the work--the amount taken--usually accompanied by a term to designate
the sort of robbery. Just how the crime was committed is often the
feature, as in a train robbery or a clever case of fraud. If the victim
or victims are at all well known their names may become the most
interesting thing in the story--or even the name of a well-known
criminal or band of robbers. In some stories, especially if another
paper has already covered the story, the pursuit or capture of the
criminals is often interesting; the stories of bank robberies often
begin in this way. Other attendant circumstances, such as the number of
persons who witnessed the crime, may be the feature. In hold-ups,
burglaries, and crimes of that sort, the death or wounding of the victim
is often played up. Sometimes the reason for the crime, as in a
kidnapping case, is of great significance. In the case of a robbery of a
bank or any other institution which depends upon credit for its
business, the story usually begins with, or at least mentions near the
beginning, the present condition of the robbed institution. It is safe
to say that in no case is the name of the criminal, the manner of his
arrest (if it is not unusual), the police station to which he was taken,
or the charge preferred against him worth a place in the lead.
Some robbery stories from the daily press:
Amount taken:
| Furs worth $40,000 were stolen in the |
|early hours of yesterday morning within a|
|stone's throw of Madison Square. |
|Apparently a gang in which there was a |
|woman expert in choosing only the best |
|furs carried off the costly skins, |
|etc.--_New York World._ |
Manner of hold-up:
| Seized by thugs in broad daylight as he|
|was crossing the railroad tracks at the |
|foot of First avenue east, Fred Butzer, a|
|stonemason of Butler, Minn., was thrown |
|to the ground, a gag placed in his mouth,|
|his pockets were rifled of $36.--_Duluth |
|News-Tribune._ |
Unusual sort of pickpocket:
| A young man in evening dress, who was |
|going down into the subway station at |
|Times Square with the theater crowd that |
|filled the entrance just outside of the |
|Hotel Knickerbocker early last night, |
|paused, knocked a woman under the chin |
|and took away her silver chatelaine purse|
|containing $20 as deftly as he might have|
|flicked the ash off his cigarette. Then |
|he disappeared.--_New York Times._ |
Unusual thieves:
| Two girl thieves not more than twelve |
|years old and small in stature for their |
|age have been operating with great |
|success in the different stores in the |
|neighborhood of Amsterdam avenue and |
|Seventy-ninth street. Five or six thefts,|
|etc.--_New York Telegram._ |
Pursuit and capture:
| After a chase along Forty-second street|
|and up the steps of the Hotel Manhattan, |
|a woman, who said she was Sadie Brown, |
|thirty-three years old, of No. 215 West |
|Forty-sixth street, was arrested early |
|today on suspicion of having picked the |
|pocket of a man at, etc.--_New York |
|Telegram._ |
Present conditions of robbed bank (second paragraph of an embezzlement
story):
| Banking Commissioner Watkins this |
|afternoon declared that he found the bank|
|perfectly sound, that all commercial |
|paper was found intact, that none of the |
|accounts have been juggled and that no |
|erasures of any kind were |
|discovered.--_Philadelphia Inquirer._ |
Unusual sort of burglar:
| Wearing a Salvation Army uniform, a |
|burglar was caught early yesterday in the|
|home of Walter Katte, a vice-president of|
|the New York Central railroad, at |
|Irvington-on-the-Hudson.--_New York |
|World._ |
=3. Murder.=--The reports of crimes of this sort can hardly be
classified, for there are so many things that may be worth featuring in
any murder case. The story itself is usually of such importance that the
mere fact that a murder has been committed gives it news value even if
there is nothing unusual in the crime--just as in the case of a
featureless fire story that begins with "Fire." The handling of a crime
depends upon the character and circumstances; the reporter must weigh
the facts in each case for himself. However, we usually find a feature
in the number of persons murdered, the manner in which the crime was
committed, the name of the victim, if he or she is well known, the
reason for the deed, or in some of the many attendant circumstances,
such as arrest, pursuit, etc. One rule must always be followed in the
reporting of a murder story: the reporter must confine himself to the
necessary facts and omit as many of the gruesome details as possible. He
must tell it in a cold, hard-hearted way without elaboration, for the
story in itself is gruesome enough. Just as soon as a murder story
begins to expand upon shocking details it becomes the worst sort of a
yellow story.
Examples of murder stories from the newspapers:
Manner:
| After crushing in the head of his |
|superior officer with an axe, James |
|Layton, boatswain of the Liverpool |
|sailing ship Colony, refused to submit to|
|arrest, and, still waving the bloody |
|weapon, committed suicide by jumping into|
|the sea.--_New York Mail._ |
Motive:
| In revenge for a beating he received |
|the day before, Gaetona Ambrifi yesterday|
|shot and instantly killed Frank |
|Ricciliano, a sub-section foreman on the |
|Pennsylvania Railroad, while they were |
|working on the roadbed near Peddle |
|street, Newark.--_New York Sun._ |
Prominent name:
| Mayor William J. Gaynor of New York |
|City was shot and seriously, perhaps |
|fatally, wounded on board the steamer |
|Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse at 9:30 as he |
|was sailing for Europe. |
Resulting pursuit:
| The police of Brooklyn have another |
|murder mystery to unravel through the |
|finding early today of the body of Peter |
|Barilla on Lincoln road, near Nostrand |
|avenue, Flatbush. There were two bullet |
|wounds in the body and four stab wounds |
|in the back.--_Brooklyn Eagle._ |
Attendant circumstances:
| A hundred or more persons who were |
|about to take trains witnessed the |
|shooting to death of a Jersey City |
|business man in the Pennsylvania Railroad|
|station there this afternoon.--_New York |
|Mail._ |
=4. Suicide.=--What is true of murder stories is also true of suicide.
Each individual case has an unusual feature of its own. We ordinarily
find a good beginning in the manner of the suicide, the name of the
person who has killed himself if he is well known, the reason for the
act, or some one of the attendant circumstances--often the manner of
resuscitation if the crime is unsuccessful. For some unexplained reason
many papers do not print accounts of ordinary suicides, except when the
individual is prominent. At any rate the story must be told without
gruesome details and as briefly as possible.
Examples from the press:
Name:
| William L. Murray of Rockview avenue, |
|North Plainfield, paying teller of the |
|Empire Trust Company of New York, |
|committed suicide at Scotch Plains early |
|this afternoon by shooting himself in the|
|head. No reason is assigned for the |
|act.--_New York Sun._ |
Motive:
| Driven insane by continued brooding |
|over ill health, Miss Ada Emerson, a |
|former teacher in the Beloit city |
|schools, killed herself in a crowded |
|interurban car Saturday afternoon by |
|slashing her throat with a |
|razor.--_Beloit Free Press._ |
Here the manner is the feature, but it is not played up in the first
line because it is too horrible.
=5. Big Stories.=--The big stories of catastrophes are usually handled
on a large scale--played up, as the newspaper men say. The story in
itself is of sufficient importance to make it unnecessary to play up any
single feature of the story. However, the reporter, in looking for a
good beginning, often finds it in the most startling fact in the story.
If he is reporting a riot he usually begins with the number of killed
or injured, the amount of property destroyed, the character of the riot,
or the cause, as in this example:
| In an effort to bring about the |
|reinstatement of one of their number who |
|had been discharged for non-unionism, a |
|hundred or more journeymen bakers wrecked|
|the bakeshop of Pincus Jacobs, at No. |
|1571 Lexington avenue, early this |
|morning.--_New York Evening Post._ |
In the case of a storm the human life element is of greatest importance,
then the damage to property, and last, the peculiar circumstances. For
example:
| CLEVELAND, Dec. 11.--Fifty-nine lives |
|were the cost of a storm which passed |
|over Lake Erie Wednesday night and |
|Thursday, and more than $1,000,000 worth |
|of vessel property was destroyed.--_New |
|York Evening Post._ |
If the story is concerned with a flood the human-life element is first,
then the damage, the cause, the freaks of the flood, or the present
situation. For example:
| PARKERSBURG, W. Va., March 10.--Three |
|persons are known to have perished in a |
|flood which swept down upon the city on |
|Friday when two water reservoirs on |
|Prospect Hill burst without warning. |
|Forty houses were destroyed and many |
|persons are missing. The property damage |
|will be nearly $500,000. |
=6. Police Court News.=--The ordinary run of police court news is in a
class by itself. Usually the only news value in the story depends upon
some unusual incident or circumstance that attracts the attention of the
reporter. This is of course the source of many of the stories of crime,
mentioned before, but many stories turn up at the police courts which
are not concerned with crime, although in some cases they are concerned
with criminals. In this field of reporting there are many opportunities
for the human-interest story which will be taken up in a later chapter.
When the incident is reported in an ordinary news story the feature is
usually in some attendant circumstance and the story might well be
classed with one of the above groups. Here are two examples from the
daily press:
| Because he did not have sufficient |
|money to buy flowers for his sweetheart, |
|Henry Trupke, aged 21 years, forged a |
|check for $22.50 on a grocer, J. |
|Sieberlich, 781 Third street, and after a|
|week's chase was caught last night as he |
|got off a Wisconsin Central |
|train.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._ |
| But a few hours before receiving a |
|sentence of two years in the house of |
|correction for stealing furs from the |
|store of Lohse Bros., 117 Wisconsin |
|street, John Garner, self-confessed |
|thief, was married to Rose Strean, one |
|of the witnesses in the case, which was |
|tried yesterday in the municipal |
|court.--_Milwaukee Free Press._ |
=7. Reports of Meetings, Conferences, Decisions, etc.=--This group
includes all reports of meetings, or conferences, of bodies of any sort,
political or otherwise, reports of judicial or legislative hearings or
decisions, or announcements of resolutions passed. Such as:
| WASHINGTON, Jan. 15.--Acquisition of |
|the telegraph lines by the government and|
|their operation as a part of the postal |
|system is the latest idea of Postmaster |
|General Hitchcock. Announcement was made |
|today that a resolution to this effect |
|will be offered to Congress at the |
|present session.--_Wisconsin State |
|Journal._ |
There is always one thing in these stories that gives them news
value--the purpose or result of the conference, hearing, or
announcement. This purpose or result, of course, must be played up. The
one point that the reporter should remember is that a well-written lead
begins with the result or purpose of the meeting or announcement rather
than with the name of the meeting or the name of the body that makes the
announcement. Never begin a story thus: "At a meeting of the Press Club
held in the Auditorium last night it was resolved that----" Transpose
the sentence and begin with a statement of what was resolved. In the
following story the order is wrong:
| The Supreme Court of the United States,|
|through the opinion delivered by Justice |
|Vandevanter, today declared |
|constitutional the employers' liability |
|law of 1908. |
The import of the decision is buried; it should be written thus:
| The employers' liability law of 1908 |
|was today declared constitutional by the |
|Supreme Court of the United States. |
|Justice Vandevanter delivered the opinion|
|of the court, made in four cases. |
In these stories, as in all other news stories, the lead must begin with
the fact or statement that gives the story news value. Burying this fact
or statement behind two or three lines of explanation spoils the
effectiveness of the lead. A student of journalism may gain very good
practice in the writing of news stories by looking over the leads that
appear in the daily papers and transposing those leads which bury their
news behind explanations. The first line of type in a lead is like a
shop's show window and it must not be used for the display of packing
cases.
=8. Stories on Other Printed Matter.=--A large part of a newspaper's
space, especially in smaller cities, is devoted to stories based on
printed bulletins, announcements, city directories, legislative bills,
and published reports of various kinds. Sometimes a news story is
written upon a pamphlet that was issued for advertising
purposes--because there is some news in it. In all of these stories the
reporter must look through the pamphlet to find something of news value
or something that has a significant relation to other news. Smaller
papers often print stories on the new city directory; the increase or
decrease in population is treated as news and a very interesting story
may be written on a comparison of the names in the directory. In
university towns the appearance of a new university catalog or bulletin
of any sort is the occasion for a story which points out the new
features or compares the new bulletin with a previous one. Reporters and
correspondents in political centers, like state capitals, get out
stories on committee and legislative reports and on new bills that are
proposed or passed by the legislature. The writing of these stories is
very much like the reporting of a speech, which will be discussed later.
The newest or most interesting feature in the report or bill is played
up in the lead as the feature of the story, followed by the source of
the story, the printed bulletin upon which the story is based; thus:
| A new plan for placing the control of |
|all water power in the state in the hands|
|of the legislature was proposed in the |
|minority report of Senators J. B. Smith |
|and L. C. Blake, of the special |
|legislative committee on drainage, issued|
|today. |
These eight classes of news stories do not include all the news stories
that a newspaper prints, but they are in a way typical of all the others
that are not mentioned. It will be noted from these that all news
stories, just like the fire story, are usually written in about the same
way. Each one has a lead which begins with the feature of the
story--i.e., the fact or incident in the story which gives it news value
and makes it of interest--and concludes by answering the reader's
questions, when, where, who, how, why, concerning the feature. Each
story begins again after the lead, and in one or more paragraphs
explains, describes, or narrates the incident in detail and in logical
order. This body of the story which follows the lead, while following in
general the logical order, is so written that its most interesting facts
are near the beginning and its interest dwindles away toward the end.
This is to enable the editor in making up his paper, to take away from
the end of any story, as we have seen before, a paragraph or more
without spoiling the story's continuity or depriving it of any of its
essential facts. The form of the conventional fire story may be used as
a model in the writing of any news story.
In writing the body of a story to explain, describe, or narrate the
incident mentioned in the lead, every effort should be directed toward
clearness. This is particularly true of stories which are in the main
narrations of action. The number of facts that may be included must
depend upon the length of the story; if all of the facts cannot be
included without overburdening the story, cut out some of the details of
lesser importance, but treat those that are included in a clear readable
way. Short sentences are always much better in newspaper writing than
long involved sentences. Pronouns should always be used in such a way
that there can be no doubt in regard to their antecedents. If a
relative clause or participial expression sounds awkward make a separate
sentence of it. In other words, be simple, concise, and clear--that is
better in a newspaper than much fine writing.
IX
FOLLOW-UP AND REWRITE STORIES
The terms "rewrite story" and "follow-up, or follow, story," are names
which newspaper men apply to the rehashed or revised versions of other
news stories. A large newspaper office employs one or more rewrite men
who spend their entire time rewriting stories. To be sure, a part of
their work consists of rewriting, or simply recasting, poorly written
copy prepared by the reporters. But the major part of their work, the
part that interests us, involves something more than that. It involves
the rejuvenation of stories that have been printed in a previous edition
or in another paper, with the purpose of bringing the news up to the
present moment.
News ages very rapidly. What may be news for one edition is no longer
news when another edition goes to press an hour later. A feature that
may be worth playing up in a morning paper would not have the same news
value in an evening paper of the same day. The news grows stale so
quickly because new things are continually happening and new
developments are continually changing the aspect of previous stories.
If a story has been run through two or three editions and new
developments have changed it, the story is turned over to a rewrite man
for consequent alteration. A story in a morning paper is no longer news
for an evening paper of the same date, but a clever rewrite man, with or
without new developments added to the story, can recast it so that it
will appear to contain more recent news than the original story. The
story of an arrest in a morning paper begins with the particulars of the
arrest; but when the evening paper's rewrite man has rearranged it for
his paper it has become the story of the trial or the police court
hearing which followed the arrest. Perhaps the evening paper sends a man
to get the later developments in the case, but every rewrite man knows
the steps that always follow an arrest and he can rewrite the original
story without additional information. His account of the later
developments is called either a rewrite or a follow-up story, depending
upon the method employed. The same fundamental idea of rejuvenating the
former story governs the preparation of both the rewrite and the
follow-up story, but while the rewrite story contains no additional
news, the follow-up presents later facts in addition to the old news.
=1. The Rewrite Story.=--The rewrite story is primarily a rehashing of a
previous news story without additional facts. It attempts to give a new
twist to old facts in order to bring them nearer to the present time.
Without the aid of later facts the rewrite man can only select a new
feature and revise the old facts. For example, suppose that a $100,000
grain elevator burns during the night. The fire would make a big story
in a city of moderate size and the papers next morning would treat it at
length. If no one were killed or injured the story would probably begin
with a simple announcement of the fire in a lead of this kind:
| Fire destroyed the grain elevator of |
|the H. P. Jones Produce Company, First |
|and Water streets, and $50,000 worth of |
|wheat at 2 o'clock this morning. The |
|total loss is estimated at $150,000. |
Then the reporter would describe the fire at length, including all
obtainable facts. By afternoon almost every one in the city has read the
story--and yet the afternoon papers must print something about the big
fire. If no new facts can be obtained the previous story must be
rehashed and presented with a new feature that will make it appear to be
a later story. It is useless to begin the evening story with a mere
announcement of the fire, for that is no longer news, and the rewrite
man must find a new beginning to attract the attention of his readers.
Perhaps in looking over the morning story, he finds that the fire was
the result of spontaneous combustion in the grain stored in the
elevator. In the morning story this fact was rather insignificant in the
face of the huge loss, and most readers passed over it hastily. The
rewrite man, however, who has no later facts at his command, may seize
it as a new feature. Instead of beginning his story with the fact of the
fire, which is already known, he begins with the cause, which appears to
be later news. His lead may be as follows:
| Spontaneous combustion in the wheat |
|bins of the H. P. Jones Produce Company's|
|elevator, First and Water streets, |
|started the fire which destroyed the |
|entire structure with a loss of $150,000 |
|this morning. |
Or if the rewrite man is not so fortunate as to discover a new feature
as good as this, he may have to resort to beginning with a picture of
the present results of the fire--thus:
| Smouldering ruins and a tangled mass of|
|steel beams are all that remain of the H.|
|P. Jones Produce Company's $100,000 |
|grain elevator, First and Water streets, |
|which was destroyed by fire this morning.|
It will be noticed that, while these new rewrite leads begin with a new
feature, each new lead contains all the facts presented in the previous
lead and is told with an eye to the man who has not read the earlier
account. After the lead the rewrite man retells the whole story for the
benefit of readers who did not see the morning papers and rearranges the
facts so that they appear new to those who read the previous stories.
Facts which the other papers buried he unearths and displays; details
which appear to be later developments he crowds to the beginning. The
whole story is sorted and rewritten in a new order and with a new
emphasis. The result is a rewrite story which appears to be later,
although it contains no new facts at all. It is seldom, of course, that
such a rewrite story is used for local news, for very rarely is it
impossible for a later paper to discover new facts. But in the case of
news from the outside world, from other cities, the simple method of
rehashing old facts must often be resorted to. If the story is based
upon a single dispatch announcing an earthquake in Hawaii or a shipwreck
in mid-ocean, many rewrite stories must be printed on the same facts
before another message brings later news and additional details. An
example of this is the treatment of the first few stories of the wreck
of the White Star liner _Titanic_. The story was a big one, but the
first dispatches were very meager and many rehashings of these few facts
had to be printed before later and more definite news could be obtained.
The simple rewriting of an old story ordinarily involves a condensation
of the facts. If a morning paper printed two thousand words on the grain
elevator fire above, an afternoon paper of the same day would hardly
treat the story at such length. For the story is no longer big news. If
a story has run through the first editions of a morning paper it would
be cut down, as well as rehashed, in the later editions of the same
paper. The story of the fire loses its initial burst of interest after
the first printing, and only the essential facts and the facts that can
be rejuvenated can be reprinted. The 2,000-word version in the morning
paper may be worth only five hundred words or less four hours later.
=2. The Follow-up Story.=--If new facts are added to a story between
editions the new version is no longer a simple rewrite story. It becomes
a follow-up story, for it follows up the subsequent developments in the
previous story and corresponds to the second or succeeding installments
of a serial novel in which each installment begins with a synopsis of
previous chapters. For example, if, in the grain elevator fire story,
the body of a watchman were found in the ruins after the morning papers
have gone to press, the story would immediately have a different news
value for the evening papers. The story of the big fire is old, but the
discovery of the body is new. Hence the rewrite man would begin with the
later development--perhaps thus:
| The body of a watchman was found this |
|afternoon in the ruins of the H. P. Jones|
|Produce elevator, which burned to the |
|ground this morning with a loss of |
|$150,000. |
The new story, while retelling the principal facts in the previous
account, would give prominence to the latest news, the discovery of the
body. As an example from a newspaper, let us take the follow-up of a
murder mystery. The first stories on this murder simply said that a
grocer had been found dead in the cellar of his store and murder had
been suggested. The follow-up on the next day (printed here) deals with
a new development--has a new feature--and carries the story one step
further in the attempt to unravel the mystery:
| Developments yesterday in the story of |
|the killing of James White, the Park |
|street grocer, tended to support the |
|contention of Coroner Donalds and the |
|police that White was not murdered, but |
|died by his own hand. |