|curtain started a fire which destroyed |
|the residence of John H. Jones, 79 |
|Liberty street, at 11 o'clock last night |
|and caused a loss of $4,000. |
In this way the feature is played up at the beginning of the sentence,
and yet the rest of the reader's questions are answered in the same
sentence and he knows a great deal about the fire. Or, leaving Mr. Jones
to his fate, we may give another example of an unusual cause taken from
a newspaper. This was a big fire, and yet the unusual cause was of
greater interest than the fire itself or the amount of property
destroyed:
| A tiny "joss stick," the lighted end of|
|which was no larger than a pinhead, is |
|thought to have been responsible for a |
|fire that destroyed the White City |
|Amusement Park at Broad Ripple last |
|night. The loss to the amusement company |
|is $161,000.--_Indianapolis News._ |
=2. Where.=--To return to Mr. Jones, there may have been some other
incident in the burning of his house aside from the cause that was of
exceptional interest. Let us say that his house stood in a part of the
town where a fire was to be feared. Perhaps it stood within twenty feet
of the new First Congregational Church. The burning of Jones's house
would then be insignificant in comparison to the danger to the costly
edifice beside it, and our readers would be more interested in an item
concerning their church. The answer to _Where?_ is more interesting than
the fire itself. Hence we would bury, so to speak, Mr. Jones's
misfortune behind the greater danger, and the story would read:
| Fire endangered the new First |
|Congregational Church on Liberty street, |
|erected at a cost of $100,000, when the |
|home of J. H. Jones, in the rear of the |
|church, was destroyed at midnight last |
|night. |
Or:
| The First Congregational Church, |
|recently built at a cost of $100,000, was|
|seriously threatened by a fire which |
|destroyed the residence of John H. Jones,|
|78 Liberty street, within twenty feet of |
|the church, at midnight last night. |
Turning again to the daily papers, we can find many fire stories in
which the location of the burned structure is important enough to take
the first line of the lead. Here is one:
| The Plaza Hotel had a few uncomfortable|
|moments last night when flames from a |
|building adjoining at 22 West Fifty-ninth|
|street were shooting up as high as the |
|tenth story of the hotel and the fire |
|apparatus which responded to the delayed |
|alarm was looking for the blaze several |
|blocks away.--_New York Sun._ |
=3. When.=--Sometimes the time of the fire is very interesting. John H.
Jones's house may have caught fire from a very insignificant thing and
its location may have been unimportant, but the fire may have come at an
unusual time. Perhaps Mr. Jones's daughter was being married at a quiet
home wedding in her father's house and in the midst of the ceremony the
roof of the house burst into flames. The unusual time would be
interesting; the answer to _When?_ would be the feature. We might write
the lead thus:
| During the wedding of Miss Mary Jones |
|at the home of her father, John H. Jones,|
|78 Liberty street, last night, the house |
|suddenly burst into flames and the bridal|
|party was compelled to flee into the |
|street. |
Or:
| Fire interrupted the wedding of Miss |
|Mary Jones at her father's home, 78 |
|Liberty street, last night, when the |
|house caught fire from a defective |
|chimney during the ceremony. |
The daily papers furnish many illustrations of fires at unusual
times--here is one:
|When the snowstorm was at its height |
|early this morning, a three-story brick |
|building at Nos. 4410-18 Third Avenue, |
|Brooklyn, caught fire, and the flames |
|spread rapidly to an adjoining tenement, |
|sending a small crowd of shivering |
|tenants into the icy street.--_New York |
|Post._ |
=4. What.=--(_a_) _The Burned Building._--Many fire stories have their
feature in the answer to the reader's _What?_ Not infrequently the
building itself is of great importance. Naturally "The residence of John
H. Jones" would not make a good beginning, if John Jones is not well
known, because people would be more interested in reading about a mere
fire than in reading about the residence of John H. Jones, whom they do
not know. For it must be remembered that it is the first line that
catches the reader's eye and the interest or lack of interest in the
first line determines whether or not the story is to be read. Now,
suppose that a building that is very well known burns--the City Hall,
the Albany State House, the Herald Square Theater--the mere mention of
the building will attract the reader's attention. Therefore the reporter
begins with the answer to _What?_ the name of the building, as in the
following cases:
| GLENS FALLS, N. Y., Aug. 17.--The |
|Kaatskill House, for many years a popular|
|Lake George resort, was completely |
|destroyed by fire this forenoon.--_New |
|York Times._ |
| The First M. E. Church of Chelsea, |
|familiarly known as the Cary avenue |
|church, was damaged last night to the |
|amount of $7,000 by fire.--_Boston |
|Herald._ |
(_b_) _The Amount of Property Destroyed._--The answer to _What burned?_
is not necessarily a building, for the building itself may not be worth
featuring. The contents of the building may be more interesting,
especially if the amount of property destroyed can be put in striking
terms, such as $2,000,000 worth of property, or two thousand chickens,
or fifty-three automobiles, or 7,000 gallons of whisky. These figures
printed at the beginning of the first paragraph catch the reader's eye,
thus:
| Five automobiles, valued at $5,800, and|
|property amounting to $6,200 were |
|destroyed last evening when fire broke in|
|the repair shop of the G. W. Browne Motor|
|company, 228-232 Wisconsin street, near |
|the North-Western station.--_Milwaukee |
|Sentinel._ |
=5. How.=--Very rarely the manner in which a fire burns is quite unique
and deserves featuring. It is inconceivable that John Jones's house
could burn in any very unusual way--"with many explosions," "with a
glare of flames that aroused the whole city," "with vast clouds of oily
smoke"--but some fires do burn in some such a way and are interesting
only for the way they burned. The following story begins with the answer
to _How?_ although the manner might be described more explicitly:
| Stubborn fires have been fought in the |
|past, but one of the hardest blazes to |
|conquer that the local department ever |
|contended with gutted the plant of N. |
|Drucker & Co., manufacturers of trunks |
|and valises, at the northwest corner of |
|Ninth and Broadway, last |
|night.--_Cincinnati Commercial Tribune._ |
=6. Who.=--Just as it would be foolish to begin with "the residence of
John Jones," since the building is not well known, it would not be
advisable to begin with John Jones's name, no matter what part he
played. John Jones is not well known and so to the newspaper he is just
a man and is treated impersonally regardless of what he does or what
happens to him. Our interest in him is entirely impersonal, and all we
want to know about him is what he has done or what has happened to him.
Therefore few reporters would begin a story with John Jones's name.
However, let some man who is well known do or suffer the slightest thing
and his name immediately lends interest to the story--and therefore
commands first place in the introduction. If John D. Rockefeller should
even witness a fire, or if President Taft should be in the slightest way
connected with a fire, the mere fire story would shrink into
significance behind the name. And so, very often it is advisable to
begin a fire story with a name, if the name is of sufficient prominence.
It is not necessary that the well-known man's property be destroyed or
even endangered for his name to have the first place in the first
sentence of the lead; if the well-known man has anything whatever to do
with the fire his name should be featured because to the average reader
the interest in his name overshadows any interest in the fire. In this
example, the name overshadows a striking loss of property and the story
begins with the answer to _Who?_
| NEW YORK, Nov. 6.--While Clendenin J. |
|Ryan, son of Thomas F. Ryan, the traction|
|magnate, and a band of volunteer fire |
|fighters--many of them |
|millionaires--fought a blaze which |
|started in the garage of young Ryan's |
|country estate near Suffern, N. Y., early|
|in the morning, three valuable |
|automobiles, seven thoroughbred horses |
|and several outbuildings were totally |
|destroyed.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._ |
It will be seen that in each of the above feature fire stories some
incident in the fire, or connected with the fire, overshadows the mere
fact that there was a fire and makes it advisable to begin the story of
the fire with the fact or incident of unusual interest. Furthermore, in
each of these stories the unusual feature in the story is a direct
answer to one of the reader's questions--_when?_ _where?_ _how?_ _what?_
_why?_ _who?_ In other words, the reporter in answering these questions,
as he must in the lead of every story, finds the answer to one question
so much more interesting than the answer to any of the other questions
that he puts it first. In every fire story, however, the feature is not
so easily discovered.
B. FEATURES IN UNEXPECTED ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES
There are other things in the day's fire stories, besides the answers to
the reader's questions, that may overshadow the rest of the story and
deserve to be featured. Very often there are unexpected attendant
circumstances occurring simultaneously with the fire or resulting from
the fire to command our interest. Perhaps a number of people are killed
or injured; then we want to know about them first, and the reporter
neglects to answer our questions for the moment while he tells us the
startling attendant circumstances that we had not expected. Even so,
while giving first place to the feature, he does not forget our
questions but answers them in the same sentence. Hence the introduction
of a fire story with significant attendant circumstances begins with the
startling fact resulting from the fire and then goes on to answer the
reader's questions--in the same sentence.
This is not so difficult as it may sound. Suppose that when John Jones's
house burns there is a stiff breeze blowing and the chances are that all
the other houses in the block will go with it. All of his neighbors
become frightened and work with feverish haste to move their household
goods out into the street. In the end the fire department succeeds in
confining the fire to Mr. Jones's house and his neighbors promptly carry
their chattels back indoors thanking the god of good luck. Now the mere
fact that John Jones's house burned down is rather insignificant beside
the fact that a dozen families were driven from their homes by the fire.
Therefore the reporter would begin thus:
| Twelve families were driven from their |
|homes by a fire which destroyed the |
|residence of John H. Jones, 78 Liberty |
|street, at 11 o'clock last night. The |
|fire was at length kept from spreading |
|and the neighboring residences were |
|reoccupied. |
Or to take an incident from the daily press in which the neighbors were
not so fortunate; although they might have entirely lost their homes:
| Twenty-two families in the six-story |
|tenement at 147 Orchard street were |
|routed out of the house twice early today|
|by fires which caused a great deal of |
|smoke, but little real damage.--_New York|
|Mail._ |
=1. Death.=--(a) _Number of Dead._--The most usual attendant
circumstances that will come to our notice is death in the fire. Let us
say that Mr. Jones's three children were alone in the house and burned
to death. Their death would be of more interest to us than the burning
of their father's house--and our story would necessarily begin in this
way:
| Three children were burned to death in |
|a fire which destroyed the home of their |
|father, John H. Jones, 78 Liberty street,|
|last night. |
So common is death in connection with fire that almost every day's paper
contains one or more stories beginning "Ten persons were cremated----"
or "Four firemen were killed----" And in every case the loss of human
life is considered of greater importance than any other incident in the
story, and the number of dead always takes precedence over many another
startling feature. Here are a few examples:
| JOHNSTOWN, Pa., Jan. 18.--Seven men |
|were cremated in a fire that burned to |
|the ground three double houses near |
|Berlin, Somerset County, early this |
|morning.--_New York Sun._ |
| Three children of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard |
|Lindberg, 3328 Nineteenth avenue south, |
|were cremated in a fire which destroyed |
|their home shortly after 12 o'clock |
|yesterday. The children had been left |
|alone in the house, shut up in their |
|bedroom, etc.--_St. Paul Pioneer Press._ |
| One fireman was killed, another fireman|
|and a woman were injured and eight people|
|escaped death by a narrow margin Saturday|
|night in a fire which destroyed the, |
|etc.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._ |
| NEW YORK, March 27.--One hundred and |
|forty-one persons are dead as a result |
|of the fire which on Saturday afternoon |
|swept the three upper floors of the |
|factory loft building at the northwest |
|corner of Washington place and Greene |
|street. More than three-quarters of this |
|number are women and girls, who were |
|employed in the Triangle Shirt Waist |
|factory, where the fire |
|originated.--_Boston Transcript._ |
(b) _List of Dead._--When the number of dead or injured reaches any very
significant figure it is customary to make a table of dead and injured.
This table is usually set into the story close after the lead, but very
often the list is put in a "box" and slipped in above the story. In
writing the story, however, the reporter disregards the table and begins
his lead as if there were no table: e.g., "Twelve firemen were killed
and fourteen injured in a fire----" The list usually gives the name,
address (or some other identification), and the nature of the injury,
thus:
| =Injured Firemen:= |
| |
|Capt. Frank Makal, Engine Co. No. 4, |
|cut by glass. |
| |
|Acting Captain W. E. Brown, fire boat |
|No. 23, cut by glass. |
| |
|Peter Ryan, No. 15, flying |
|glass.--_Milwaukee Free Press._ |
Or:
| =The Dead:= |
| |
|Mrs. Charles Smith, 14 W. Gorham |
|street. |
| |
|John Johnson, 1193 Chatham street. |
| |
| =The Injured:= |
| |
|Thomas Green, 1111 Grand street; face |
|cut by flying glass. |
| |
|James Brown, 176 Orchard avenue; |
|internal injuries; may die. |
(c) _Manner of Death._--A number of fatalities at the beginning always
attracts attention. Not infrequently the manner or the cause, especially
in the case of a single death, is worth the first place in the lead--not
as "One man killed----" but as "Crushed beneath a falling wall, a man
was killed." If a man burns to death in a very unusual way, or for an
unusual reason, we are more interested in the way he was burned, or the
reason that he burned, than in the mere fact that he was burned to
death. The first line then tells us how or why he was burned. Thus:
| To save his money, which he hoped would|
|some day raise him from the rank of a |
|laborer to that of a prosperous merchant,|
|Hing Lee, a Chinese laundryman, ran back |
|into his burning laundry at 3031 Nicollet|
|avenue today, after he was once safe from|
|the flames, and was so badly burned that |
|physicians say he cannot |
|live.--_Minneapolis Journal._ |
=2. Injuries.=--Very often no one is killed in a fire but some one is
injured. For example, five firemen are overcome by ammonia fumes or two
men are seriously injured by a falling wall. This then becomes the
feature. Injuries to human beings, if serious or in any considerable
number, take precedence over other features, just as loss of human life
does. Here is an example from the press in which all the injuries are
gathered together at the beginning:
| Six firemen and two laborers were |
|overcome by smoke, while three other |
|firemen received minor injuries by flying|
|glass in a fire which broke out yesterday|
|morning at 10:30 o'clock in the |
|Wellauer-Hoffman building, at, |
|etc.--_Milwaukee Free Press._ |
=3. Rescues.=--(a) _Number of People Rescued._--When people are rescued
from great danger in a fire their escape makes a very good feature. If
many of them are rescued or escape very narrowly, the mere number of
people saved deserves the first place, as:
| More than 150 men and women were saved |
|from death today in a fire at 213-217 |
|Grand street by toboganning from the roof|
|of the burning structure on a board chute|
|to the roof of an adjoining five-story |
|building.--_New York Mail._ |
(b) _Manner of Rescue._--But more often the manner of their escape
interests us most. If a man slides down a rope for four stories to
escape death by fire we are more interested in how he saved himself than
in the fact that he didn't burn, and so we tell how he escaped, in the
first line. In the same way, if unusual means are used to save one or
more persons, the means of rescue is usually worth featuring. For
example:
| Overcoats used as life nets saved the |
|lives of a dozen women and children in a |
|fire of incendiary origin in the |
|three-story frame tenement house at 137 |
|Havemeyer avenue, Brooklyn, to-day, |
|etc.--_New York Mail._ |
=4. Property Threatened.=--Death and injury are the commonest unexpected
circumstances in fire stories, but they are not the only ones that may
be worth featuring. There is an inconceivable number of things that may
happen at a fire and overshadow all interest in the fire itself. A good
feature may be found in the property that is threatened. Often the fire
in itself is insignificant, but because of a high wind or other
circumstances it threatens to spread to neighboring buildings or to
devastate a large area. In such a case the amount of property threatened
or endangered deserves a place in the very first line, especially if it
exceeds the amount of property actually destroyed and if it can be put
in a striking way; _i. e._, the entire waterfront district, or
twenty-five dwelling houses, or $5,000,000 worth of property. When
contrasted with the small amount of damage actually done, the amount
that is threatened becomes more important. Thus:
| Fire that for a time threatened |
|$2,000,000 worth of property destroyed |
|$15,000 worth of lumber owned by the |
|Milwaukee Lumber Company, 725 Clinton |
|street, yesterday.... |
| |
|The territory between Mitchell street |
|and the Kinnickinnic river and Reed |
|street, to the lake, containing |
|manufactories, dwellings and stores, was |
|menaced.--_Milwaukee News._ |
=5. Fire Fighting.=--Not unusually a serious fire results from the fact
that it was not checked for some reason or other during its earlier
stages. Perhaps the whole thing might have been avoided, or, on the
contrary, a big fire may be extinguished with unexpected ease or unusual
skill. In rare cases this matter of very efficient or very inefficient
fire fighting is of sufficient importance to take the first place in the
lead. For example:
| Almost total lack of water pressure is |
|blamed for the big loss in a fire started|
|by a firebug to-day in the five-story |
|factory building of Lamchick Brothers, |
|manufacturing company, 400-402 South |
|Second street, Williamsburg.--_New York |
|Mail._ |
| |
| Rotten hose, which burst as fast as it |
|was put in use, imperiled the lives of |
|more than a score of firemen to-day at a |
|blaze which swept the three-story frame |
|flat house at Third avenue and |
|Sixty-seventh street, Brooklyn, from |
|cellar to roof, etc.--_New York Mail._ |
=6. Crowd.=--Not uncommonly in the city a tremendous crowd gathers to
watch a fire and blocks traffic for hours. In the absence of other
significant incidents--death, great loss, etc.--the reporter may begin
his story with an account of the crowd present or the blockade of
traffic. Such a beginning should always be used only as a last resort
when a fire has no other interesting phase, for crowds always gather at
fires and only a very serious blocking of traffic is worth reporting.
Thus:
| Fully 15,000 persons were attracted to |
|the scene of the fire in the portion of |
|the plant of the Greenwald Packing |
|Company, Claremont Stock Yards, which was|
|discovered at 4:56 yesterday |
|afternoon.--_Baltimore American._ |
| |
| Twenty-five thousand people jammed |
|Broadway between Bleecker and Bond |
|streets yesterday noon and had the |
|excitement of watching 250 girls escape |
|from a twelve-story loft building which |
|was afire.--_New York Sun._ |
=7. Miscellaneous.=--There is an infinite number of things that may
happen at a fire and overshadow the mere fire interest. These are the
things that make one fire different from another, and whenever they are
of sufficient importance they become the feature to be played up in the
first line of the introduction. It would be impossible to enumerate all
the unexpected things that might happen during a fire. It is this
element of unexpected possibilities that makes the reporting of fires
interesting, and an alert reporter is ever on the lookout for a new and
unusual development in the fire to be used as the feature of his story.
Here are the leads of a few fire stories clipped from the daily
newspapers:
| With her home on fire and the smoke |
|swirling around her head, Mrs. B. B. |
|Blank, a well-known leader of the |
|social set of Roland Park, bravely |
|stood by her telephone and called upon |
|the Roland Park Fire Company for aid |
|shortly after 8 o'clock this |
|morning.--_Baltimore Star._ |
| |
| Four charming young women attired in |
|masculine apparel were the unexpected |
|and embarrassed hosts of four companies |
|of fire department "laddies" last night, |
|when fire broke out, etc.--_Milwaukee |
|Free Press._ |
| |
| For the first time since its |
|installation the high-pressure water |
|power system was relied upon solely last |
|night to fight a Broadway fire, and |
|Chief Croker said that he was well |
|satisfied with its work. The fire began |
|on the third floor of the six-story, |
|etc.--_New York Times._ |
C. FIRE STORIES WITH MORE THAN ONE FEATURE
It would appear from the foregoing examples that almost every fire story
has a feature. And so it usually has. The great majority of fires that
are worth reporting at all have some unusual incident connected with
them that overshadows the mere fire itself. Sometimes the features are
not of great significance, but it is only as a last resort that a
reporter begins his story with "Fire"--only when the most ordinary of
fires is to be covered.
Unusual features are so common in connection with fires that very often
a single fire has more than one unusual feature. Perhaps the cause of
the fire is exceptionally striking and at the same time the amount of
property destroyed is of great news value in itself. Or the time and
some unexpected attendant circumstance are both worth the first place.
In that case the reporter has to choose between the two features and
begin with the one that seems to him to be the more striking. The other
feature or features may often be arranged in the order of importance
immediately after the most striking fact at the beginning, provided that
this does not make the lead unduly complicated.
For instance, a cold storage warehouse burns and four firemen are
overcome by the fumes from the ammonia pipes. Next door is a hospital
and the flames frighten the patients almost into a panic. Either one of
these incidents is worth the first line of the story. But which one is
of the greater importance? Naturally the element of danger to human life
must be considered first and the actual disabling of four firemen is of
greater significance than a possible panic in the hospital. Following
that line of logic our story would begin:
| Four firemen were overcome by ammonia |
|fumes and a panic in the St. Charles |
|Hospital was narrowly averted, as a |
|result of a fire which destroyed the cold|
|storage warehouse of, etc. |