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NEWSPAPER REPORTING
AND CORRESPONDENCE
A MANUAL FOR REPORTERS,
CORRESPONDENTS, AND STUDENTS
OF NEWSPAPER WRITING
BY
GRANT MILNOR HYDE, M.A.
INSTRUCTOR IN JOURNALISM IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
TO
MY MOTHER
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this book is to instruct the prospective newspaper
reporter in the way to write those stories which his future paper will
call upon him to write, and to help the young cub reporter and the
struggling correspondent past the perils of the copyreader's pencil by
telling them how to write clean copy that requires a minimum of editing.
It is not concerned with the _why_ of the newspaper business--the editor
may attend to that--but with the _how_ of the reporter's work. And an
ability to write is believed to be the reporter's chief asset. There is
no space in this book to dilate upon newspaper organization, the work of
the business office, the writing of advertisements, the principles of
editorial writing, or the how and why of newspaper policy and practice,
as it is. These things do not concern the reporter during the first few
months of his work, and he will learn them from experience when he needs
them. Until then, his usefulness depends solely upon his ability to get
news and to write it.
There are two phases of the work which every reporter must learn: how to
get the news and how to write it. The first he can pick up easily by
actual newspaper experience--if nature has endowed him with "a nose for
news." The writing of the news he can learn only by hard practice--a
year's hard practice on some papers--and it is generally conceded that
practice in writing news stories can be secured at home or in the
classroom as effectively as practice in writing short stories, plays,
business letters, or any other special form of composition. Newspaper
experience may aid the reporter in learning how to write his stories,
but a newspaper apprenticeship is not absolutely necessary. However,
whether he is studying the trade of newspaper writing in his home, in a
classroom, or in the city room of a daily paper, he needs positive
instruction in the English composition of the newspaper office--rather
than haphazard criticism and a deluge of "don'ts." Hence this book is
concerned primarily with the writing of the news.
Successful newspaper reporting requires both an ability to write good
English and an ability to write good English in the conventional
newspaper form. And there is a conventional form for every kind of
newspaper story. Many editors of the present day are trying to break
away from the conventional form and to evolve a looser and more natural
method of writing news stories. The results are often bizarre and
sometimes very effective. Certainly originality in expression adds much
to the interest of newspaper stories, and many a good piece of news is
ruined by a bald, dry recital of facts. Just as the good reporter is
always one who can give his yarns a distinctive flavor, great newspaper
stories are seldom written under the restriction of rules. But no young
reporter can hope to attain success through originality and defiance of
rules until he has first mastered the fundamental principles of
newspaper writing. He can never expect to write "the story of the year"
until he has learned to handle everyday news without burying the gist of
his stories--any more than an artist can hope to paint a living portrait
until he has learned, with the aid of rules, to draw the face of a
plaster block-head. Hence the emphasis upon form and system in this
book. And, whatever the form may be, the embodiment must be clear,
concise, grammatical English; that is the excuse for the many axioms of
simple English grammar that are introduced side by side with the study
of the newspaper form.
The author offers this book as the result of personal newspaper
experience and of his work as instructor in classes in newspaper writing
at the University of Wisconsin. Every item that is offered is the result
of an attempt to correct the mistakes that have appeared most often in
the papers of students who are trying to do newspaper writing in the
classroom. The seemingly disproportionate emphasis upon certain branches
of the subject and the constant repetition of certain simple principles
are to be excused by the purpose of the book--to be a text-book in the
course of study worked out in this school of journalism. The use of the
fire story as typical of all newspaper stories and as a model for all
newspaper writing is characteristic of this method of instruction. Four
chapters are devoted to the explanation of a single principle which any
reader could grasp in a moment, because experience has shown that an
equivalent of four chapters of study and practice is required to teach
the student the application of this principle and to fix it in his mind
so thoroughly that he will not forget it in his later work of writing
more complicated stories. It is felt that the beginner needs and must
have the detailed explanation, the constant reiteration and some
definite rules to guide him in his practice. Hence the emphasis upon the
conventional form. Since, in the application of the newspaper principle
of beginning with the gist of the story, the structure of the lead is of
greater importance than the rest of the story, this book devotes the
greater part of its discussion to the lead.
The suggestions for practice are attached in an attempt to give the
young newspaper man some _positive_ instruction. Most reporters are
instructed by a system of "don'ts," growled out by busy editors; most
correspondents receive no instruction at all--a positive suggestion now
and then cannot but help them both. Practice is necessary in the study
of any form of writing; these suggestions for practice embody the method
of practice used in this school of journalism. The examples are taken
from representative papers of the entire country to show the student how
the stories are actually written in newspaper offices.
Madison, Wisconsin,
June 3, 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. GATHERING THE NEWS 1
II. NEWS VALUES 14
III. NEWSPAPER TERMS 28
IV. THE NEWS STORY FORM 34
V. THE SIMPLE FIRE STORY 41
VI. THE FEATURE FIRE STORY 50
VII. FAULTS IN NEWS STORIES 75
VIII. OTHER NEWS STORIES 105
IX. FOLLOW-UP AND REWRITE STORIES 125
X. REPORTS OF SPEECHES 143
XI. INTERVIEWS 169
XII. COURT REPORTING 192
XIII. SOCIAL NEWS AND OBITUARIES 204
XIV. SPORTING NEWS 219
XV. HUMAN INTEREST STORIES 233
XVI. DRAMATIC REPORTING 259
XVII. STYLE BOOK 276
APPENDIX I--SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 294
APPENDIX II--NEWS STORIES TO BE CORRECTED 311
INDEX 339
NEWSPAPER REPORTING AND CORRESPONDENCE
I
GATHERING THE NEWS
Unlike almost any other profession, that of a newspaper reporter
combines two very different activities--the gathering of news and the
writing of news. Part of the work must be done in the office and part of
it outside on the street. At his desk in the office a reporter is
engaged in the literary, or pseudo-literary, occupation of writing news
stories; outside on the street he is a detective gathering news and
hunting for elusive facts to be combined later into stories. Although
the two activities are closely related, each requires a different sort
of ability and a different training. In a newspaper office the two
activities are rarely separated, but a beginner must learn each duty
independent of the other. This book will not attempt to deal with both;
it will confine itself mainly to one phase, the pseudo-literary
activity of writing news stories.
However, introductory to the discussion of the writing of newspaper
stories, we may glance at the other side of the newspaper writer's
work--the gathering of the news. Where the newspaper gets its news and
how it gets its news can be learned only by experience, for it differs
in different cities and with different papers. But an outline of the
background of news-gathering may assist us in writing the news after it
is gathered and ready for us to write.
=1. Reporter vs. Correspondent.=--There are two capacities in which one
may write news stories for a paper. He may work on the staff as a
regular reporter or he may supply news from a distance as a
correspondent. In the one case he works under the personal supervision
of a city editor and spends his entire time at the regular occupation of
gathering and writing news. As a correspondent he works in a distant
city, under the indirect supervision of the city, telegraph, or state
editor, and sends in only the occasional stories that seem to be of
interest to his paper. In either case the same rules apply to his news
gathering and to his news writing. And in either case the length of his
employment depends upon his ability to turn in clean copy in the form
in which his paper wishes to print the news. Both the reporter and the
correspondent must write their stories in the same form and must look at
news and the sources of news from almost the same point of view.
Whatever is said of the reporter applies equally to the correspondent.
=2. Expected and Unexpected News.=--The daily news may be divided into
two classes from the newspaper's point of view: expected and unexpected
news. Expected news includes all stories of which the paper has a
previous knowledge. Into this class fall all meetings, speeches,
sermons, elections, athletic contests, social events, and daily
happenings that do not come unexpectedly. They are the events that are
announced beforehand and tipped off to the paper in time for the editor
to send out a reporter to cover them personally. These events are of
course recorded in the office, and each day the editor has a certain
number of them, a certain amount of news that he is sure of. Each day he
looks over his book to note the events that are to take place during
that day and sends out his reporters to cover them.
The other class includes the stories that break unexpectedly. Accidents,
deaths, fires, storms, and other unexpected happenings come without
warning and the reporting of them cannot be arranged for in advance.
These are the stories that the paper is most anxious to get and the
things for which the whole staff always has its eyes and ears open.
Seldom are they heard of in time for the paper to have them covered
personally, and the reporting of such stories becomes a separate sort of
work--the gathering and sorting of the facts that can be obtained only
from chance witnesses.
=3. News Sources.=--There are certain sources from which the paper gets
most of its tips of expected events and its knowledge of unexpected
events. These every editor knows about. The courts, the public records,
the public offices, the churches, and the schools furnish a great many
of the tips of expected news. The police stations, the fire stations,
the hospitals, and the morgues furnish most of the tips of unexpected
news. Whenever an event is going to happen, or whenever an unexpected
occurrence does happen, a notice of it is to be found in some one of
these sources. Such a notice or a casual word from any one is called a
"tip" and indicates the possibility of securing a story. The securing of
the story is another matter. A would-be reporter may get good practice
from studying the stories in the daily papers and trying to discover or
imagine from what source the original news tip came. He will soon find
that certain classes of stories always come from certain sources and
that there is a perceptible amount of routine evident in the accounts
of the most unexpected occurrences.
=4. Runs and Assignments.=--Between the news tip and the finished copy
for the compositor there is a vast amount of news gathering, which falls
to the lot of the reporter. This is handled by a system of runs and
special assignments. A reporter usually has his own run, or beat, on
which he gathers news. His run may cover a certain number of police
stations or the city hall or any group of regular news sources. Each day
he must visit the various sources of news on his beat and gather the
tips and whatever facts about the stories behind the tips that he can.
The tips that he secures furnish him with clues to the stories, and it
is his business to get the facts behind all of the tips on his beat and
to write them up, unless a tip opens up a story that is too big for him
to handle alone without neglecting his beat.
Assignments are used to cover the stories that do not come in through
the regular sources, and to handle the big stories that are unearthed on
the regular beats. The editor turns over to the reporter the tip that he
has received and instructs him to go out and get the facts. A paper's
best reporters are used almost entirely on assignments, and when they go
out after a story they practically become detectives. They follow every
clue that the tip suggests and every clue that is opened up as they
progress; they hunt down the facts until they are reasonably sure that
they have secured the whole story. The result may not be worth writing,
or it may be worth a place on the front page, but the reporter must get
to the bottom of it. Whether on a beat or on an assignment every
reporter must have his ears open for a tip of some unexpected story and
must secure the facts or inform the editor at once. It is in this way
that a paper gets a scoop, or beat, on its rivals by printing a story
before the other papers have heard of it.
=5. Interviews for Facts.=--To cover an assignment and secure the facts
of a story is not at all easy. If the reporter could be a personal
witness of the happening which he is to report, the task would be
simpler. But, outside the case of expected events, he rarely hears of
the occurrence until after it is past and the excitement has subsided.
Then he must find the persons who witnessed the occurrence or who know
the facts, and get the story from them. Perhaps he has to see a dozen
people to get the information he wants. Getting facts from people in
this way is called interviewing--interviewing for facts, as
distinguished from formal interviewing for the purpose of securing a
statement or an opinion that is to be printed with the name of the man
who utters it. Although a dozen interviews may be necessary for a
single story, not one of them is mentioned in the story, for they are of
no importance except in the facts that they supply.
For example, suppose a reporter is sent out to get the story of a fire
that has started an hour or two before he goes on duty. All that his
editor gives him is the tip from the fire department, or from some other
source, of a fire at such-and-such an address. When he arrives at the
scene there is nothing left but smoldering ruins with perhaps an engine
throwing a stream on the smoking débris and a few by-standers still
loitering about. He can see with his own eyes what kind of building has
burned, and how completely it has been destroyed. A by-stander may be
able to tell him who occupied the building or what it was used for, but
he must hunt for some one else who can give him the exact facts that his
paper wants. Perhaps he can find the tenant and learn from him what his
loss has been. The tenant can give him the name of the owner and may be
able to tell him something about the origin of the fire. He must find
the owner to get the value of the building and the amount of insurance
carried. Perhaps he cannot find any of these people and must ask the
fire chief or some one else to give him what facts and estimates he can.
If the fire is at all serious he must find out who was killed or
injured and get their names and addresses and the nature of their injury
or the manner of their death. Perhaps he can talk to some of the people
who had narrow escapes, or interview the friends or relatives of the
dead. Everywhere he turns new clues open up, and he must follow each one
of them in turn until he is sure that he has all the facts.
=6. Point of View.=--The task would be easy if every one could tell the
reporter just the facts that his paper wants. But in the confusion every
one is excited and fairly bubbling over with rumors and guesses which
may later turn out to be false. Each person who is interested in the
incident sees and tells it only from his own point of view. Obviously
the reporter's paper does not want the facts from many different points
of view, nor even from the point of view of the fire department, of the
owner, or of the woman who was rescued from the third floor. The paper
wants the story from a single point of view--the point of view of an
uninterested spectator. Consequently the reporter must get the facts
through interviews with a dozen different people, discount possible
exaggeration and falsity due to excitement, make allowances for the
different points of view, harmonize conflicting statements, and sift
from the mass what seems to him to be the truth. Then he must write the
story from the uninterested point of view of the public, which wants to
hear the exact facts of the fire told in an unprejudiced way. Never does
the story mention any of the interviews behind it except when the
reporter is afraid of some statement and wants to put the responsibility
upon the person who gave it to him. And so the finished story that we
read in the next morning's paper is the composite story of the fire
chief, the owner, the tenant, the man who discovered the fire, the widow
who was driven from her little flat, the little girl who was carried
down a ladder through the smoke, the man who lost everything he had in
the world, and the cynic who watched the flames from behind the
fireline--all massed together and sifted and retold in an impersonal way
from the point of view of a by-stander who has been everywhere through
the flames and has kept his brain free from the terror and excitement of
it all.
The same is true of every story that is printed in a newspaper. Every
story must be secured in the same way--whether it is the account of a
business transaction, a bank robbery, a political scandal, a murder, a
reception, or a railroad wreck. Seldom is it possible to find any one
person who knows all the facts just as the newspaper wants them, and
many a story that is worth but a stickful in the first edition is the
result of two hours' running about town, half a dozen telephone calls,
and a dozen interviews. That is the way the news is gathered, and that
is the part of the reporter's work that he must learn by experience. But
after all the gathering is finished and he has the facts, the writing of
the story remains. If the reporter knows how to write the facts when he
has them, his troubles are cut in half, for nowadays a reporter who
writes well is considered a more valuable asset than one who cannot
write and simply has a nose for news.
=7. News-Gathering Agencies.=--This account of news gathering is of
course told from the point of view of the reporter. Naturally it assumes
a different aspect in the editor's eyes. Much of the day's news does not
have to be gathered at all. A steady stream of news flows in ready for
use from the great news-gathering agencies, the Associated Press, the
United Press, the City Press, etc., and from correspondents. Many
stories are merely summaries of speeches, bulletins, announcements,
pamphlets and other printed matter that comes to the editorial office,
and many stories come already written. Almost everybody is looking for
publicity in these days and the editor does not always have to hunt the
news with an army of ferrets. Coöperation in news gathering has
simplified the whole matter. But it all has to be written and edited.
That is why great reporters are no longer praised for their cleverness
in worming their way to elusive facts, but for their ability to write a
good story. That is why we no longer hear so much about beats and scoops
but more about clean copy and "literary masterpieces."
=8. How the Correspondent Works.=--The correspondent gathers news very
much as the reporter does, but he does it without the help of a city
editor. He must be his own director and keep his own book of tips, for
he has no one to make out his assignments beforehand. He has to watch
for what news he can get by himself and send it to his paper of his own
accord, except occasionally when his paper instructs him to cover a
particularly large story. But he gets his tips and runs down his facts
just as a reporter does. Just as much alertness and just as much ability
to write are required of him.
The correspondent's work is made more difficult by what is called news
values. Distance affects the importance of the facts that he secures and
the length of the stories he writes. He must weigh every event for its
interest to readers a hundred or a thousand miles away. What may be of
immense importance in his community may have no interest at all for
readers outside that community. He must see everything with the eyes of
a stranger, and this must influence his whole work of news gathering
and news writing. This matter will be taken up at greater length in the
next chapter.
=9. Correspondent's Relation to His Paper.=--The relations of a
correspondent to the paper or news association to which he is sending
news can best be learned by experience. Every paper has different rules
for its correspondents and different directions in regard to the sort of
news it wants. The rules regarding the mailing of copy and the sending
of stories or queries by telegraph are usually sent out in printed form
by each individual paper to its correspondents. But while gathering news
and writing stories for a distant paper, a correspondent must always
regard himself as a reporter and write his stories in the form in which
they are to appear in print if he wishes to remain correspondent for any
length of time. The following rules are taken from the "INSTRUCTIONS TO
CORRESPONDENTS" sent out on a printed card to the correspondents of the
St. Louis _Star_:
QUERY BY WIRE ON ALL STORIES you consider are worth
telegraphing, unless you are absolutely certain _The Star_
wants you to send the story without query, or in case of a big
story breaking suddenly near edition time. If you have not time
to query, get a reply and send such matter as might be ordered
before the next edition time; send the story in the shortest
possible number of words necessary to tell it, asking if
additional matter is desired.
Write your queries so they can be understood. Never send a
"blind" query. If John Smith, a confirmed bachelor, whose age is
80 years, elopes with and marries the daughter of the woman who
jilted him when he was a youth, say so in as few words as
possible, but be sure to convey the dramatic news worth of the
story in your query. Do not say, "Bachelor elopes with girl,
daughter of woman he knew a long time ago." In itself the story
which this query tells might be worth printing, but it would not
be half so good a story as the elopement of John Smith, 80,
bachelor, woman hater, with the daughter of his old sweetheart.
When a good story breaks close to edition time and the
circumstances justify it, use the long-distance telephone, but
first be reasonably certain _The Star_ will not get the story
from another source.
Write your stories briefly. _The Star_ desires to remunerate its
correspondents according to the worth of a story and not for so
many words. One good story of 200 words with the right "punch"
in the introduction is worth a dozen strung over as many dozen
pages of copy paper with the real story in the last paragraph of
each. Tell your story in simple, every-day conversational words:
quit when you have finished. Relegate the details. Unless it is
a case of identification in a murder mystery, or some similar
big story, no one cares about the color of the man's hair. Get
the principal facts in the first paragraph--stop soon after.
Send as much of your stuff as possible by mail, especially if
you have the story in the late afternoon and are near enough to
St. Louis to reach _The Star_ by 9 o'clock the next morning. If
necessary, send the letter special delivery.
Don't stop working on a good story when you have all the facts;
if there are photographs to be obtained, get the photographs,
especially if the principals in the story are persons of
standing, and more especially if they are women.
Correspondents will appreciably increase their worth to _The
Star_ and enhance their earning capacity by observing these
rules.
II
NEWS VALUES
Before any one can hope to write for a newspaper he must know something
about news values--something about the essence of interest that makes
one story worth a column and cuts down another, of equal importance from
other points of view, to a stickful. He must recognize the relative
value of facts so that he can distinguish the significant part of his
story and feature it accordingly. The question is a delicate one and yet
a very reasonable and logical one. The ideal of a newspaper, according
to present-day ethics, is to print news. The daily press is no longer a
golden treasury of contemporary literature, not even, perhaps, an
exponent of political principles. Its primary purpose is to report
contemporary history--to keep us informed concerning the events that are
taking place each day in the world about us.
To this idea is added another. A newspaper must be interesting. In these
days of many newspapers few readers are satisfied with merely being
informed; they want to be informed in a way that interests them. To
this demand every one connected with a newspaper office tries to cater.
It is the defense of the sensational yellow journals and it is the
reason for everything in the daily press. There is so much to read that
people will not read things that do not interest them, and the paper
that succeeds is the paper that interests the greatest number of
readers. Circulation cannot be built up by printing uninteresting stuff
that the majority of readers are not interested in, and circulation is
necessary to success.
This desire to interest readers is behind the whole question of news
values. News is primarily the account of the latest events, but, more
than that, it is the account of the latest events that interest readers
who are not connected with these events. Further than that, it is the
account of the latest events that interest the greatest number of
readers. Susie Brown may have sprained her ankle. The fact is
absorbingly interesting to Susie; it is even rather interesting to her
family and friends, even to her enemies. If she is well known in the
little town in which she lives her accident may be interesting enough to
the townspeople for the local weekly to print a complete account of it.
However, the event is interesting only to people who know Susie, and
after all they do not comprise a very large number. Hence her accident
has no news value outside the local weekly. On the other hand, had Susie
sprained her ankle in some very peculiar manner, the accident might be
of interest to people who do not know Susie. Suppose that she had
tripped on her gown as she was ascending the steps of the altar to be
married. Such an accident would be very unusual, almost unheard of.
People in general are interested in unusual things, and many, many
readers would be interested in reading about Susie's unusual accident
although they did not know Susie or even the town in which she lives.
Such a story would be the report of a late event that would interest
many people; hence it would have a certain amount of news value. Of
course, the reader loses sight of Susie in reading of her accident--it
might as well have been Mary Jones--but that is because Susie has no
news value in herself. That is another matter.
=1. Classes of Readers.=--Realizing that his story must be of interest
to the greatest number of people, the reporter must remember the sort of
people for whom he is writing. That complicates the whole matter. If he
were writing for a single class of readers he could easily give them the
news that would interest them. But he is not; he is writing for many
classes of people, for all classes of people. And he must interest them
all. He is writing for the business man in his office, for the wife in
the home, for the ignorant, for the highly educated, for the rich and
the poor, for the old and the young, for doctors, lawyers, bankers,
laborers, ministers, and women. All of them buy his paper to hear the
latest news told in a way that interests them, and he has to cater to
each and to all of them. If he were simply writing for business men he
would give them many columns of financial news, but that would not
interest tired laborers. An extended account of the doings of a
Presbyterian convention would not attract the great class of men with
sporting inclinations, and a story of a very pretty exhibition of
scientific boxing would not appeal to the wife at home. They all buy the
paper, and they all want to be interested, and the paper must,
therefore, print stories that interest at least the majority of them.
That is the question of news values. The news must be the account of the
latest events that interest the greatest number of readers of all
classes.
This search for the universally-interesting news is the reason behind
the sensational papers. Although the interests of any individual differ
in almost every aspect from the interests of his neighbor, there is one
sort of news that interests them both, that interests every human being.
That is the news that appeals to the emotions, to the heart. It is the
news that deals with human life--human nature--human interest news the
papers call it. In it every human being is interested. However trivial
may be the event, if it can be described in a way that will make the
reader feel the point of view of the human beings who suffered or
struggled or died or who were made happy in the event, every other human
being will read it with interest. Human sympathy makes one want to feel
joy and pain from the standpoint of others. Naturally that sort of news
is always read; naturally the paper that devotes itself to such news is
always read and is always successful as far as circulation and profits
go. The papers that have that ideal of news behind them and forsake
every other ideal for it are called sensational papers. Whether they are
good or not is another question.
With this idea of what news values means and the idea that news is worth
while only when it interests the largest number of people of all
classes, we may try to look for the things that make news interesting to
the greatest number of people of all classes. The reporter must know not
only what news is, but what makes it news. He must be able to see the
things in a story that will interest the greatest number of people of
all classes. These are many and intricate.
=2. Timeliness.=--In the first place, news must be new. A story must
have timeliness. Our readers want to know what happened to-day, for
yesterday and last week are past and gone. They want to be up to the
minute in their information on current events. Therefore a story that is
worth printing to-day will not be worth printing to-morrow or, at most,
on the day after to-morrow. Events must be chronicled just as soon as
they happen. Furthermore, the story itself must show that it is new. It
must tell the reader at once that the event which it is chronicling
happened to-day or last night--at least since the last edition of the
paper. That is why the reporter must never fail to put the time in the
introduction of his story. Editors grow gray-headed trying to keep up
with the swift passing of events, and they are always very careful to
tell their readers that the events which they are chronicling are the
latest events. That is the reason why every editor hates the word
"yesterday" and tries to get "to-day" or "this morning" into the lead of
every story. Hence, to the newspaper, everything that happened since
midnight last night is labeled "this morning," and everything that
happened since six o'clock yesterday afternoon is labeled "last night."
Anything before that hour must be labeled "yesterday," but it goes in as
"late yesterday afternoon," if it possibly can. Hence the first
principle of news values is timeliness--news is news only because it
just happened and can be spoken of as one of the events of "to-day" or
of "late yesterday."
=3. Distance.=--Distance is another factor in news values. In spite of
fast trains and electric telegraphs human beings are clannish and local
in their interests. They are interested mainly in things and persons
that they know, and news from outside their ken must be of unusual
significance to attract them. They like to read about things that they
have seen and persons that they know, because they are slow to exert
their imaginations enough to appreciate things that they do not know
personally. Hence every newspaper is primarily local, even though it is
a metropolitan daily, and news from a distance plays a very subordinate
part. It has been said that New York papers cannot see beyond the
Alleghanies; it is equally true that most papers cannot see more than a
hundred miles from the printing office, except in the case of national
news. Any newspaper's range of news sources goes out from the editorial
room in concentric circles. Purely personal news must come from within
the range of the paper's general circulation, because people do not care
to read purely personal news about persons whom they do not know. Other
news is limited ordinarily to the region with which the paper's readers
are personally acquainted--the state, perhaps--because subscribers
unconsciously wish to hear about places with which they are personally
acquainted. Any news that comes from outside this larger circle must be
nation-wide or very unusual in its interest. A story that may be worth a
column in El Paso, Texas, would not be worth printing in New York
because El Paso is hardly more than a name to most New York newspaper
readers. In the same way, the biggest stories in New York are not worth
anything in Texas, because Texas readers are not personally interested
in New York--they cannot say, "Yes, I know that building; I walked down
that street the other day; oh, you can't tell me anything about the
subway." News is primarily local, and the first thing a correspondent
must learn is how to distinguish the stories that are purely local in
their interest from those that would be worth printing a hundred miles
away in a paper read by people who do not know the places or persons
involved in the story. Colonel Smith may be a very big frog in the
little puddle of Smith's Corners, and his doings may be big news to the
weeklies all over his county, but he has to do something very unusual
before his name is worth a line in a paper two counties away. He is
nothing but a name to people who do not know him or know of him, and
therefore they are not interested in him. Every correspondent must watch
for the stories that have something more than a local interest, some
element of news in them that will carry them over the obstacle of
distance and make them interesting to any reader.
It would be impossible to analyze news values to the extent of telling
every conceivable element of interest that will overcome the obstacle of
distance. Yet there are certain elements that always make a newspaper
story interesting to any one.
=4. Loss of life.=--One of these is the loss of human life. For some
strange reason every human being is interested in the thought of death.
Just as soon as a story mentions death it is worth printing, and if it
has a number of deaths to tell about it is worth printing anywhere. Any
fire, any railroad wreck, or any other disaster in which a number of
persons are killed or injured makes a story that is worth sending
anywhere. There seems to be a joy for the reader in the mere number of
fatalities. A story that can begin with "Ten people were killed," or
"Seven men met their death," attracts a reader's interest at once. As a
very natural result, and justly, too, newspapers have been broadly
accused of exaggeration for the sake of a large number. But at present
many papers are inclined to underestimate rather than overestimate,
perhaps to avoid this accusation. In a number of instances in the past
year, among them the Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York, the first
figures were smaller than the official count printed later. That does
not mean, however, that newspapers do not want stories involving loss of
life. Any story which involves a large number of fatalities will carry a
long distance, if for no other reason.
=5. Big Names.=--Another element of news values is the interest in
prominent people. The mere mention of a man or a woman who is known
widely attracts attention. Although Colonel Smith of Smith's Corners has
to do something very unusual to get his name in any paper outside his
county, the slightest thing that President Taft does is printed in every
paper in the country. It is simply because of our interest in the man
himself. Some names give a story news value because the names are widely
known politically or financially, some names because they are simply
notorious. But any name that is recognized at once, for any reason,
gives a story news value.
=6. Property Loss.=--Akin to man's love for any account that involves
large loss of human life, is his love of any story that tells about a
huge loss of property. The mere figures seem to have a charm; any story
that can begin with awesome figures, like "Two million dollars," "One
hundred automobiles," "Ten city blocks," has news value. Hence any story
that involves a large loss that can be expressed in figures has the
power to carry a great distance.
=7. Unusualness.=--It is safe to say that newspaper readers are
interested in anything unusual. It does not matter whether it is a
thing, a person, an action, a misfortune; so long as it is strange and
out of the range of ordinary lives, it is interesting. Many, if not
most, newspaper stories have nothing but the element of strangeness in
them to give them news value, but if they are sufficiently strange and
unusual they may be copied all over the country. An unusual origin or an
unusual rescue will give an unimportant fire great news value. And so
with every other kind of story.
=8. Human Interest.=--Along with the element of the strange and unusual,
goes the human interest element. Any story that will make us laugh or
make us cry has news value. Hundreds of magazines are issued monthly
with nothing in them but fictitious stories that are intended to arouse
our emotions, and newspapers are beginning to realize that they can
interest their readers in the same way. No life is so prosaic that it is
not full of incidents that make one laugh or cry, and when these
stories can be told in a way that will make any reader feel the same
emotions, they have news value that will carry them a long distance.
Obviously their success depends very largely upon the way they are told.
=9. Personal Appeal.=--Another element that may give a story news value
is that of personal appeal or application to the reader's own daily
life. Men are primarily egoistic and selfish and nothing interests them
more than things that affect them personally. They can read complacently
and without interest of the misfortunes and joys of others, but just as
soon as anything affects their own daily lives, even a little, they want
to hear about it. Perhaps the price of butter has gone up a few cents or
the gas company has reduced its rates from eighty cents to
seventy-seven. Every reader is interested at once, for the news affects
his own daily life. Sometimes this personal appeal is due merely to the
reader's familiarity with the persons or places mentioned in the story;
sometimes it is due to the story's application to his business life, his
social or religious activities, or to any phase of his daily existence.
That is the reason why political news interests every one, for we all
feel that the management of the government has an influence on our own
lives. The story of any political maneuver--especially if it is one
that may be looked upon as bad or good--carries farther than any other
story. Show that your story tells of something that has even the
slightest effect on the lives of a large number of people and it needs
no other element to give it news value.
=10. Local Reasons.=--These factors and many others give news stories a
news value that will carry them a long distance and make them
interesting in communities far from their source. Many local reasons may
enhance the value of a story for local papers. A paper's policy or some
campaign that it is waging may give an otherwise unimportant event a
tremendous significance. If an unimportant person is slightly injured
while leaving a trolley car the story is hardly worth a line of type.
But if such an item should come to a newspaper while it is carrying on a
campaign against the local street railway company, the story would
probably be written and printed in great detail. Any slight occurrence
that may be in line with a paper's political beliefs would receive an
amount of space far out of proportion with its ordinary news worth. News
value is a very changeable and indefinite thing, and there are countless
reasons why any given story should be of interest to a large number of
readers. And the possibility of interesting a large number of readers is
the basis of news value.
=11. The Feature.=--In connection with the study of news values the
question of feature is important. In editorial offices one is constantly
hearing the word "feature," and reporters are constantly admonished to
"play up the feature" of their stories. Feature is the word that editors
use to signify the essence of news value. Every story that is printed is
printed because of some fact in it that makes it interesting--gives it
news value. The element in the story that makes it interesting and worth
printing is the feature. The feature may be some prominent name, a large
list of fatalities, a significant amount of property destroyed, or
merely the unusualness of the incident. This feature is the element that
makes the story news; therefore it is used to attract attention to the
story. Every newspaper story displays like a placard in its headlines
the reason why it was printed--the element in it that makes it
interesting. "Playing up the feature" is simply the act of bringing this
feature to the front so that it will attract attention to the story.
Just how this is done we shall see later. But when, as a reporter, you
are looking for a feature to play up in your lead, remember that the
feature to be played up is the thing in the story that gives the story
news value. And few stories have more than one claim to news value, more
than one feature.
III
NEWSPAPER TERMS
The newspaper vernacular that is used in the editorial and press rooms
of any daily paper is a curious mixture of literary abbreviations and
technical printing terms. It is the result of the strange mingling of
the literary trade of writing with the mechanical trade of setting type.
For that reason a green reporter has difficulty in understanding the
instructions that he receives until he has been in the office long
enough to learn the office slang. It would be impossible to list all of
the expressions that might be heard in one day, but a knowledge of the
commonest words will enable a reporter to get the drift of his editor's
instructions.
When a young man secures a position as reporter for a newspaper he
begins as a _cub reporter_ and is usually said to be on the _staff_ of
his paper. His sphere of activity is confined to the _editorial_ room,
where the news is written; his relations with the _business office_,
where advertising, circulation, and other business matters are handled,
consists of the weekly duty of drawing his pay. His chief enemies are in
the _printing office_ where his literary efforts are _set up_ in type
and printed. His superiors are called _editors_ and exist in varying
numbers, depending upon the size of his paper. The man who directs the
reporters is usually called the _city editor_, or perhaps the _day_ or
_night city editor_; above him there are managing editors and other
persons in authority with whom the cub is not concerned; and the favored
mortals who enjoy a room by themselves and write nothing but editorials
are called editors or _editorial writers_. There may also be a
_telegraph_ editor, a _sporting_ editor, a _Sunday_ editor, and many
other editors; or if the paper is small and poor all of these editors
may be condensed into one very busy man. On a city daily of average size
there are _desk men_, or _copyreaders_, who work under editorial
direction but feel superior to the reporter because they correct his
literary efforts.
The reporter's work consists of gathering and writing news. In the
office this is called _covering_ and writing _stories_. He is ordinarily
put on a _beat_, or _run_; this is simply a daily route or round of news
sources which he follows as regularly as a policeman walks his beat. The
reporter's work on a special story outside his beat is called an
_assignment_. Any hint that he may receive concerning a bit of news is
called a _tip_. Any bit of news that he secures to the exclusion of his
paper's rivals is called a _beat_, or a _scoop_.
Everything that is written for the paper, whether it be a two-line
personal item or a two-column report, is called a _story_, or a _yarn_,
and from the time the story is written until it appears in the printed
paper it is called _copy_. If the story is well written and needs few
corrections it is called _clean copy_. After the story is written it is
turned over to the copyreader to be _edited_. The copyreader corrects it
and writes the headlines or _heads_; then he sends it to the composing
room to be set in type by the _compositor_. The story itself is usually
set up on a linotype machine and the heads are set up by hand. For the
sake of keeping the two parts of the copy together the reporter or the
copyreader ordinarily gives the story a name, such as "Fire No. 2"; the
bit of lead on which the name is printed is called a _slug_ and the
story is said to be _slugged_. If at any time in its journey from the
reporter's pencil to the printed page, the editor decides not to print
the story, he _kills_ it; otherwise he _runs_ it, or allows it to go
into the paper. When the story is in type, an impression, or _proof_, is
taken of it, and this proof, still called copy, comes back to the
copyreader or the proofreader for the correction of typographical
errors. The gathering together of all of the day's stories into the form
of the final printed page is called _making up_ the paper; this is
usually done by some one of the editors. In like manner, the finished
aspect of the paper is called the _make-up_.
Some stories are said to be _big stories_ because of unusual news value.
When any news comes unexpectedly it is said to _break_; and when any
story comes in beforehand and must be held over, it is said to be
_released_ on the day on which it may be printed. The first paragraph of
any story is called the _lead_ (pronounced "leed"); the word _lead_ is
also used to designate several introductory paragraphs that are tacked
on at the beginning of a long story, which may be of the nature of a
_running story_ (as the running story of a football game), or may be
made up of several parts, written by one or more reporters. In general,
that part of a story which presents the gist or summary of the entire
story at the beginning is called the _lead_. The most interesting thing
in the story, the part that gives it news value, is called the
_feature_, and _playing up the feature_ consists in telling the most
interesting thing in the first line of the lead or in the headline. An
entire story is said to be _played up_ if it is given a prominent place
in the paper. A _feature story_ is either a story that is thus played
up or a story that is written for some other reason than news value,
such as human interest. When a story is rewritten to give a new interest
to old facts it is called a _rewrite story_; when it is rewritten to
include new facts or developments, it is called a _follow-up_,
_second-day_, or _follow story_.