A few hints on the gathering of news may not be amiss. It must be
understood from the beginning that the reporter is not actually
present when all of the things happen about which he must write. A
newspaper could hardly keep large enough a staff to be actually on
hand when every accident and every fire took place. There are many
happenings which take place according to SCHEDULE, and which reporters
can consequently “cover” by being present on time and witnessing
the event. Such are games, trials, ceremonies, social functions,
interviews, parades, etc. But there are also hosts of occurrences which
happen unexpectedly, and of which the newspaper office can perforce
know nothing in advance. Such are crimes, fires, accidents, etc. The
problem, then, limits itself to finding out in advance the schedule of
pre-arranged events, and the quick discovery of happenings which come
off without warning.
As to games, trials, parades, and most ceremonies, it is easy enough
to keep track of them, for their occurrence is so much a matter of
public interest that they are in some form or other advertised to
the people ahead of time. The same is true of marriages, for which
a license must be obtained from a public official and recorded in a
book open to the reporter. Deeds, mortgages, wills, and other legal
transactions have the same advantage in the eyes of the newspaper.
Social functions are a little harder, sometimes, to keep track of.
Hotels and restaurants will be glad to furnish the papers discreetly
with lists of coming events in their quarters, however, as it makes
for good publicity. Caterers and fancy bakers are generally not averse
to giving out the names and dates of coming events for which they have
orders. Many women call up and let the newspaper know of their affairs
in advance. In this connection it is well to state that all newspapers
like to have names in their columns, in abundance. Get names. Names
make for circulation. Names make for popularity with a paper. There
is not a human being that does not like to see his name in print.
Sometimes a person will call up the paper or see the editor on the
street and request that his or her name be kept out of the paper in
the future. But there is one thing that a person objects to, more than
seeing his name in the paper too much--and that, of course, is not to
see it in there at all. Wherever you can garner up a name, grab it and
use it in your news-writing. Write large in the tablets of your memory,
“GET NAMES.” There is only one thing more important in this respect,
and that is to get the names correctly. I said a moment ago that only
one thing was worse than not seeing your name in the paper at all, but
I believe I must almost take that back. If anything can be worse than
never appearing in the paper, it is to appear there, with one’s name
misspelled. Such a state of affairs, if habitually indulged in, can
ruin the public’s good feeling for a paper, and then it might as well
shut up shop.
As to the UNEXPECTED happenings of the day, which the reporter is
supposed to catch and depict for the readers, the case is not so
altogether different as the uninitiated would suppose. In the first
place, most of these happenings are reported to the police, and the
record of them is thus quickly made available to the press. If a
man is run over, the police are among the first to know of it, and
instantly the reporter is on the trail of the accident. Newspapers
keep in constant contact with the police for this very purpose. And
no better advice could be given to a young reporter than “to stand in
well with the police.” Policemen know their communities in certain
respects better than anyone else, and sometimes a tactful approach
to a big blue-coat will do more to put a cub-reporter on the trail
of a story than a couple of hours of other attempts. Fire-stations
and ambulance-stations are also good positions from which to keep in
contact with the news. Hospitals, undertakers, the coroner’s office,
ministers, prominent club-people, are all sources of news, which,
although they are organized for other purposes, offer admirable
places for the registration of facts which the public wants to know
about as news. Hotels, railways, markets, stock exchanges, wharves
and schools all furnish good sources of information. Doctors are
rarely good sources of news, and hospitals sometimes give trouble in
this matter. But on the whole, all the localities thus far mentioned
are such regular gatherers and storers-up of news for the papers,
that editors put them on what is known as a “run” or a “beat” to be
visited periodically and the news gathered from them. To the layman it
comes as a shock to find how little we do in this world that is not
docketed somewhere, more or less officially. But it is a godsend to the
reporter, who thus can perform the seemingly impossible task of being
everywhere at the same time, seeing everything in all parts of the city.
Much of the reporter’s time is spent in gaining information from
people by the general means of question and answer, and it is here
that he can use every ounce of tact and the knowledge of human nature
that he possesses. INTERVIEWING is the general name that can be given
to this part of his work, even though the word is generally reserved
for the more formal tasks of this nature. But there are some principles
that are useful in this matter, whether it be a washerwoman or a bank
president that is being questioned, and they can be set down here.
In the first place, it is almost universally a waste of time to ask
anybody “Have you any news?” Unless one has had technical or practical
training, a person usually does not know what constitutes news. Just as
he must aim at being specific in his writing, so also must the reporter
be prepared to ask specific questions of the people from whom he hopes
to gain information. “Who did so and so?” or “What did so and so do?”
or “When did so and so happen?” “Do you know where so and so is?” are
the type of definite questions that must be asked. Especially before
tackling a busy executive must the reporter have well in mind the exact
points which he wishes to clear up; but the same thing holds true in
all cases. The reporter organizes his questions, as it were, before he
begins to talk, knows what he wants to find out, and then goes for it.
Otherwise he will only too often find himself at last outside an office
door with no real advance made, no material gained for his story,
or he will find that some loquacious woman has led him far astray
into fields that have nothing to do with the story in point. Before
beginning to talk over the telephone, the reporter should have his
questions particularly well in mind, as he will be forced to carry on
a running fire of question and comment and at the same time be jotting
down notes. In face-to-face interviewing the reporter frequently has
difficulty in the matter of taking notes, as many people will take
fright when they see that their words are being taken down, and they
will then shut up like a clam. On the whole, it is perhaps better not
to produce a note-book in the presence of the person being interviewed,
but to jot down the notations immediately upon leaving. Over the
telephone it is always best, also, immediately to state that “this is
such-and-such a paper speaking.”