Trust on the charge of criminally conspiring to violate the Sherman Anti-trust Law.

(7)

“Never in the twenty years that I have been at the head of the women’s department of Blank University have I discriminated against any student because of race or religion.”

This statement made on the witness stand today was the answer of Dean Sarah Brown to the charge preferred by Miss Della Smith in her $10,000 slander suit against Dr. Brown, that she had been driven out of the university because of her religious views.

Forms for Testimony. The bodies of stories of trials and investigations, like those of speeches and reports, consist of direct quotations of the most significant testimony or arguments, with indirect quotations or summaries of other parts not worth quoting verbatim. The same general principles apply, except when it is necessary to give question and answer in direct or cross examination of witnesses in order to bring out significant points. Several forms are used for verbatim reports of such testimony. Sometimes, particularly in New York papers, the attorney’s questions are preceded by the letter “Q” and the witness’s answers by the letter “A,” each question with its answer constituting a separate paragraph. More commonly, the questions and answers are given in dialogue form as in short stories and novels, with the question followed by the explanatory material in one paragraph, and the answer with necessary explanatory material in another paragraph.

Occasionally, if on direct examination a witness’s testimony, although interrupted by questions, is fairly continuous, the questions may be omitted, and the story told by the witness can thus be given uninterruptedly. When the facts of the testimony rather than the form of it are sufficient, these facts may be given without using either direct or indirect quotations.

How the several forms of reporting testimony appear in newspapers is shown by the following examples which are taken from the body of the story, the leads being omitted here:

(1)

Thomas W. Farlin of Freeport, the next witness called before the committee, said that he was engaged in the real estate and fire insurance business, and that he represented Davis, Hibbard & Company, fire insurance brokers of this city.

“Was there a general increase in insurance rates on dwellings and stores in Freeport during the last three years?” asked William C. Brown, counsel for the committee.

“Yes, all the rates have gone up,” said Mr. Farlin.

“Did you learn why the rates were raised?”

“Oh, they joined the Fire Insurance Exchange.”

“Who did?”

“Davis, Hibbard & Company.”

“That’s why the rates were raised?”

“I suppose so.”

“You joined the Exchange too?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They told me I’d have no trouble with the new rates.”[Pg 149]

“Were you forced into joining the Exchange?”

“I found that it was necessary in order to write policies.”

Mr. Farlin said that he preferred belonging to the exchange to doing business as an independent broker because it meant more money and less trouble.

“So you’re in favor of the higher rates?”