assumes the greatest importance. The stage has hardened us to seeing a
reporter slinking around the outskirts of every bit of excitement
writing excitedly and hurriedly in a large leather notebook. So hardened
are we to the sight that some new reporters buy a notebook just as soon
as they get a place on a newspaper staff. But real reporters on real
newspapers do not use notebooks. A few sheets of folded copy paper
hidden carefully in an inside pocket ready for names and addresses and
perhaps figures are all that most of them carry. Many people dread
publicity and the appearance of a notebook frightens them into silence
more quickly than the actual appearance of a representative of the
press. This is true in the reporting of any bit of news, in the covering
of any story--and it is ordinarily true in interviewing for statements
that are to be quoted. Of course, an exception to this must be made in
the case of some prominent men who prefer to issue signed written
statements when they are interviewed.
The impossibility of using a notebook or writing down a man's words in
an interview seriously complicates the task of interviewing. Some
reporters train themselves until they are able to remember their
victim's words long enough to get outside and write them down. Others
are satisfied with getting the ideas and the spirit of what is said
together with the man's manner of talking. A few characteristic
mannerisms thrown in with a true report of his ideas will make any
speaker believe that you have quoted him exactly. Whichever method is
pursued, the reporter must always be fair and try to tell the readers of
the paper the man's true ideas. The exigencies of the case give the
reporter greater liberty than in quoting from a speech but he must not
abuse his liberty.
The success of an interview depends very largely upon the way in which a
reporter approaches the man whom he wishes to interview. It is never
well to trust to the inspiration of the moment to start the
conversation. The reporter must know exactly what he wishes to have the
man say before he approaches him and must already have framed his
questions so as to draw out the answers that he wishes. People are never
interviewed except for a purpose and that purpose should suggest the
reporter's first question. No matter how willing the man is to tell what
he thinks he will seldom begin talking until the reporter asks him a
definite question to help him in putting his thoughts into words. All of
this should be considered beforehand. The reporter should have outlined
a definite campaign and have a series of questions which he wishes to
ask. If he has written the questions out beforehand, the task becomes an
easier one--he merely fills in the answers on his list later and has the
interview in better form than if he had tried to trust entirely to his
memory. To be sure, the questions may open up unexpected lines of
thought and he may get more than he went for, but he must have his
questions ready for use as soon as each new line is exhausted. A skilled
reporter frames the interview himself and keeps the result entirely in
his own hands through the campaign that he has outlined beforehand.
Unless he knows exactly what he wants to get, a wary victim may lead him
off upon unimportant facts and in the end tell him nothing that his
paper has sent him to get. A reporter must keep the reins of an
interview in his own possession.
A good reporter takes great care in his manner of addressing a man whom
he is to interview. A well-known newspaper follows the rule of asking
its reporters never to do what a gentleman would not do. A reporter who
is trying to interview must always be a gentleman and must not ask
questions that a gentleman would not ask. If the victim is a prominent
man of great personality it is not hard to follow this rule--in fact, it
is impossible to get the interview by any other method of approach. But
when one is trying to interview a person of humbler station, the case is
different. It is very easy then to fall into a habit of demanding
information and turning the interview into an inquisition. But the
reporter who keeps his attitude as a gentleman gets more real facts even
when his victim is of the most humble social status. Therefore, never
approach your victim as if he were a witness and you a cross-questioning
lawyer. Do not say: "See here, you know more about it than that," and
thus try to force unwilling information from him. Go at him in a more
round-about way and lead him to give you the facts unwittingly perhaps.
A young reporter often feels an impulse to become too personal with the
man whom he is interviewing. He must always remember that he is not
there for a friendly chat but as a representative of a newspaper, sent
to get concise facts or opinions. This attitude must be maintained even
with the humblest persons. Any desire to sympathize, criticize, or
advise must be checked at the very start. The point of view must always
be kept.
* * * * *
Although the main difference between writing interview stories and
reporting speeches lies in the very act of getting the quotations and
words of the speaker, there are certain aspects in which the writing of
an interview story is different. The actual form of the two stories is
almost identical and yet there is a tone in the interview story that is
lacking in the report of a speech. This may be called the personal tone.
The very name of the speaker obviously plays a much larger part in the
interview story than in the speech report. We may be more interested in
what a man says in a public discourse than we are in the man, but when
we interview a man we want his opinions not for themselves so much as
because they are his opinions. An interview with the President on the
tariff is not necessarily interesting in the new ideas that it brings
out, for we have many other ways of knowing the President's opinions on
the tariff question; but the interview is worth printing because every
one is interested in reading anything that the President says, although
he may have read the same thing many times before. A man is seldom
interviewed unless he is of some prominence--that is why he is
interviewed, and so in the resulting story his name plays a very
important part. In fact, his name is usually the feature of the story;
most interview stories begin directly with the name of the man whose
statements are quoted.
Although a man may be interviewed simply because of his prominence and
popularity, there is usually another reason for the interview. We are
interested not only in hearing him say something but we wish to hear him
say something on a certain topic. The interview thus has a timeliness, a
reason for existence. Since this timeliness is the reason for printing a
certain man's statements, the reporter's account must indicate that
timeliness near the beginning. That is, the first sentence of an
interview story must not only tell who was interviewed and the gist of
what he said, but it must tell why he said it. The interview must be
connected with the rest of the day's news. This comes out very
definitely in the custom which many newspapers have of printing the
opinions of many prominent men in connection with any important event.
Perhaps it is because we wish to know their opinions on the subject or
perhaps it is simply because we are glad to have a chance to hear them
talk--at any rate many editors make any great event an excuse for a
series of interviews. This is illustrated by the opinions of the various
labor leaders that were printed with the story of the recent confession
of the McNamara brothers. In such a case, the reporter must make the
reason for the interview his starting point in the report and must
indicate very plainly why the man was interviewed.
This idea of timeliness is very often carried to the extent of making
the interview merely a denial or an assertion from the mouth of a
well-known man. There may be an upheaval in Wall Street. Immediately the
papers print an interview in which some prominent financier denies or
asserts that he is at the bottom of the upheaval. Naturally the report
of the interview begins with the very words of the denial or the
assertion. Very often a man when interviewed refuses to say anything on
the subject. The fact that he has nothing to say does not mean that the
interview is not worth reporting. In fact, that refusal to speak may be
the most effective thing that he could say. The reporter begins by
telling that his man had nothing to say on the subject and ends by
telling what he should have said or what his refusal to speak probably
means,--if the paper is not too scrupulous in such matters. At any rate,
the denial or assertion or refusal to speak becomes the starting point
of the report and furnishes the excuse for the interview story. The
expanded remarks that follow the lead are of course important but they
are not so important as the primary expression of opinion that the
reporter went for.
The personal element in interviewing may be carried to an extreme
extent. The man who is interviewed may so far overshadow the importance
of what he says that the report of the interview becomes almost a sketch
of the man himself. That is, the report is filled with human interest.
The quotations are interspersed with action and description. We are told
how the man acted when he said each individual thing. His appearance,
attitude, expression, and surroundings become as important as his words
and are brought into the report as vividly as possible. Such an
interview may become almost large enough to be used as a special feature
story for the Sunday edition, but when the human interest is limited to
a comparatively subordinate position the report still keeps its
character as an interview news story. Such a thing may be illustrated
from the daily press:
| "I would rather have four battleships |
|and need only two than to have two and |
|need four." |
| |
| Seated in the cool library of Colonel |
|A. K. McClure's summer home at |
|Wallingford, Rear Admiral Winfield Scott |
|Schley, retired, thus expressed himself |
|yesterday on the need of a larger and |
|greater navy. |
After all has been said about interviewing, the one thing that a
reporter must remember is that an interview story is at best rather dry
and everything that he can do to increase the interest will improve the
interview. But all of this must be done with absolute fairness to the
speaker and great truthfulness in the quotation of his ideas and
opinions.
* * * * *
To come to the technical form of the interview story, we find that there
are very nearly as many possible beginnings as in the case of the report
of a speech. The interview story must begin with a lead that tells who
was interviewed, when, and where, what he said (in a quotation or an
indirect summary), and why he was interviewed. This is like the lead of
a speech report in every particular except in the timeliness--the
occasion for a speech is seldom mentioned in the lead, but a reporter
usually tells at once why he interviewed the man whose words he quotes.
=1. Speaker Beginning.=--The very purpose behind interviewing makes the
so-called speaker beginning most common. It is almost an invariable rule
that the report of an interview must begin with the man's name unless
what he says is of greater importance than his name--which is seldom.
The simplest form of the speaker beginning is the one in which the
speaker's name is followed directly by a summary of what he said, as:
| Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of |
|Leland Stanford Junior University, said |
|yesterday at the Holland House that in |
|the development of American universities |
|educators must separate the lower two |
|classes from the upper two, the present |
|freshman and sophomore classes to be |
|absorbed by small colleges or |
|supplemental high schools, making the |
|junior year the first in the university |
|training. He said the universities should |
|receive only men, not boys.--_New York |
|Tribune._ |
Another kind of speaker beginning may devote most of the lead to the
explanation of the reason for the interview, giving the briefest
possible summary of what was said: Thus:
| Director Lang of the department of |
|public safety is going to place a ban on |
|the playing of tennis on Sunday. He |
|doesn't know just yet how he is going to |
|accomplish this, but yesterday he |
|declared that he would find some law |
|applicable to the case.--_Pittsburgh |
|Gazette-Times._ |
One step further brings us to the entire exclusion of the result of the
interview from the lead. In this case the reason for the interview
occupies the entire lead and we must read part of the second paragraph
to find what the man said; thus:
| Charles F. Washburn, Richmond Hill's |
|wizard of finance, promises to appear at |
|his broker's office in Newark, N. J., |
|this morning with a fresh bank roll, |
|accumulated since the close of the market|
|on Saturday. |
| |
| (The second paragraph tells what it is |
|all about and the third quotes his |
|words.)--_New York World._ |
It is to be noted that in each of the above leads the speaker's name is
always accompanied by a word or two telling who he is and why he was
interviewed. Furthermore the reporter himself has no more place in the
lead than if he were reporting a speech--his existence and the part he
played in getting the interview are strictly ignored.
=2. Summary Beginning.=--There are two common ways of beginning an
interview story with a summary. First, the lead may begin with a
_that_-clause which embodies the gist of the interview; this is like the
_that_-clause beginning of the report of a speech; thus:
| That the apparent apathy among the |
|voters of the country is merely |
|contentment with the present |
|administration of affairs by the |
|Republican party is the contention of |
|ex-Senator John M. Thurston of Nebraska. |
|Mr. Thurston was at Republican national |
|headquarters today, etc.--_New York |
|Evening Post._ |
Secondly the summary beginning is used in the case of an interview that
is a denial or an assertion by the man interviewed. The lead begins with
a clause or a participial phrase embodying the substance of the
interview, and the name of the speaker is made the subject of a verb of
denying or asserting; thus:
| Declaring that his office is run as |
|economically as possible, Sheriff H. E. |
|Franke denied on Sunday that he had |
|expended more than $688 for auto hire to |
|collect $1,409.28 of alleged taxes. |
| |
| (The second paragraph begins with a |
|direct quotation.)--_Milwaukee Sentinel._|
| Although he had sharply criticised |
|Roosevelt's special message condemning |
|some of the uses to which the possessors |
|of large fortunes are putting their |
|wealth, President Jacob Gould Schurman, |
|Cornell University, declined to discuss |
|Roosevelt or his policies in Milwaukee |
|yesterday. He said that he was not |
|talking politics. |
| |
| (The rest of the report is a quotation |
|of his views on college |
|athletics.)--_Milwaukee Free Press._ |
=3. Quotation Beginning.=--Many reports of interviews begin with a
direct quotation. The logic of this is that the expression of opinion
is, in some cases, of more interest than the name of the man who
expressed the opinion. Sometimes the name of the speaker is not
considered worth mentioning and in that case a direct quotation is the
only advisable beginning; thus:
| "With the prices of food for hogs and |
|cattle going up, it is natural that the |
|food--beef and pork--for us humans should|
|keep pace." |
| |
| This was the logic of an east-side |
|butcher who discussed the probable rise |
|in the prices of meat.--_Milwaukee Free |
|Press._ |
Sometimes a short quotation is used at the beginning of the lead very
much as a title is used in a speech report; thus:
| NEW YORK, June 1.--"A business |
|proposition which should have been put in|
|effect nearly twenty years ago," was John|
|Wanamaker's comment today on the adoption|
|of 2-cent letter postage between the |
|United States and Great Britain and |
|Ireland.--_Milwaukee Free Press._ |
If the quotation at the beginning consists of only one sentence the name
of the speaker may be run into the same paragraph; thus:
| "Judge McPherson's recent decision |
|declaring Missouri's 2-cent fare |
|confiscatory is an indication that vested|
|interests are entitled to some protection|
|and that legislatures must not go too far|
|in regulating them," said Sir Thomas |
|Shaughnessy, president of the Canadian |
|Pacific road, on Sunday.--_Milwaukee |
|Sentinel._ |
However if the quotation at the beginning contains more than one
sentence it is best to paragraph the quotation separately and leave the
name of the speaker until the second paragraph; thus:
| "The American Federation of Labor will |
|enter the national campaign by seeking to|
|place labor candidates on the tickets of |
|the old parties. An independent labor |
|party is eventually contemplated. But |
|there is not time to get results in that |
|way in the next national campaign." |
| |
| So said H. C. Raasch, national |
|president of the tile-layers, upon his |
|return yesterday, etc.--_Milwaukee Free |
|Press._ |
=4. Human Interest Beginning.=--This is a designation devised to cover a
multitude of beginnings. A human interest interview may begin with a
quotation, a summary, a name, or an action. The aim is necessarily
toward unconventionality and the form of the lead is left to the
originality of the reporter. A few examples may illustrate what is meant
by the human interest beginning:
| "There goes another string. Drat those |
|strings!" Only Joseph Caluder didn't say |
|"Drat." |
| |
| "Say, do you know that I have spent |
|pretty nearly $1,000 for strings for that|
|violin? Well, it's a fact. Listen." |
|Etc.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._ |
| Fire Marshal James Horan never bought a|
|firecracker, but for many years he has |
|celebrated Independence day in the thick |
|of fires. He never owned a gun or |
|revolver. His last prayer before trying |
|to snatch a little needed sleep Friday |
|night will be of the twofold form, |
|etc.--_Chicago Post._ |
After what has been said about the body of a speech report, there is
little more to be said about the body of an interview story. The same
rules apply in both cases. The body of the report should contain as much
direct quotation as possible. However nothing less than a sentence
should be quoted--that is, every quotation should be a complete
sentence, with indirect explanation. Whenever "Said the speaker" or "Mr.
Brown continued" or any similar expression is worked into the direct
quotation it should always be placed at the end of the sentence; never
begin a quotation in this way:--Mr. Jones continued, "Furthermore I
would say, etc." In the same way, when a paragraph contains both direct
and indirect quotation, the direct quotation should be placed at the
beginning. Whenever it is possible, construct solid paragraphs of
quotation, and solid paragraphs of summary. The report as a whole must
have coherence and a logical sequence; for this a limited amount of
indirect quotation may be used to fill in the gaps in the logic of the
direct quotation.
According to the usage of the best newspapers of to-day the reporter
must never be brought into the report of an interview. His existence
must never be mentioned although every reader knows that some reporter
secured the interview. In the old days reporters delighted in bringing
themselves into their stories as "representatives of the press" or "a
reporter for the Dispatch," but that practice has gone the way of the
reporter's leather-bound notebook. The interview may be told
satisfactorily without a mention of the reporter; hence newspaper usage
has put a ban on his appearance in his story.
GROUP INTERVIEWS
We have said that a man is seldom interviewed without a reason; there is
always a timeliness in interviewing. Any unusual event of broad
importance becomes an excuse for the editor to print the opinion of some
prominent man on some phase of the event. Sometimes the event is of such
importance that the editor wishes to print the opinions of several men
on the subject; or more than one prominent man may be involved in the
affair and the public may wish to hear the opinions of every one
involved. In such a case when several men are interviewed in regard to
the same event it is considered rather useless and ineffective to print
their interviews separately and the several interview stories are
gathered together into one story and arranged in such a way that they
may be compared. There are several ways of doing this.
If the case or event is very well known, a lead or summary of the
several interviews is considered unnecessary and the words of the
various men are grouped together under a single headline. This may be
illustrated by the interviews that were printed after the confessions of
the McNamara brothers of Los Angeles in the recent dynamiting case. The
_Wisconsin State Journal_ may be taken as representative. This paper
printed the statements of twelve prominent men interested in the case in
a three-column box under a long head; thus:
| =Leaders Discuss the Case= |
| |
| Samuel Gompers, president American |
|Federation of Labor--I am astounded; I am |
|astounded; my credulity has been imposed |
|upon. It is a bolt out of a clear sky. |
| |
| * * * * * |
| |
| John T. Smith, president Missouri |
|Federation of Labor--I can not believe it. |
|But if the McNamaras blew up the Times |
|building they should be fully punished. |
| |
| * * * * * |
| |
| Gen. Harrison Grey Otis, publisher of |
|the Times--The result may be and ought to |
|be, etc. |
If the case had not been of such broad interest a lead embodying a
summary of the interviews might have preceded the individual statements.
It might have been done in this way:
| Great surprise has been expressed by |
|the prominent labor leaders of the |
|country at the confession of the |
|McNamara brothers in Los Angeles |
|yesterday. That organized labor had no |
|connection with the work of these men and |
|that they should be fully punished is the |
|consensus of opinion. |
| |
| Samuel Gompers, president American |
|Federation of Labor--I am astounded; I am |
|astounded; my credulity has been imposed |
|upon. It is a bolt out of a clear sky. |
| |
| John T. Smith, president Missouri |
|Federation of Labor--I can not believe it. |
|Etc. |
In such a story as the above, the statements are usually printed without
quotation marks; each paragraph begins with a man's name, followed by a
dash and what he said. The grouping together of several interviews is
often done less formally. The whole thing may be written as a running
story, and sometimes the names of the persons interviewed are omitted;
thus:
| Proprietors of the big flower shops, |
|the places from which blossoms are |
|delivered in highly polished and ornate |
|wagons, drawn by horses that might win |
|blue ribbons, and where, in the proper |
|season, a single rose costs three |
|dollars, do not approve of the comments |
|made by a dealer who recently failed. |
|Among these sayings was one to the effect |
|that young millionaires spend a thousand |
|dollars a week on flowers for chorus |
|girls who earn twelve dollars a week, and |
|who sometimes take the flowers back to |
|the shop to exchange them for money to |
|buy food and clothes. |
| |
| "That's all nonsense," said one dealer. |
|(This paragraph is devoted to his opinion |
|on the matter.) |
| |
| "We have enough trouble in this |
|business," said another dealer, "without |
|having this silly talk given to the |
|public." (This paragraph gives this |
|dealer's opinion)--_New York Evening |
|Post._ |
(Each paragraph is devoted to a single interview.)
The same paragraph may be done with more local color as in the
following: