very start. "A number of débutantes assisted in receiving at a tea given
by, etc."; "The débutantes of the winter were out in force, etc."
Such a story is usually followed by a list of guests, a list of
out-of-town guests, a list of subscribers, or something of the sort.
Ordinarily the list is not tabulated but is run in solid, thus:
| The guests were: Miss Kathleen Smith, |
|Miss Georgia Brown, etc. |
Very often the names are grouped together, thus:
| The guests were: The Misses Kathleen |
|Smith, Georgia Brown; Mesdames Robert R. |
|Green, John R. Jones; and the Messrs. |
|George Hamilton, Francis Bragg, etc. |
The number of variations in such stories is limited only by the
ingenuity of the people who are giving such entertainments. But in each
case the reporter learns to give the same facts in much the same order.
And he gives them in an uncolored, impersonal way that makes the items
interesting only to those who are directly connected with them. The
story may vary from a single sentence to half a column, but it always
begins in the same way and elaborates only the same details. Before
trying to write up social entertainments, a reporter should always be
sure of the use of the various words he employs--"chaperon,"
"patroness," etc. For instance, can we say that "Mr. and Mrs. Smith
acted as chaperons"?
=5. Social Announcements.=--Social announcements of any kind are
usually, like the wedding and engagement announcements, confined to a
single sentence. They tell only the name of the host and hostess, the
name of the guest of honor or the occasion for the event, the time, and
the place. Thus:
| Mrs. Charles P. Jones will give a dance|
|this evening at her home, 181 Nineteenth |
|street, to introduce her sister, Miss |
|Elsie Holt. |
A study of the foregoing sections on society stories shows how
definitely a reporter is restricted in the facts that he may include in
his social items--how conventional social stories have become. This very
restraint in the matter of facts makes it the more necessary for a
reporter to exercise his originality in the diction of social items. He
must guard against the use of certain set expressions, like
"officiating," "performed the ceremony," and "solemnized." While
restricted in the facts that he may give, he must try to present the
same old facts in new and interesting ways--he may even resort to a
moderate use of "fine writing," if he does not become florid or
frivolous.
=6. Unusual Social Stories.=--Just as soon as any of these stories
contains a feature that is of interest to the general public in an
impersonal way it leaves the general class of social news and becomes a
news story to be written with the usual lead. Even the presence of a
very prominent name will make a news story out of a social item. For
instance, the wedding of Miss Ethel Barrymore was written by many papers
as a news story. On the other hand, an unusual marriage, an unusual
elopement, or anything unusual and interesting in a wedding gives
occasion for a news story. Here is one:
| Because their 15-year-old daughter, |
|Sarah, married a man other than the one |
|they had chosen, who is wealthy, Mr. and |
|Mrs. Markovits of 3128 Cedar street have |
|gone into deep mourning, draped their |
|home in crepe and announced to their |
|friends that Sarah is |
|dead.--_Philadelphia Ledger._ |
Or the story may be handled in a more humorous way, thus:
| There is really no objection to him, |
|and she is quite a nice young woman, but |
|to be married so young, and to go on a |
|wedding journey with $18 in their |
|purses--but Wallace Jones, student of the|
|Western University, and Ruth Smith, |
|student in the McKinley High School, |
|decided it was too long a time to wait, |
|and a nice old pastor gentleman in St. |
|Joe has made them one.--_Milwaukee Free |
|Press._ |
=7. Obituaries.=--Like many other classes of newspaper stories, the
obituary has developed a conventional form which is followed more or
less rigidly by all the papers of the land. Every obituary follows the
same order and tells the same sort of facts about its subject. It begins
with a brief account of the deceased man's death, runs on through a very
condensed account of the professional side of his life and ends with the
announcement of his funeral or a list of his surviving relatives.
The lead is concerned only with his death, answering the usual
questions about _where_, _how_, and _why_, and is written to stand alone
if necessary. It ordinarily begins with the man's full name, because of
course the name is the most important thing in the story, and then tells
who he was and where he lived. This is followed, perhaps in the same
sentence, by the time of his death, the cause, and perhaps the
circumstances. Thus:
| CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 25.--Dr. John H.|
|Blank, professor of Greek at Harvard |
|since 1887 and dean of the Graduate |
|School since 1895, died at his home in |
|Quincy street today from heart trouble. |
|Professor Blank was an authority on |
|classical subjects.--_New York Tribune._ |
This, as you see, might stand alone and be complete in itself. Many
obituaries, however, add another paragraph after the lead in which the
circumstances of the death are discussed in greater detail. Here is the
second paragraph of another obituary:
| At 8:30 tonight Mr. Blank was walking |
|with his wife on the veranda of the |
|Delmonte Hotel, when he suddenly gasped |
|as if in great pain and fell to the |
|floor. He was carried inside, but was |
|dead before the physicians reached his |
|bedside. Apoplexy is said to have been |
|the cause. |
Next comes the account of the deceased man's life. It is told very
briefly and impersonally and concerns itself chiefly with the events of
his business or professional activities. It is but a catalogue of his
achievements and the dates of those achievements. These facts are
usually obtained from the file of biographies--called the morgue--which
most newspapers keep. The account first tells when and where he was born
and perhaps who his parents were. Next his education is briefly
discussed. Then the chief events of his professional or business life.
The date of his marriage and the maiden name of his wife are included
somewhere in or at the end of this account. Usually a list of the
organizations of which the man was a member and a list of the books
which he had written are attached to this account. One of the foregoing
obituaries continues as follows:
| He was born in Urumiah, Persia, on |
|February 4, 1852, being the son of the |
|Rev. Austin H. Blank, a missionary. He |
|was graduated from Dartmouth in 1873, and|
|that college awarded him the degrees of |
|A. M. in 1876 and LL.D. in 1901. From |
|1876 to 1878 he studied at Leipzig |
|University. He was assistant professor of|
|ancient languages at the Ohio |
|Agricultural and Mechanical College from |
|1873 to 1876, associate professor of |
|Greek at Dartmouth from 1878 to 1880, |
|and dean of the collegiate board and |
|professor of classical philology at Johns|
|Hopkins in 1886 and 1887. In 1906 and |
|1907 he served as professor in the |
|American School of Classical Studies in |
|Athens. |
| |
| (Then follows a list of the |
|organizations of which he was a member |
|and the periodicals with which he was |
|connected.) |
| |
| He married Miss Mary Blank, daughter of|
|the president of Blank College, in 1879, |
|and she survives him. |
|--_New York Tribune._ |
The obituary usually ends with a list of surviving relatives--especially
children and very often the funeral arrangements are included. This is
the last paragraph of another obituary:
| His first wife, Mary V. Blank, died in |
|1872. Three years later he married Mrs. |
|Sarah A. Blank, of Hightstown, N. J., who|
|with four daughters, survives him. The |
|funeral will be held tomorrow at 11:30 |
|o'clock. The burial will be in the family|
|plot in Greenwood Cemetery. |
This is the standard form of the obituary which is followed by most
daily newspapers in fair-sized cities. The form is characterized by an
extreme conciseness and brevity and an absolutely impersonal tone. Very
rightly, an obituary is handled with a sense of the sanctified
character of its subject It offers no opportunity for fine writing or
human interest; it simply gives the facts as briefly and impersonally as
possible.
XIV
SPORTING NEWS
Division of labor on the larger American newspapers has made the
reporting of athletic and sporting events into a separate department
under a separate editor. The pink or green sporting sheets of the big
papers have become separate little newspapers in themselves handled by a
sporting editor and his staff and entirely devoted to athletic news,
except when padded out with left-over stories from other pages. Although
on smaller papers any reporter may be called upon to cover an athletic
event, in the cities such news is handled entirely by experts who are
thoroughly acquainted with all phases of the athletic sports about which
they write. The stories on the pink sheet enjoy the greatest
unconventionality of form to be seen anywhere in the paper except on the
editorial page. And yet, because athletic reporters are usually men
taken from regular reporting and because the same ideas and necessities
of news values govern the sporting pages, athletic stories follow, in
general, the usual news story form.
One may expect to find under the head of sports almost any news that is
any way connected with college, amateur, or professional athletics. The
stories include accounts of baseball and football games, rowing, horse
racing, track meets, boxing, and many other forms of sport, as well as
any discussions or movements growing out of these sports. Many of the
stories are only a few lines in length while others may cover a column
or more. But in general each one has a lead which answers the questions
_when?_ _where?_ _how?_ _who?_ and _why?_ and runs along much like an
ordinary news story. For, after all, even athletic stories are written
to attract and to hold the reader's interest whether or not he is
directly interested in the sport under discussion. Any reporter who is
called upon to cover an athletic event is safe in writing his story in
the usual news story form.
As it would be impossible to discuss all the various stories that come
under the head of athletic news, the reporting of college football games
will be taken as typical of the others. The rules that are suggested for
the reporting of football games may be applied to baseball games, track
meets, and other sporting events. The same principles govern all of
them and the stories usually summarize results in about the same way.
Football stories may be divided into three general classes: the brief
summary story of a stickful or a trifle more; the usual football story
of a half column or less; and the long story that may be run through a
column or more, depending upon the importance of the game.
All three of these stories are alike in the general facts which they
contain; they differ only in the number of minor details which they
include in the elaboration of these general facts. Each one tells in the
first sentence what teams were competing, the final score, when and
where the game was played, and perhaps some striking feature of the
game--the weather, the conditions of the field, the star players, or a
sensational score. After that, with more or less expansion, each of the
stories gives the essential things that the reader wants to know about
the game. These consist usually of the way in which the scoring was
done, a comparison of the playing of the teams, a list of the star
players, the weather conditions, and the crowd. If the writing of the
story includes a discussion of each of these points in more or less
detail, the game will be covered in all of its essential phases. The
three kinds of stories differ, from one another, not in the facts that
they include, but in the length at which they expand upon these facts.
One rule should be noted in the writing of all these stories or of any
athletic story--avoid superlatives. To a green reporter almost every
game seems to be "the most spectacular," "the most thrilling," "the
hardest fought," "the most closely matched," but a broad experience is
necessary to defend the use of any superlative about the game.
=1. The Brief Summary Story.=--This is the little story of a stickful or
less, which merely announces the result of some distant or unimportant
game. Taken in its shortest form it gives only the names of the teams,
the score, the time and place of the game, and perhaps a word or two of
general characterization. As it is allowed to expand in length it takes
up as briefly as possible the following facts in the order in which they
are given: the scoring, the comparison of play, the star players or
plays. It is a mere announcement of the result of the game and no more,
for that is all the reader wants. The line-ups and other tables are
usually omitted, and nothing is included that goes beyond this narrow
purpose. Here are a few examples:
| IOWA CITY, Ia., Nov. 25.--Sensational |
|end runs by McGinnis and Curry near the |
|end of the final quarter of play gave |
|Iowa a 6-to-0 victory over Northwestern |
|here this afternoon. |
| |
| Fort Atkinson High School defeated |
|Madison High today in the final moments |
|of play when a punt by Davy, fullback |
|for Madison, was blocked and the ball |
|recovered behind the line, giving Fort |
|Atkinson the game, 2 to 0. |
| INDIANAPOLIS, June 3.--Indianapolis |
|started its at-home series today by |
|defeating Kansas City, 3 to 2. Robertson |
|was in fine form, striking out five men, |
|permitting no one to walk and allowing |
|only six hits. Score: (Tables.) |
| LAFAYETTE, Ind., June 1.--With the |
|score 41 1-3 points, athletes |
|representing the University of California|
|won the twelfth annual meet of the |
|Western Intercollegiate Athletic |
|Conference Association today. |
| |
|Missouri was second with 29 1-3 points, |
|Illinois third with 26, Chicago fourth |
|with 15 and Wisconsin fifth with 12 1-2. |
=2. The Usual Football Story.=--The usual report of a game is a story of
a half column or less which is longer than the brief summary story and
not so detailed as the long football story. This is the story that a
correspondent would usually send to his paper. It is like them both in
the facts that it includes and differs only in length and in manner of
treatment. This story is usually divided into two parts: the
introduction and the running account. The introduction, or lead, is
very much like the brief summary story; in fact, the entire brief
summary story might be used as the introduction of a story of this type.
The second part, the running account, corresponds to the running account
of the game as it will be taken up with the long football story.
The introduction of the usual athletic story always contains certain
facts. The first sentence, corresponding to the lead of a news story,
always gives the names of the teams, the score, the time, the place, and
the most striking feature of the game. After this the plays that
resulted in scores are described and the star plays or players are
enumerated. Usually a comparison of the two teams, as to weight, speed,
and playing, follows, and the opinion of the captain or of some coach
may be included. The rest of the introduction may be devoted to the
picturesque side of the game: the crowd, the cheering, the celebration,
etc. All of this must be told briefly in 200 words or less. The
introduction is simply the brief summary story slightly expanded. Here
is a fair example (the paragraph containing the scoring has been
omitted):
| Purdue triumphed over Indiana today, 12|
|to 5, recording the first victory for the|
|Boilermakers over the Crimson in five |
|years. |
| |
| (Omitted paragraph on scoring belongs |
|here.) |
| |
| Purdue played a great game at all |
|times Oliphant, right half-back on the |
|Boilermaker eleven, played remarkably |
|well and was the hardest man for the |
|locals to handle. Baugh, Miller, Winston |
|and Capt. Tavey also starred for Coach |
|Hoit's men. | |
| |
| The Lafayette rooters, 1,500 strong, |
|rushed on the field at the close of the |
|struggle and carried their players off |
|the field. |
This is ordinarily followed by a brief running account of the game. It
does not attempt to follow every play or to trace the course of the ball
throughout the entire game, as a complete running account would do. It
is usually made from the detailed running account by a process of
elimination so that nothing but the "high spots" of the game is left.
Such an account may run from 200 to 300 words in length. At the end
tables are usually printed to give the line-up and the tabulated results
of the game, but these may sometimes be omitted. The following is an
extract from a condensed running account:
| Again the cadets fought their way to |
|the 10-yard line, runs by Rose and |
|Patterson helping materially, but again |
|Wayland held. The half ended after |
|Wayland had kicked out of danger. |
| |
| In the second half St. John's outplayed|
|Wayland throughout. The cadets by a |
|succession of line plunges took the ball |
|within striking distance several times, |
|only to be held for downs or lose it on a|
|fumble. |
| |
| Patterson electrified the crowd just |
|before the third quarter ended by twice |
|dodging through for 20-yard runs, placing|
|the ball on the 15-yard line, where the |
|cadets were held for downs. |
=3. Long Football Story.=--The third class of football story is the long
detailed account. This is all that is left of the elaborate write-ups of
the season's big games that were printed a few years ago and may be seen
occasionally now. Ten or twenty years ago it was not unusual for an
editor to run several pages, profusely illustrated, on a big eastern
football game. The story was written up from every possible
aspect--athletic, social, picturesque, etc. Every play was described in
detail and sometimes a graphic diagram of the play was inserted. Each
phase was handled by a different reporter and the whole thing was given
a prominence in the paper out of all proportion with its real
importance. Such a treatment of athletic news has now been very largely
discarded.
The outgrowth of this elaborate treatment is the common one- or
two-column account in the pink or green sporting pages. All of the
various aspects of the big game are still to be seen, condensed to the
smallest amount of space; and this brief account of the different
aspects of the game is arranged as an introduction of a half column or
less to head the running account of the game. This is the sort of story
that is used to report the Yale-Harvard games and the more important
middle western games. Its form has become very definitely settled and a
correspondent can almost write his story of the big game by rule.
The first part of the story, called the introduction, consists of five
or six general paragraphs. The material in this introduction is
arranged, paragraph by paragraph, in the order of its importance.
Following this is a running account of the game which may occupy a
column or more, depending upon the importance of the contest. At the end
is a table showing the line-up and a summary of the results.
The introduction of the big football or baseball story usually follows a
very definite order. There are certain things which it must always
contain: the result of the game; how the scoring was done; a
characterization of the playing; the stars; the condition of the weather
and the field; the crowd; etc. The reader always wishes to know these
things about the game even if he does not care to read the running
account. It is equally evident that the scoring is of greater interest
than the crowd, and that a comparison of the teams is more important
than the cheering. And so a reporter may almost follow a stereotyped
outline in writing his account. A possible outline would be something
like this:
First Paragraph.--The names of the teams, the score, when and
where the game was played, and perhaps some striking feature
of the game. The weather may have been a significant factor,
or the condition of the field; the crowd may have been
exceptionally large or small, enthusiastic or uninterested;
or the game may have decided a championship; some star may
have been unusually prominent, or the scoring may have been
done in an extraordinary way. Any of these factors, if of
sufficient significance, would be played up in the first line
just as the feature of an ordinary news story is played up.
This paragraph corresponds to the lead of a news story and is
so written. For example:
| Playing ankle-deep in mud before a |
|wildly enthusiastic gathering of football|
|rooters, the gridiron warriors of Siwash |
|College defeated the Tigers this |
|afternoon on Siwash athletic field by the|
|score of 5 to 0. |
Second Paragraph.--Here the reporter usually tells how the
scoring was done, what players made the scores, and how.
Third Paragraph.--The next thing of importance is a comparison
of the two teams. The reader wants to know how they compared
in weight, speed, and skill, and how each one rose to the
fight. A general characterization of the playing or a
criticism may not be out of place here.
Fourth Paragraph.--Now we are ready to tell about the individual
players. Our readers want to know who the stars were and how
they starred.
Fifth Paragraph.--This brings us down near the tag end of the
introduction. Very often this paragraph is devoted to the
opinions of the captains and coaches on the game. Their
statements, if significant, may be boxed and run anywhere in
the report.
Sixth Paragraph.--The picturesque and social side of the game
comes in here. The size of the crowd, the enthusiasm, the
celebration between halves or before or after the game, are
usually told. This material may be of enough importance to
occupy several paragraphs, but the reporter must always
remember that he is writing a sporting account and not a
picturesque description of a social event.
Seventh Paragraph.--This paragraph usually begins the running
account of the game.
* * *
N-th Paragraph.--This space at the end of the entire report is
given to the line-ups and tabulated results of the game.
This arrangement may of course be varied, and any of the foregoing
factors of the game may be of sufficient importance to be placed earlier
in the story. Never, however, should the various factors be mixed
together heterogeneously and written in a confused mass. Each element
must be taken up separately and occupy a paragraph by itself.
The running account of the game, which follows the introduction,
requires little rhetorical skill. Each play is described in its proper
place and order and should be so clear that a reader could make a
diagram of the game from it. It must also be accurate in names and
distances as well as in plays.
Probably every individual sporting correspondent has a different way of
distinguishing the players and the plays and of writing his running
account. It is not an easy matter to watch a game from the press stand
far up in the bleachers and be able to tell who has the ball in each
play and how many yards were gained or lost. Familiarity with the teams
and the individual players makes the task easier but few reporters are
so favored by circumstances. They must get the names from the cheering
or from other reporters about them unless they have some method of their
own.
There is one method that may be followed with some success. Before the
game the reporter equips himself with a table of the players showing
them in their respective places as the two teams line up. It is usually
impossible to tell who has the ball during any single play because the
eye cannot follow the rapid passing, but it is always possible to tell
who has the ball when it is downed. At the end of each play as the
players line up, the reporter keeps his eye on the man who had the ball
when it was downed and watches to see the position he takes in the new
line-up. Then a glance at the table will tell him the man's name.