follow-up story separately, but for the purposes of analysis and study
they may be treated together, because the same fundamental idea governs
both. Dissection of the follow-up story will also show us what the
rewrite story is made of.
From the above clippings it will be seen that the lead of the follow-up
story is very much like that of any news story. The lead has its feature
in the first line and answers the reader's questions concerning that
feature. It is simply a new story written on an old subject which has
been given a new feature to make it appear new. Furthermore, it will be
noticed that the lead of the follow-up story is complete in itself,
without the original story that preceded it. Although the whole idea of
the follow story is based on the supposition that all readers have read
every edition of the paper and are therefore acquainted with the
original story, yet for the benefit of those readers who have not read
the previous story, the follow-up must be complete and clear in itself.
New facts are introduced into the follow story, but its lead tells the
main facts of the original story so that no reader will be at loss to
understand what it is all about--in other words, it gives a synopsis of
previous chapters. In many follow-up stories the new developments are
supplemented by an entire retelling of the original story. This is
especially true when one paper is rewriting a story which broke too late
for its preceding edition and was covered by a rival paper. At any rate,
every follow-up story, like every other news story, must be so
constructed as to stand by itself without previous explanation.
| Of the 142 bodies of victims of the |
|Triangle Waist Company's fire on |
|Saturday, that had been taken to the |
|morgue up to noon yesterday when it was |
|decided that all the dead had been |
|recovered, all but 45 had been identified|
|today. |
This is a follow-up of a story two days before. Every reader of the
paper probably knew everything that had been printed previously about
the fire, and yet this lead very carefully recalls the fire to the
reader's mind. Later in the story the principal facts of the original
story are retold as if they were new and unknown.
It is interesting to see what in any given newspaper story can be
followed up for a later story. The would-be reporter may get good
practice in writing follow-up stories from the mere attempt to study out
the next step in any given new story. With this next step as his feature
he may try to write a follow-up story without additional information,
and then compare it with other follow-up stories. For every news story
contains within it clues to what may be expected to follow.
When any serious fire occurs certain additional facts may always be
expected to follow. The finding of more dead, the unravelling of a
mysterious origin, the re-statement of the loss, and the present
condition of the injured are some of the possibilities that a rewrite
man considers when he tries to prepare a follow-up story on a fire. The
Washington Place fire in New York on March 25, 1911, furnished admirable
material for the study of the rewriting of fire stories. The fire
occurred on Saturday afternoon too late for anything but the Sunday
editions. The original story as it appeared in the Sunday papers and the
Monday issues, of papers which had no Sunday editions, began like this:
| One hundred and forty-one persons are |
|dead as a result of a 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, |
|Monday._ |
The Monday stories on the fire followed up various phases as shown in
the following. Each one while indicating that the story was a follow-up
retold the principal incidents in the fire.
| The death list in the Washington place |
|and Greene street fire was swelled today |
|to 145, a majority of the victims being |
|young girls.--_Monday morning--second |
|story._ |
| At dawn today it was estimated that |
|25,000 persons had visited the temporary |
|morgue on the covered pier at the foot of|
|East Twenty-sixth street, set aside to |
|receive the bodies of those who perished |
|in the Washington place fire on Saturday |
|afternoon.--_Monday morning--second |
|story._ |
| The horror of the fire in the ten-story|
|loft building at Washington place and |
|Greene street late Saturday afternoon, |
|with its heavy toll of human lives, grows|
|blacker each succeeding hour.--_Monday |
|afternoon._ |
| Of the 142 bodies in the morgue as a |
|result of the Triangle Shirt Waist |
|factory fire, all but fifty had been |
|identified this morning.--_Monday |
|afternoon._ |
On Tuesday other lines opened up for the rewrite man:
| Sifting down the great mass of |
|testimony at their disposal, city and |
|county officials hoped today to draw |
|closer to the source of responsibility |
|for Saturday's factory fire horror in |
|which 142 persons lost their lives. |
|Investigations started |
|yesterday.--_Tuesday afternoon._ |
| With all but twenty-eight of the |
|victims of the Triangle Shirt Waist |
|factory horror identified, District |
|Attorney Whitman continues steadily |
|compiling evidence. Funerals for scores |
|of victims are being held today, while |
|the relief fund, etc.--_Tuesday |
|afternoon._ |
| Borough President McAneny of Manhattan,|
|the district attorney's staff, the fire |
|marshal, the coroner and the state labor |
|department are bending every energy |
|toward fixing the blame for the loss of |
|the 142 lives in the, etc.--_Tuesday |
|afternoon._ |
| Union labor, horrified by the full |
|realization that the waste of human life |
|in the Triangle Waist factory fire might |
|have been saved had existing laws been |
|enforced, today arranged for a monster |
|demonstration of protest, etc.--_Tuesday |
|afternoon._ |
And so the stories ran for many days until newspaper readers had lost
all interest in the fire. Most of the stories were simply retellings of
the original story with a new bit of information in the lead. People
were ravenous for more details about the fire and the follow stories
supplied them until they were satisfied. Rarely is a fire worth so many
retellings.
A serious accident is often followed up in one or more editions. If many
people are killed or injured, the revised list of dead or the present
condition of the injured always furnishes material for a follow-up.
Sometimes the fixing of the blame, as in a railroad accident, or other
resulting features are used as the basis of the rewriting.
In the case of a robbery the commonest material for a follow-up story is
the resulting pursuit or capture. Very often a final report of the loss,
the present condition of a robbed bank or public institution, or perhaps
the regaining of the booty, makes a feature for a new story. But usually
the follow-up is concerned with the pursuit, capture, or trial. This is
especially true if the original story has been told by an earlier paper
and another later paper wishes to print a more up-to-date story on the
robbery, such as:
| MINOCQUA, Wis., Oct. 22.--It now begins|
|to look as if the bandits who robbed the |
|State Bank of Minocqua early Tuesday |
|morning would make their escape with the |
|booty. (This is followed by a re-telling |
|of the entire story of the robbery and an|
|account of the pursuit.) |
The most usual follow-up of a murder story is interested in the pursuit,
capture, or trial of the perpetrator of the deed. For example:
| Following the discovery of the body of |
|Pietro Barilla, an Italian, of Woodhaven,|
|Long Island, who was stabbed to death by |
|four men, presumably Black Hand members, |
|in Lincoln Road, near Flatbush, early |
|yesterday morning, the police arrested |
|three men yesterday. |
Very often the present condition of the victim of an attempted murder
calls for a new story. The stories following the attempted murder of
Mayor Gaynor of New York are good examples of the latter. If a mystery
surrounds the crime a possible solution is grounds for a new story. The
stories which might follow the unraveling of the mystery surrounding the
fictitious death of the grocer, mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, would be second-day murder stories. The original story, let us
say, was something like this:
| James White, a groceryman, was found |
|dying yesterday with a bullet wound in |
|his abdomen, in the cellar of his grocery|
|store at 1236 Park street. |
The next story on the murder would be concerned with the unraveling of
the mystery, thus:
| The preliminary inquiry yesterday by |
|Coroner John F. Donalds, into the |
|mysterious death of James White, the Park|
|street grocer, resulted in the conclusion|
|that White was murdered. |
And so the stories might run on day after day following the solution of
the case like the succeeding chapters of a continued novel, and each one
gives the synopsis of the preceding chapters in its lead, as every good
follow-up story should do.
Suicide stories seldom offer material for follow-up stories unless there
is some mystery surrounding the case. Sometimes the present condition of
a resuscitated victim of attempted suicide or the disposition of the
estate of a suicide offers material for rewriting.
Serious storms and floods are usually followed up for several days.
Readers are always interested in the present condition of the devastated
region. Very often the list of dead and injured is revised from day to
day, and any attempt to lend aid to the unfortunate victims is always a
reason for a later story.
Any meetings, conferences, trials, conventions, or the like must be
followed up day by day with succeeding stories. Each story is complete
in itself, but each one adds one more chapter to the report of the
meeting. This method of following a continued proceeding calls for a
series of follow-up stories; examples of the stories that follow a
continued legal trial will be given later under Court Reporting.
* * * * *
Many other illustrations might be given of follow-up stories that appear
daily in the newspapers. In the last analysis, the follow-up or the
rewrite story is nothing more than an ordinary news story, and as such
must be written in the same way. It begins with a lead which plays up a
feature and answers the reader's questions about the subject; the body
of the story runs along like the body of any news story. But it is
different in being a later chapter of a previous account; while complete
in itself, it must not only indicate the previous story, but must tell
its most important facts for readers who may have missed the previous
story. It is simply a news story which is tied to a previous story by a
string of cause and effect.
=4. Following Up Related Subjects.=--In this connection it may be well
to mention another kind of follow-up story that is usually written in
connection with big news events. It is written to develop and follow up
side lines of interest growing out of the main story. In its most usual
form it is a statistical summary of events similar to the great event of
the day--such as similar fires, similar railroad wrecks, etc., in the
past. Any big story attracts so much attention among newspaper readers
that the facts at hand are usually not sufficient to supply the public's
demand for information on the subject. To satisfy these demands editors
develop lines of interest growing out of the main event. They interview
people concerning the event and concerning similar events; they describe
similar events that have taken place in the past; they summarize and
compare similar events in the past--in short, they follow up every line
of interest opened up by the big story and write stories on the result.
These stories are of the nature of follow-up stories in that they grow
out of, and develop, the main story in its greatest extent.
For example, the wreck of the ocean liner _Titanic_ called for
innumerable side stories because the public's interest demanded more
facts than the newspapers had at hand to supply. Hence, the papers wrote
up similar shipwrecks in the past, gathered together summaries of the
world's greatest shipwrecks, interviewed people who had been in any way
connected with shipwrecks or with any phase of this shipwreck, described
glaciers and icebergs, estimated the depth of the ocean where the
_Titanic_ sank, described the White Star liner and other liners,
pictured real or imaginary shipwrecks, and developed every other related
subject. The real news in all this mass of material was very meager, but
the related stories satisfied the greedy public and helped newspaper
readers to understand and to picture the real significance of the meager
news.
In the same way a disastrous fire, like the burning of the Iroquois
Theater, calls for innumerable outgrowing stories. Even when the event
reported in the main news story is not sufficiently important to call
for related stories, it is often accompanied by a list (usually put in a
box at the head of the story) of other similar events and their results.
These follow-up stories of related subjects are, in form, very much like
feature stories, although they usually conform to the follow-up idea of
mentioning in their leads the main news event to which they are
related.
X
REPORTS OF SPEECHES
Every profession has its disagreeable tasks; journalism has perhaps more
disagreeable tasks than any other profession. All of a reporter's work
is not concerned with running down thrilling stories and writing them up
in a whirl of breathless interest. Our readers demand other kinds of
news, and it is the reporter's task to satisfy them faithfully. There is
probably no phase of the work that is quite so irksome as the reporting
of speeches, lectures, sermons, etc., and there is probably no phase of
the work about which most reporters have fewer definite rules or ideas.
Read the reports of the same speech in two different papers and note the
difference. They seldom contain the same things and more seldom do they
tell what the speaker said, in the way and the spirit in which he said
it. It is irksome work and difficult work to condense an hour's talk
into three stickfuls, and few reporters know exactly how to go about
it.
The report of a speech or a sermon or a lecture may come to a newspaper
office in one of two ways. A copy of it may be sent to the paper or the
reporter may have to go to hear the address and take notes on it. Very
often the speaker kindly sends a printed or typewritten copy of his
speech to the editor a few days in advance with the permission to
release it--or print it--on a certain date, after the speech has been
delivered in public. If the speech is to be printed in full, the task is
a mere matter of editing and does not trouble the reporter. Very few
speeches receive so much space. The others must be condensed and put in
shape for printing.
After all, the usual way to get a speech is to go to the public delivery
of the speech and bring back a report of it. At first sight this is a
difficult task and green reporters come back with a very poor resumé.
However, a word or two of advice from the editor or some bitter
experience eases the way. Some advice may be given here to prepare the
would-be reporter beforehand.
Some reporters who know shorthand prefer to make a stenographic report
of the entire speech and rearrange and condense it in the office. This
method is advisable only in the case of speeches of the greatest
importance; it is too laborious for ordinary purposes, since the account
includes at most only a part of the speech. The best way, doubtless, to
get a speech is to take notes on it. And yet this must be done properly
or there is a danger of misinterpretation of statements or of undue
emphasis upon any single part of the speech. The report of a speech
should be as well balanced and logical as the speech itself, differing
from the original only in length and the omission of details. The speech
report must be accurate and truthful or the speaker may appear at the
office in a day or two with blood in his eye. A few rules may be
suggested as an aid to accuracy and truthfulness.
In the first place, do not try to get all the speech; do not try to get
more than a small part of it--the important part. There are two ways of
doing this. If the speech is well arranged and orderly it is easy to
tell when the speaker has finished one sub-division and is beginning
another. Each division and subdivision will naturally contain a topic
sentence. Watch for the topic sentences and get them down with the
briefest necessary explanation to make them clear. Political speeches or
impromptu talks are, on the other hand, not always so logically
arranged. Sometimes it is possible to get the topic sentences, but more
often it is not. Then watch for the interesting or striking statements.
You will be aided in this by the audience about you. Whenever the
speaker says anything unusually striking or of more than ordinary
interest the audience will show it by signs of assent or dissent. Watch
for these signs, even for applause--and take down the statement that was
the cause. If the statement interested the original audience it will
interest your readers. Naturally, mere oratorical trivialities must not
be mistaken for striking statements.
When you get back to the office to write up the report of the speech you
will feel the need of direct quotations--in fact, the length of your
report will be determined by the number of direct quotations that you
have to use in it--as well as by editorial dictum. It would be entirely
wrong to quote any expressions of your own because they are somewhat
like the speaker's statements, and it is impossible to quote anything
less than a complete sentence in the report of a speech. Hence you will
need complete sentences taken down verbatim in the exact words of the
speaker. Make it a point to get complete sentences as you listen to the
speech. Whenever a striking statement or an interesting part of the
speech seems worth putting in your story get it down completely. You
will find yourself writing most of the time because, while you are
writing down one important sentence, the speaker will be uttering
several more in explanation and may say something else of interest
before you have finished writing down his first statement. Strict
attention, a quick pencil, and a good memory are needed for this kind of
work, but the reporting of speeches will lose its terrors after you have
had a very small amount of practice.
Just as any news story begins with a lead and plays up its most striking
fact in the first line, the report of a speech usually begins with the
speaker's most striking or most important statement. As you are
listening to his words watch for something striking for the
lead--something that will catch the reader's eye and interest him. But
you must exercise great care in selecting the statement for the lead.
Theoretically and practically it must be something in strict accordance
with the entire content of the speech and, if possible, it should be the
one statement that sums up the whole speech in the most concise way.
Somewhere in the discourse, at the beginning, at the end, or in some
emphatic place, the speaker will usually sum up his complete ideas on
the subject in a striking, concise way. Watch for this summary and get
it down for the lead. However, there may be times when this summary,
though concise, will be of little interest to the average reader and you
will be forced to use some other striking statement. Then it is
perfectly permissible to take any striking statement in the speech and
use it for the lead, provided that the statement is directly connected
with the rest of the discourse. But be fair to the speaker. Do not play
up some chance remark as illustrative of the entire utterance; don't
bring in an aside as the most interesting thing in his speech. If a
preacher forgets himself to the extent of expressing a chance political
opinion, it would obviously be unfair to him for you to play up that
remark as the summary of his sermon. Your readers would get a false
impression and the preacher would be angry. If he considers the chance
remark of real importance in his sermon he will back it up with other
statements that will give you an excuse for using it. In brief, watch
for the most interesting and most striking statement in the entire
speech, and in selecting this statement be fair and just and try to
avoid giving a false impression of the speaker or of the speech. If you
follow this rule you will never be in any danger of getting your paper
into difficulties.
Another rule in reporting lectures, speeches, etc., applies to the
writing of all newspaper stories. Write your report at once while the
speech is still fresh in your mind. Your report must preserve the logic
and continuity of the speech--it must be a fair resumé. Your notes will
be at best mere jottings of chance sentences here and there. Do not
allow them to get cold and lose their continuity. Write the report at
once.
* * * * *
The writing of the report of a speech, lecture, or sermon is the same
whether it is taken from a printed or stenographic copy of the discourse
or from notes. It is perhaps easier to write from your notes because you
have the important parts of the speech picked out, ready for use, by the
aid of the rest of the audience. Before you can resumé a printed copy of
the speech you must go through it and pick out the important sentences
which you wish to quote and decide upon the most striking statement for
the lead. There is no definite rule that can be followed in this except
to take the topic sentences whenever they are stated with sufficient
clearness. When you have decided on the statements that you wish to
quote you have really reduced the speech to a form practically identical
with the notes taken from verbal utterance, and the writing in either
case is the same.
The lead of the report is very much like the lead of any other news
story--for the report of a speech is really a news story. As soon as the
speech is mentioned, the reader unconsciously asks a number of questions
about it and the reporter must answer them in the first sentence. As in
any other news story the questions are: _What?_ _Who?_ _Where?_ _When?_
and perhaps _How?_ and _Why?_ Reduced to the case of the speech report,
they amount to what did he say, who said it, where did he say it, when,
and perhaps how and why did he say it. You may answer the _what_ by
giving the subject of the discourse or by giving a striking statement in
it. In every report the answer to some one of the questions is of
greater interest and must be placed in the first line. If the speaker is
of more than ordinary prominence his name makes a good beginning. If an
ordinary person makes a speech at some meeting of prominence the _when_
or _where_ takes precedence over his name. But in most cases the
reporter will find that none of these things is of sufficient importance
for the beginning. Most public utterances that he will be called upon to
report will be made by ordinary men in ordinary places and at ordinary
times, and the most interesting part of the story will be what was said.
Sometimes it suffices to give the title of the speech, but more often a
striking statement from the speech makes the best beginning. However,
although the speaker, the time, the place, etc., are overshadowed in
importance by the subject or content of what the speaker says, they must
be included in the same sentence with the title or striking statement.
That is, in short, we catch the reader's interest with a striking
statement from the speech and then delay the rest of the report while we
tell who said it, when, where, etc. The necessity of this is obvious.