Of a different type is the “re-write” story, of which the reporter
generally has many to do in the course of his writing. In its commonest
form, a clipping from another paper is re-written for “our” sheet,
and the attempt then is so to change its form without altering its
facts, that it may pass for an original account. This generally entails
the finding of a new feature in the facts of the story, and for this
purpose a firm grasp of the fundamental human interests, as already
outlined, is essential. In most stories there are more than one
possible feature, and it is the business of the re-write man to pick
out some other one of these than the one used by the first man, and
work it up into a story. Thus if in a clipping from another paper it
was announced that hereafter all dances in town charging admission must
pay a privilege tax of $2.50, the re-write man might feature the fact
that the tax must be paid in advance for each dance given. Sometimes
a clipping concerning a police-court trial will contain an indirect
statement as to motive or cause. This can be turned into a direct
statement and featured in the re-write. The re-write is generally
shorter than the story from which it is taken. It is used only because,
for some reason or other, the paper failed to cover the story in
question. This may have been because a rival paper got a “scoop,”
or because the story appeared in a morning paper, while “our” paper
appears in the afternoon. In the latter case it is possible that our
readers have already seen the story in the morning paper, but we want
to protect those of our readers who did not see it there, and offer
them at least some sort of an account of the story. Hence the re-write,
which, while not considered the highest form of the reporter’s art, is
still looked upon as legitimate.