body of the story. The copy must be paragraphed, cut up into paragraphs
that are rather shorter than ordinary literary paragraphs, since the
narrowness of the newspaper column makes the paragraph seem longer.
Heterogeneous details must not be piled together in the same paragraph,
but the facts must be grouped and handled logically. No paragraph should
be noticeably longer than the others, and it is decidedly bad to
paragraph one sentence alone simply because it does not seem to go in
with any other sentence. If the fact is important expand it into a
paragraph by the introduction of further details; if it is unimportant
either cut it out of the story altogether or attach it to the paragraph
to which it seems most logically to belong.
One fact, already stated, must be borne in mind as the body of the story
progresses. The report should be built up in such a way that the editor
can slash off a paragraph or two at the end without injuring the
story--without sacrificing any important facts. To do this the reporter
should bring the important parts of the story as near the beginning as
the logical order will permit. The interest of a perfect news story is
like an inverted cone. The interest is abundant at the beginning and
gradually dwindles out until there is nothing more to say when the end
is reached. Just how far the dwindling should be carried depends upon
the amount of space that the story seems to be worth in the paper.
This may seem difficult. It may be hard to see how a story can be told
in its logical order while at the same time the most interesting facts
are placed at the beginning, even if they logically belong near the end.
For example, we may take the story of an unusual robbery. A well-dressed
man goes into a grocery store to get some butter and tries to rob the
grocer. In the ensuing scuffle the would-be robber escapes. A young
woman who happens to be passing sees the end of the fight and pursues
the robber down the street until he runs into a saloon. She calls a
policeman who is standing on the corner and the officer rushes into the
saloon, up three flights of stairs and finds the robber on the roof
behind a chimney. The officer shouts to another policeman, and together
they arrest the robber.
Now, what is the most interesting thing in the story? Probably the
pursuit--a young woman chasing a robber down the street. Our lead might
be written in this way:
| After being chased down Sixth street by|
|a young woman, a robber, who had |
|attempted to rob the grocery store of |
|Charles Young, 1345 Sixth street, was |
|arrested on the roof of a saloon at 835 |
|Sixth street, at 7 o'clock last night. |
The lead might be arranged in a different way, but these are the facts
that it would contain. Before we consider the arrangement of the body of
the story it may be well to go back to the interviews by which we
secured the story. In getting the facts we would probably talk to Young,
the groceryman, and to the saloonkeeper into whose establishment the
robber fled. We could probably interview the policeman who made the
arrest, but let us suppose that the young woman could not be found. The
groceryman would tell us about the attempted robbery and the escape,
with the girl in pursuit. The saloonkeeper would tell us how the man
fled into his saloon and ran up the stairs to the roof; then how two
policemen came and made the arrest. The policeman could tell us how a
young woman ran up to him and told him that a robber had fled into the
saloon; then he would describe the arrest. None of these stories is told
just as we want the newspaper story--each one tells us only a part of
the story. If the finished story were written by a green reporter it
would probably tell the story in the order in which it was obtained.
That is if the reporter saw the policeman first, then the saloonkeeper,
and lastly the groceryman; his story would tell in the first paragraph
what the policeman said, in the second paragraph what the saloonkeeper
said, and in the last paragraph what the grocer said. At least that is
the way in which green reporters in the classroom attempted to write
the story.
But, obviously, that is not the logical way to tell the story. The
finished account should be written in the order in which it happened:
i.e., first the robbery, then the pursuit, and lastly the arrest. This
would be the ideal way to tell the story--according to the rules of
English composition--if we could be sure that the entire story would be
printed. But if it were written in this way and the editor decided to
slash off the last paragraph, what would go? Obviously the arrest would
not be printed; and the arrest was quite interesting. We must find some
way to bring the arrest nearer to the beginning. This may be done by
selecting the most interesting parts of the story--by picking out the
high spots, as it were. In this story the high spots are the attempted
robbery, the pursuit, and the arrest. The details that fill in between
are interesting, but not so interesting as these high spots. Hence these
high spots of interest must be pushed forward toward the beginning.
After the lead the story would begin at the beginning and tell the
affair briefly by high spots in their proper order. It might be
something like this:
| As Charles Young was closing his |
|grocery last evening a young man came in |
|and asked for a pound of butter. Young |
|turned to get it and his customer struck |
|him over the head with a chair. The |
|grocer grappled with his assailant and |
|they fell through the front door. In the |
|scramble, the robber broke away and ran |
|down Sixth street. A young woman who was |
|passing screamed and ran after him until |
|he disappeared into a saloon. |
| |
|The young woman called Policeman Smith, |
|who was standing nearby on Grand avenue, |
|and the latter found the would-be robber |
|on the roof of the saloon. After a |
|struggle, Smith arrested the man, with |
|the aid of another policeman. |
The above account tells us briefly the most interesting parts of the
story. A copyreader might not find it perfect, for the assault is
allotted too much space and the pursuit too little, but it tells the
story in its baldest aspect. This, with the lead, could be run alone.
However, perhaps the story is worth more space; at any rate, many
interesting details have been omitted. If so, go back to the most
interesting part of the story--the assault, perhaps, or the pursuit--and
tell it with more details. Then retell some other part with more
details. If your readers are interested enough to read beyond the first
three paragraphs they want details and will not be so particular about
the order--for they already know how the story is going to end.
This is one way of meeting the requirements of logical order and
dwindling interest. This is a particularly hard story to arrange in the
conventional way since we must have the whole story to be interested in
any single part--it has too many striking incidents in it. On the other
hand, a story which contains only one striking incident is much easier
to handle. Suppose that we are reporting a fire which is interesting
only for its cause or for a daring rescue in it. Our lead would suggest
this interesting element and the first part of our story would be
devoted entirely to the cause or to the rescue, as the case might be.
But it is better to sketch briefly, immediately after or very close to
the lead, the entire story, for our readers want to know how it ends
before they can be interested in any particular part. If we sketch the
whole story and show them that there is only one important thing in the
story, they will be satisfied to read about the one striking incident
without wondering if there is not something more interesting further on.
If we leave the conclusion of the story to the end of our copy the
editor may cut it off and leave our story dangling in midair. Every
story must be treated in its own way, according to its own incidents and
difficulties; no two stories are alike in substance or treatment. In
every one our aim must be to keep to the logical order and at the same
time to put the most interesting parts of the story near the beginning.
The construction of the body of a story may be illustrated more clearly
by a fatal fire story--since fire stories are more uniform, and hence
easier to write than other news stories. Let us suppose that the story
is as follows: At four o'clock in the afternoon a fire started from some
unknown cause in the basement of a four-story brick building at 383-385
Sixth Street, occupied by the Incandescent Light Company. Before the
fire company arrived the flames had spread up through the building and
into an adjoining three-story brick building at 381 Sixth Street,
occupied by Isaac Schmidt's second-hand store and home on the first and
second floors and by Mrs. Sarah Jones's boarding house on the third. The
Schmidts were away and Mrs. Jones's lodgers escaped via the fire
escapes. Her cook, Hilda Schultz, was overcome by smoke and had to be
carried out by Jack Sweeney, a lodger. Mrs. Jones fell from the fire
escape and was badly bruised. Meanwhile the firemen were at work on the
roof of the burning four-story building. Blinded by the smoke, one of
them, John MacBane, stepped through a skylight and fell to the fourth
floor. His comrades tried to rescue him by lowering Fireman Henry Bond
into the smoke by the heels; they were unsuccessful and Bond broke his
arm in the attempt. The fire was confined to the lower floors of the two
buildings and extinguished. In searching for MacBane, the firemen found
him suffocated on the fourth floor where he had fallen.
The feature of the story is evidently the one death and the three
injuries. Our lead might be written as follows:
| One fireman was suffocated and three |
|other persons were injured in a fire in |
|the Incandescent Light Company's plant, |
|383-385 Sixth street, and an adjoining |
|three-story building, late yesterday |
|afternoon. |
This lead would suggest to the reader many interesting details to come
in the body of the story, and evidently the details are not all of equal
importance. The story could be told in its logical order, but, since the
death is more interesting than the origin of the fire and the injuries
are more significant than how the fire spread, it is obvious that it
would not be best to tell the story in the order in which it is told
above.
Disregarding the lead, we must cover the following details in the body
of our story:
Description of buildings and occupants.
Origin of fire.
Discovery of fire.
Spread of flames.
Injury of Mrs. Jones.
Rescue of Hilda Schultz.
Death of MacBane.
Injury of Bond.
Fire extinguished.
This is the order in which things occurred at the fire. However, in our
lead, we have drawn attention to our story by announcing that it
concerns a fire in which a man was killed; the death therefore should
have first place in the body of the story. Hence, in the second
paragraph immediately after the lead, we must tell how MacBane fell
through the skylight and was suffocated. Along with his death we may as
well tell how Bond broke his arm trying to rescue MacBane. Our lead has
also announced two other injuries and, hence, they must be included
next--that is, our third paragraph must be devoted to the injury of Mrs.
Jones and the rescue of the unconscious Hilda. But as yet our details
are hanging in the air because we have not said anything about the
buildings or the fire itself. In the next paragraph it would be well to
describe the buildings and their occupants and to give a very brief
account of the course of the fire--perhaps in this way:
| Flames were first discovered in the |
|basement of the Incandescent building and|
|before the fire department arrived had |
|spread through the lower floors and into |
|the adjoining three-story building. The |
|absence of elevator shafts and air-shafts|
|enabled the firemen to extinguish the |
|blaze before it reached the upper floors.|
This tells the main course of the fire, but there are some interesting
details to add: first, the origin of the fire; next, the discovery; then
more about how the fire spread; and lastly, how the fire was
extinguished. Our story by paragraphs would read as follows:
1st Paragraph--The lead.
2d Paragraph--Death of MacBane and injury of Bond.
3d Paragraph--Mrs. Jones's injury and Hilda's rescue.
4th Paragraph--Buildings, occupants, brief course of fire.
5th Paragraph--Detailed account of origin of the fire.
6th Paragraph--How the fire was discovered.
7th Paragraph--More about the spread and course of the fire.
8th Paragraph--How the fire was extinguished.
9th Paragraph--Loss, insurance, extent of damage.
Thus, while telling the story almost in its logical order, we have
picked out the high spots of interest and crowded them to the beginning.
Our readers will get the facts just about as fast as they wish to read
them and in the order in which they wish them. Our story may be run in
nine paragraphs or even more; or the editor may slash off anything after
the fourth paragraph without taking away any of the essential facts of
the fire. This method of telling would fulfill all the requirements of
an ideal news story. A similar outline of the facts that any story must
present will often help a reporter to tell his story as it should be
told. After listing the details he may number them in their order of
importance and check them off as he has told them.
* * * * *
This idea of throwing the emphasis and interest to the beginning applies
to the individual paragraphs and sentences of the story, as well. Each
paragraph must begin strongly and display its most interesting content
in the first line. The emphatic part of each sentence should be the
beginning. A glance at any newspaper column shows why this is necessary.
The body of a news story is the place for the reporter's skill and
style. He is given all the liberties of ordinary narration and should
make the most of every word. His individual style comes into play here.
If the interest can be increased by a bit of dialogue the reporter may
put it in. If the facts can be presented more effectively by means of
direct quotation, the words of any one whom the reporter has interviewed
may be of interest. However, these things must not be overworked because
every trick of writing loses its effectiveness when it is overworked.
Dialogue used only to give facts which might be told more clearly in
simple direct form should seldom be used. Dialogue in a news story is
used only to color the story and not to reproduce the interviews by
which the facts were obtained. In gathering the facts of a story it is
sometimes necessary to interview a number of people, but these
interviews should not be quoted in the resulting story. Many a green
reporter tries to give his story character by telling what the policeman
on the corner, the janitor, and a small boy in the street told him about
the incident. He succeeds only in dragging out the length of his story
and confusing the reader. After all, the purpose of a newspaper is to
give facts--and the clearer and the more direct the method the better
will be the result.
In striving for clearness and interest a reporter must remember that one
of his greatest assets is concreteness of expression. Of all forms of
composition newspaper writing possesses probably the greatest
opportunity for definiteness. Facts and events are its one concern;
theories and abstractions are beyond its range. Hence the more definite
and concrete its presentation of facts, the better will be its effect.
The reporter should never generalize or present his statements hazily
and uncertainly--a fact is a fact and must be presented as such. He must
try to avoid such expressions as "several," "many," "a few"--it is
usually possible to give the exact number. He must continually ask
himself "how many?" "what kind?" "exactly when?" "exactly what?"
Expressions like "about a dozen," "about thirty years old," "about a
week ago," "about a block away," are never so effective as the exact
facts and figures. Definite concrete details make a news story real and
vivid. The real reporter of news is the one who can see a thing clearly
and with every detail and present it as clearly and distinctly.
VIII
OTHER NEWS STORIES
The fire story is obviously not the only news story that is printed in a
daily newspaper, but a study of its form gives us a working knowledge of
the writing of other news stories. The fire story is probably the
commonest news story, and it is by far the easiest story to handle, for
its form has become somewhat standardized. We know just exactly what our
readers want to know about each fire, and within certain limits all
fires, as well as the reports of them, are very much alike. There is
seldom more than one fact or incident that makes one fire different from
another and that fact we always seize as the feature of our report.
However, the fire story has been taken only as typical of other news
stories. Now we are ready to study the others, using the fire story as
our model in writing the others.
There is a vast number of other stories that we must be able to write,
and they lack the convenient uniformity that fires have. Not only does
every story have a different feature, but it is concerned with a
different kind of happening. One assignment may call for the report of
an explosion, another the report of a business transaction, and another
a murder. In each one we have to get the facts and choose the most
striking fact as our feature. Never can we resort to the simple
beginning "Fire destroyed," but we must find a different beginning for
each assignment.
Just as in the fire story, the lead of any news story is the most
important part. It must begin with the most striking part of the event
and answer the reader's _Where?_ _When?_ _How?_ _Why?_ and _Who?_
concerning it. All the rules that apply to the fire lead apply to the
lead of any story.
It would be impossible to classify all the news stories that a newspaper
must print. The very zest of reporting comes from the changing variety
of the work; no two assignments are ever exactly alike--if they were
only one would be worth printing. Newspapers themselves make no attempt
to classify the ordinary run of news or to work out a systematic
division of labor; a reporter may be called upon to cover a fire, a
political meeting, a murder, a business story, all in the same day. Each
one is simply a story and must be covered in the same way that all the
rest are covered--by many interviews for facts. For our study it may be
well to divide news stories into a few large groups. The groups overlap
and are not entirely distinct, but the stories in each group have some
one thing in common that may aid us in learning how to write them. At
most, the list is only a very incomplete summary of the more important
kinds of news stories and is intended to be merely a suggestive way of
supplying the student with necessary practice.
=1. Accidents.=--Accident stories may be anything from a sprained ankle
to a disastrous railroad wreck, but they all depend upon one element for
their interest. They are all printed because people in general are
interested in the injuries and deaths of other people--physical calamity
is the common ground in all these stories.
The number of possible accidents is infinite, but there are some common
types that recur most often. Among these are: railroad, trolley,
railroad crossing accidents; runaways; electrocutions; explosions;
collapse of buildings; marine disasters; cave-in accidents; elevator,
automobile, aviation accidents.
The feature of any accident story is always, of course, the thing that
made the story worth printing, and that is usually the human life
element. The feature of an accident story is almost always the number of
dead and injured. Most reports of railroad wrecks begin with "Ten
persons were killed and seventeen were injured in a wreck, etc." The
same is true of any accident story; if more than one person is killed it
is usually safe to begin with the number of fatalities. In this
connection it may be noted that the death of railroad employees seldom
makes a story worth printing; they may be included in the total number,
but if no passengers are killed, fatalities among trainmen seldom give a
story any news value.
Accident stories of course have many other possible features; newspapers
report many accidents in which no one is killed. In that case some other
element gives the story news value and that element must be played up as
the feature. Perhaps it is the manner in which the accident happened or
the manner in which a person was killed or injured, as in an automobile
accident. The cause of the accident may be the most interesting part of
the story: train-wreckers or a broken rail in a railroad wreck, or the
cause of an explosion. Very often an accident is reported simply because
some well-known person was connected with it in some way; the name then
becomes the feature and comes into the first line. A story may be worth
printing simply because of the unusual manner of rescue; such a feature
is often played up in stories of marine accidents, cave-ins, etc. Not
infrequently some of the unusual attendant circumstances give a story
news value: e.g., a policeman dragged from his horse and run over by an
automobile while he is trying to stop a runaway.
Here are some accident stories from the newspapers:
Fatalities:
| Six men were killed and a dozen |
|seriously injured early to-day by an |
|outbound Panhandle passenger train |
|crashing into the rear end of a Chicago, |
|Milwaukee and St. Paul stock train at |
|Twelfth and Rockwell streets.--_Chicago |
|Record-Herald._ |
Manner:
| Run down by her own automobile, which |
|she was cranking, at First and G streets,|
|northwest, Dr. Alma C. Arnold, a |
|chiropractic physician, 825 Fifteenth |
|street, northwest, was forced against the|
|wheel of a passing wagon and seriously |
|injured this morning.--_Washington |
|Times._ |
Cause:
| Over-balanced by a granite stone |
|weighing four tons, the entire cornice |
|over the west portico of the new west |
|wing of the capitol fell to the ground |
|this afternoon, carrying with it Daniel |
|Logan, foreman for the Woodbury Granite |
|Company.--_Madison Democrat._ |
Attendant Circumstances:
| With a blast that shook the entire city|
|and was believed by many to be an |
|earthquake, three boilers in the new |
|engine house of the Pabst brewery on |
|Tenth street, between Chestnut street and|
|Cold Spring avenue, exploded at about 4 |
|o'clock this morning.--_Milwaukee Free |
|Press._ |
=2. Robberies.=--Another large class of news stories is concerned with
robberies of various kinds. Unfortunately for the reporter, very few
robberies are alike; beyond the common ground of the interest in the
amount stolen and the cleverness of the robber's work, there is seldom
any one thing that may be looked for as the feature of a robbery story.
The reporter must decide what in the story makes it worth printing.
Robbery stories may include anything from petty thievery to bank
defaulting. Some of the possibilities are horse and automobile stealing,
burglary, hold-ups, train and street-car robbery, embezzlement, fraud,
kidnapping, safe-cracking, shop and bank robbery. It is well for the
reporter who has to cover a story of this class to acquaint himself with
the distinctions that characterize the various kinds of robbery and the
various names applied to the people who commit this sort of crime: e.g.,
robber, thief, bandit, burglar, hold-up man, thug, embezzler, defaulter,
safe-cracker, pick-pocket.