NEWSCOLLECTING AND REPORTING
Of the duties and functions of any newspaper the first in point of
time and of importance is the collection and dissemination of news.
The necessity of giving to the news, which is collected, some sort of
literary form in its presentation leads at once to the possibility
of reinforcing it, of distorting it and sometimes, by suppression of
essential points, of even inverting its meaning. The propagation of
opinion is thus inseparably allied with the dissemination of news and
no effort of organization can entirely separate the two departments. In
all daily papers, however, and in most weekly papers, which attempt to
give the news, the editorial system is a duplicate one having under the
control of the supreme chief two staffs, kept more or less separate,
one for giving the news of the day in the briefest form and the other
for commenting on such news in accordance with the habits of the paper.
The status and quality of every newspaper is chiefly determined by
the relative importance allowed by the editor and his proprietors to
giving the mere news as compared with the pains taken to elucidate it.
The more popular and cheaper papers concentrate their chief energies
on giving the largest number of items of ordinary news, which it is
their aim to transform as far as possible into matters of exceptional
interest, while the old-established organs of social and political
weight are content to state their news impartially, if not boldly, and
rely on their powers of interesting the reader by able discussions on
political, artistic or literary topics, as they present new features
day by day. Every one can call to mind two or three instances in either
the United Kingdom or America of papers, which show these opposite
tendencies in extreme form.
Taking the two branches of Anglo-Saxon journalism together as one
whole, there is a very distinct tendency in America to attach greater
prominence to the news-collecting side of journalism. Comment,
criticism, propagandism are not excluded from American papers but the
papers themselves live and flourish or die quickly according to the
value which their public attaches to their news columns. In the United
Kingdom, on the other hand, and especially in London, the purveying
of news is accurately and competently done, but more or less in a
perfunctory manner, while the energies, which competition calls forth,
are devoted to the writing of special articles, the expert criticism
of the arts or the drama or else in the creation of what are generally
called the “features of a paper,” that is to say, news, of which the
presentation is individual, while the matter is more or less common
to every one. It must not be supposed, however, that on this side of
the water, including London, there is no keen competition in some
quarters in the procuring and even in the manufacture of news. Certain
papers strongly specialize in that direction and in many respects have
imported American methods. But the predominant type of newspaper in
the two countries is very different. British and Irish newspapers are
content to share much more news in common than is the case in America,
which inclines the Transatlantic reader to consider them extremely slow
and unenterprising. On the other hand the purely editorial columns
in an American newspaper are often curtailed to minute dimensions,
while the standard of indulgence generally extended to carelessness
and ignorance in matters relating to culture would not pass muster in
British papers, even of the second rank.
This comparison is made with obvious reluctance for a certain definite
purpose, because the distinction between the two types, is a sure
guide to the relative superiority of each system in its own way, the
one aiming chiefly at efficiency in collecting news and the other
at the perfection of editorial presentation. The American system
of collecting news is necessarily superior to that of most English
newspapers, because in America news is the all-important thing and
nothing else counts in promoting the prosperity of a newspaper. It
follows also that not only do individual American newspapers employ
larger staffs and spend greater sums for news than is the case with
us, but also, in spite of the competition and partly because of it,
the whole business of newsgetting is professionalized to an extent,
which no English journalist would be led to imagine from his own
experience. The divisions between one grade and another within the
ranks of editors and reporters are more finely distinguished; there
is a much freer circulation of able men from one paper to another
and much more prompt dismissal of incompetents from the whole group
than our slower habits would tolerate. With us there is a certain
amateurishness permitted in all ranks of a newspaper because when
the system is too perfect the individual is cramped in his free play
and the results aimed at in British journalism are less mechanical
than the first-class newspaper “story,” which it is the aim of the
“star” reporter in New York and Chicago to turn out. In America so
great is the keenness of competition on one straight set of rails that
individualism is practically stamped out by the ruthless perfection
of the professional machine. Recent changes in their habits point all
in this direction. The individual “I” has been long suppressed; the
editorial “we” is considered to date back to the time of the war;
what is more, every word tending to introduce an element of personal
opinion is struck out of any ordinary description of an event. An
American reporter is not allowed to say that a meeting was successful
or that the statesman was eloquent or that the confusion around the
railway wreck baffled description. His professional duties require that
he should report only, what the statesman said and what his audience
thought of him, and if his powers of description are to be baffled by
a railway accident he will soon be out of a job. The present tendency
on this side of the Atlantic is all the other way. The public seems to
wish to know what great cricketers think about cricket, golfers about
golf, statesmen about politics. A British editor’s task is largely a
matter of keeping up communications with a large circle of experts on
hundreds of subjects, who can be appealed to from day to day about any
event or topic of immediate importance. The shortest way of putting
it is to say that the ordinary American paper from cover to cover is
almost wholly written by professionals, while perhaps one-third of our
papers is the product of an outside sporadic ring of contributors, who
are practically half-employed amateurs, and the remainder, which is the
more perfunctory but sometimes the least sensational portion of the
paper, is the work of the home staff.
I am sorry to labour, what seems to be perhaps an invidious critical
comparison, but it is necessary to explain that any one who attempts
to present the best side of two national journalisms, between whom I
may say parenthetically the want of sympathetic comprehension is rather
marked, can only do so by recognizing and making clear the difference
in the strong points of each. Of an admirable system of news collection
the American paper unquestionably offers the best example; it is,
however, a difficult one, especially for a foreigner, to describe.
But as an organ of opinion, the newspaper is on the whole much more
comprehensively and effectively organized in the United Kingdom than
in any other country; its standard of general culture is higher than
that of the press of any other country except perhaps that of France
and even in the case of this latter comparison it may be considered
decisively superior, when the breadth of its scope and range is taken
into account.
Let us examine in detail the organization of the most expert
newsgathering machine in the world--an American daily paper with
perhaps an evening paper attached to it.[2] Of this double system
the former part is of the greater importance, because the morning
paper has greater wealth and a wider geographical distribution but
the latter presents some points of superiority owing to the more
difficult task and the continued strain of producing edition after
edition. To understand a news-collecting system is to be able to answer
the five following questions: What is news?--From what sources is it
drawn?--Who gets it?--Who writes it?--Who determines what and how much
is to be published? The answers to these questions largely overlap
one another, but together they cover the whole subject. The first two
questions are mainly a concern of the public; what they are interested
in collectively and what personal and public incidents they and their
affairs will supply, which will be of interest to others. The last
three are the concern of the organization of a newspaper.
[2] Although I have been connected with the American
press for some years in more than one capacity, it
would have been wholly impossible for me to attempt
the detailed description of their news-collecting
organization without the inside view of their
professional life rendered in Mr. Given’s book called
“The Making of a Newspaper.” Mr. Given, formerly of
the New York _Sun_, often called “the newspaper man’s
newspaper,” has written to my mind the only valuable
professional account of the newspaper world.
What is news? Americans give a more comprehensive answer to that
question than any other people. In that country small things overshadow
the great. Perhaps it would be truer to say that the important things
to them are matters of detail. Foreign politics are to them outlandish
matters. Their public life is itself a matter of small things; detailed
changes in the tariff; detailed changes in the _personnel_ of federal,
state and city governments; details about railway concessions or
amalgamations or prosecutions, which affect stocks and shares. As a
consequence an importance is attached to the details of personal
life, private happiness, social standing, success and failure of
individuals, which in Europe is quite beyond comprehension. Everything
is news; almost anything may become big news, if it can be shown to be
in any way connected with the interests of the vast, curious, highly
intelligent but not deeply cultivated public.
Take the case of the suicide of a poor man. To a trained reporter this
may be just a paragraph of three lines, or it may cover material for
a week’s agitation and a national movement, so that his experience
prompts him to examine its details untiringly for some underlying
fact which will lift it out of the common run. Suppose the paragraph
runs:--Early this morning (Monday) John A. Smith hanged himself at
31, W. 249th Street. He leaves no family and no light can be thrown
on his motive. His habits were reported to be irregular.--Such a
suicide, especially on Monday morning, would be unfortunately so common
an occurrence after a possible Sunday’s intemperance, that not much
beyond a few enquiries would be prosecuted. Let us put the paragraph
in another way:--In an unoccupied room on the fifth floor of the
tenement house at 31, W. 249th Street the body of an emaciated man
was found hanging early this morning. He had apparently been dead some
time. Enquiry elicits the fact that he was called John Alexis Smith,
who lived with a wife and four children at 917, Ninth Avenue where he
had no difficulty in finding work, but very little chance of keeping
it long. His former employers describe him, as semi-imbecile, with
various degenerate traits. Apparently he had been in the country only
seven months. How he passed the negligent inspection officers at Ellis
Island is a matter, which demands rigid scrutiny!--and so we go on to
the Immigration Laws, Corrupt Federal Administration, Pauper Labour of
Europe, etc.
Take John A. Smith another way and suppose him to have been in good
work up to a few months ago and to have lost his savings through wild
speculation in United States Steel Common; then will follow Wall
Street and the Harpy Brokers, who stoop to take the Earnings of the
Poor. Or, again, Smith may have lost his savings in one of the recent
Trust Company failures and then we have a criticism of the Unstable
Foundations of Credit. Or, he may have been sick and gone mad with the
heat, which will yield an attack on High Prices and the Wickedness of
the Ice Trust. Or, his family and he may have been starving, owing to
the increased prices of food and the Machinations of the Beef Trust.
All these are openings for news, where the further investigation of
facts may elicit, it is not to be assumed that they will, confirmatory
items of superior importance. On all serious questions the American
public can be appealed to ten times more strongly through emotional
sympathy than by reasoned discussion, and that is a reason, usually
forgotten, why we should be slow in condemning a sensational tendency
in their journalism.
The next question arises: What are the sources, whence the news,
which interests the public, is drawn? These may be classified into
three: official news, business items and general matter. What we may
call official news covers all public announcements, government and
municipal publications, police bulletins and matters of record from
public registers. This class of news comes into the newspaper office
automatically or very nearly so; sometimes a messenger has to call
to fetch books and papers or a reporter is ordered to run his eye
down the public registers; but very little trouble is necessary to
collect this material, because everywhere all kinds of authorities and
semi-authorities are accustomed to consult their own interests by
keeping newspapers informed of official transactions. When anything
unusual occurs in this field there will always be some one at the
police office or in the city hall to telephone to the chief papers and
warn them not to miss an opportunity.
Business items of serious importance are of all news the most valuable
that a paper can get. But except for an occasional accident there
is almost no way of getting any, save by way of favour. Anything
interesting of this kind has always a value for some one so long as it
can be kept secret and the only way in which a newspaper can counteract
this tendency is to keep in touch or be introduced to other parties,
who may be interested in disclosure. The ordinary published items of
business news, failures, amalgamations, flotations, etc., are on the
same footing as official news and come into the newspaper office of
themselves.
General news sometimes comes in by routine methods, such as reports
of trials, political speeches and all items of literary, artistic or
dramatic material, which offer themselves generally only too profusely
and eagerly for publication. The most interesting and most valuable
matter under this head is the unexpected; accidents, crimes, disasters
and mere freakish occurrences having a humorous aspect. All these must
be collected by the professional organizations because, curiously
enough, the public, who is the ultimate judge of what is interesting
after it is printed, is not a good judge of it at first hand. A crowd
is immensely affected by a small accident but may equally probably
be unobservant of or callous to a great one. In criminal matters the
police court is fuller than the final court of appeal. Those items
of news which are brought in by private individuals, and a good deal
of this is done by amateurs, are generally valueless or improperly
observed. The observation, description and sifting has to be the
systematic work of trained men. The American system is to assume that
every small accident, catastrophe, crime or intrigue is potentially
a great one. As a matter of professional competition this method is
forced upon them. No newspaper can allow another to gain an important
start on a question, which may become the sensation of the hour.
Consequently the wearisome task of turning over every sordid detail
of misfortune, weakness, disaster and corruption has to be undertaken
simultaneously by the members of every staff in competition with every
other paper. Except in the case of co-operative news agencies, to be
described later, it is very rare that news investigation is undertaken
in combination, and, when that happens in New York or any big city,
it is generally done by private understanding between the reporters
themselves, when the ground to be covered is extensive and there seems
to be little opportunity for exceptional features to be developed.
We come then to our last three questions: Who gets the news? Who writes
it? and Who determines what and how much is to be published? and we
may well answer them together for this is tantamount to describing
the organization for collecting news on any great paper. It is in
this department, that the American newspaper has carried sureness
of grasp and differentiation of function further than the press in
any other country and we may take their system as our model. If any
important news “story” slips through the meshes of their net for news
more than once or twice a year on any individual paper, probably the
shutters will have to be put up in that office and certainly all the
editors and reporters will have been sent flying to other cities to
look for jobs. The struggle for mere existence in this crucial respect
is pushed to the extreme. The aim and object of this struggle in
the American press is the presentation of a “story,” that is to say
all the facts about and as many aspects as possible of some event,
disastrous, humorous, pathetic or merely arresting, in such a way that
the “story” should have more features or more human interest than the
description of the same fact or event, which may appear in another
paper. Almost everything in an American paper amounts to that in one
way or another and very brilliant talents and quite astounding energy
and resourcefulness are brought to bear to realize an ideal, which at
first sight does not seem very impressive. It is, however, much more
difficult to realize than appears on the surface and above all it is
what their public wants.
The material for the ordinary newspaper “story” is more often than
not taken from the unfortunate or shady side of life, because in
that class of facts the masses of the public take an unfailing and
untiring interest. It is not a question about which it is worth while
moralizing, because, now that the supply of such matter has been made
available from one or two sources, all others have to follow. The
history of journalism has only one continuous lesson for editors and
proprietors. It is not possible to dictate to your public and the
only choice open to any one who is obstinate on questions of taste is
to appeal to a narrow public of a better class against the more common
preferences of the multitude. In America the papers, which have found
such a better-class public to maintain them in moderate prosperity, may
be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The regular sources of sensational news, which are watched as a matter
of course by the professional corps of reporters, comprise some fifty
localities in a big city. Mr. Given mentions some ten, where there is
a constant attendance, such as the stock exchange, the City Hall and
its courts and offices, police headquarters, the police courts and
higher courts. Others, such as the police stations, municipal courts,
fire stations, the jails, hospitals, the morgue and administrative
offices of various kinds are patrolled at frequent intervals, while
some twenty more places are visited every day. This duty falls on a
special class of men called “watchers,” who are far from being ordinary
reporters, as very often they have not been promoted to the dignity of
writing a line, but they must know what news is and their function is
to telephone to the head office any bulletins, which are promising, or
any definite items, which need to be investigated and worked up, and in
fact to be the eyes and ears of the newspaper. But they are eyes and
ears which have to be open all the time. If they stopped to follow up
any news item for themselves, they might miss a much more important one
the next minute. This is the kind of news in brief which they send to
headquarters.
9th Precinct 7 a.m. March 15.
6.30 a.m. Jessie Hawkins, 87, Cortlandt Street, attic above warehouse,
badly burnt, feared dead; age 7 years, flannelette; no one present;
sent St. A. hospital.--P.B.
6th Precinct 10.30 a.m.
10.10 a.m. Fire, 916, Franklin Street; tenement house; occupants mostly
gone to work; 3 children crushed on stairs; Leczinski, laundryman,
recent immigrant; damage $700, owner Belmont.--L.A.
2nd Precinct 8.15 a.m.
7.20 a.m. Body unknown man found off Pier 1, East River; about 40
years, 5 feet 10 inches; light complexion, lace shoes, blue shirt,
black coat and trousers; some valuable papers in pocket but no
money.--J.W.
To solve these problems another group of men is needed, the reporters
proper, called, when they are on this service, “general workers.” As
the original brief messages come in to the city editor, he details one
or another of his young men to the spot, who sets to work to ransack
every fragment of fact or probability, which throws light on the case.
If a general worker has to think only of a morning newspaper and the
matter is important, he will try to treat it exhaustively and not
return to the office, until he has his story complete and ready for the
press. But more often he has no time for this. He may very likely have
one job treading on the heels of another, especially if he has evening
paper editions coming out successively behind him. It is therefore more
usual for the general worker to treat his work in fragments, either
telephoning his account through to the office or, if he has time to be
more careful, sending his notes by hand or taking them back himself. He
will then continue to study the same story for more facts or pass on to
some other task.
In any case the matter passes into a third stage and comes into the
hands of the “rewriters” or “telephone rewriters.” These two groups
of people handle this half-prepared matter and give it more or less
literary form. It has now become a “story,” complete for the moment
but liable to be changed, supplemented, or suppressed according to
later information. But for the present it passes on its road to the
press into the hands of a fourth body, the “copy-readers,” whose
duties in America correspond partially to part of the work fulfilled
in this country by “sub-editors,” who do not enjoy however so much
positive responsibility, as we should allow them here. The functions
of a copy-reader are unpleasantly negative. The real power of judging
the news and criticizing it lies above with the city-editor and
the managing editor, officials only dimly shadowed in England. The
copy-reader’s duty is to suppress hopelessly incompetent stuff, to
revise the results of carelessness, to add headlines and to correct
all blunders. In addition he is the policeman of the office, cutting
out the list of forbidden words, correcting spelling and removing
contradictions and obvious absurdities. There are no thanks coming to
him either from above or below and endless possibilities of reproof and
disaster.
We have now the “newspaper story” complete in its final form for a
morning paper and subject to addition and revision in the evening
paper. It has to run the danger of fading away under the eye of
the city-editor and may even, if it be very important, attract the
unfavourable notice of the managing editor or the editor-in-chief.
But, as these great men belong essentially to the central framework
of the staff, we must invert our investigations for a moment and look
at our American newspaper from the upper side downwards. The first
difference between the two countries that strikes one here is the
rather larger number of men and the much larger number of titles, as
compared with the staff on an English paper. As the net output of most
American dailies is not much larger than some of our own, we are led to
suppose that what is once done in England, is done two or three times
over in America, because over there the pace of output is tremendous.
And that I believe to be the explanation of the difference between
the two systems. While in England we have usually a single editor, or
man in charge for the night, with but three grades of workers under
him, the literary staff, the sub-editors and reporters, supplemented
by outside men on special subjects; in America the situation is more
complicated. To begin with, the proprietor very often takes a hand in
it himself, eclipsing the great editor and laying down his views, often
criticizing the “make-up” of the paper, while it is still in the press.
But usually we have the editor-in-chief with a dual organization under
him for pure news and for what one might call fancy news, such as the
plays, art, finance, etc., of the day. In fact he has three separable
organizations under him and every member of any one of them is called
an editor. There is the staff for fancy news, including the editors
of finance, sport, society, fashions, real estate, art, drama, music,
literature and others. Then he has the routine staff for dealing with
outside news, the foreign editor, the telegraph editor, who handles
provincial news, and the exchange editor, who follows all the other
papers and tries to get free “copy” from them if he can. Lastly he has
the news organization proper, consisting of the managing editor, who
usually has an assistant, the city editor, who looks after news up to
six p.m. and the night city editor, who takes over this duty after that
hour. Beneath these are all the reporters or general workers and others.
The duties of managing editor and city editor cover much the same
ground; that is to say, it is the duty of the managing editor to revise
and do over again the work of the city editor, while at the same time
he has a certain control over the decorative news, except as a rule
finance, and in this respect he rather trenches on the sphere of the
editor-in-chief without however having any right to influence what
may be the policy of the paper in politics or social matters. The
distinctively American system centres on the city editors, who have the
primary responsibility for the news and the newspaper “stories.”
The city editor on duty for the time being combines in himself
functions, which in England are usually divided between the head
reporter and one of the sub-editors, whose duty it is to revise home
news. For instance he has to make the assignments for the early
morning to his corps of reporters; but whereas the English head
reporter, having distributed tasks, would probably himself take the
most important engagement, work beside his own staff and leave the
“copy,” as it comes in, to pass to the sub-editors’ room, this is not
the case with the American city editor. He remains at the desk all day
with the telephone at his ear, waiting for messages from the scattered
“watchers,” ready to make fresh assignments for anything unexpected
that may turn up. That is his pre-occupation and imminent anxiety. With
all his men already out, something startling and of infinite importance
may arise at any minute and he may have no one to deal with it. For
that reason it is the custom for all “general workers,” except those
engaged on some prolonged investigation to report themselves at regular
intervals to headquarters. Suppose news came of an explosion or fatal
accident to one of the huge ferry-boats plying from Manhattan Island
to Jersey City or Hoboken. All ordinary “stories” would be dropped
at once. Even “murders” would be postponed. Every available man, as
he reported himself, would be hurried to the quays to get tales from
officials or survivors and to try to build up a theory about the
disaster.
On the return of these “stories” to the office the second half of
a city editor’s duty begins. The stories have been to some extent
prepared for him by the “copy-readers,” but he has to judge of each
individual “story” by itself and to exercise a certain choice between
them. Having declared certain preferences he issues fresh orders to the
reporters for fresh facts to lengthen them, while at the same time he
curtails or drops entirely the “stories” of lesser interest. In the end
he sends up to his superior, the managing editor, a mass of digested
and to some extent coordinated “copy,” enough to occupy from a fifth to
a sixth as much space over and above what the paper will hold. Such a
margin of superabundance of “copy” leaves some room for the superior
magnate to exercise a choice of his own in going over all the mass a
second time. But here it is not a question of amending or extending;
rejection at this last stage is the only resource. If the managing
editor has fault to find about preparation or selection, he gives his
views to the city editor next day with more or less vehemence, as the
occasion requires. For the moment the whole body of news has to go to
press, more or less as it stands.
There is another higher function remaining to the managing editor.
He has to keep the balance between the predominating bulk of home
news coming from the city editor and reporters and the body of less
important news coming from the foreign, telegraph and exchange editors;
to estimate the quantity of financial news, which is generally
inelastic and practically outside of his control; and to allow space as
well for the decorative parts of the paper drawn from art, literature,
the drama and society. This is not the end of his responsibilities. A
certain quantity of editorial matter descends to him from above, coming
from the pen of his chief and the special political writers, always
at the last moment. The amount of this and its habitual fluctuations
are merely a question of judgment or guessing, because it cannot
be altered and everything else has to give way to it. The managing
editor’s only resource is to mark certain of the other items sent to
the composing-room, as optional matter, liable to rejection at the last
moment, even after it has been set up in type.
[3]The English system has the same complicated problem to face but
the pressure of mere time and space is relaxed by our easier habits.
A larger part of the paper is habitually filled with regular services
and with, what I have called above, the decorative items. All this
comes in early and can be judged more coolly and definitely fixed in
quantity. What is incomparably the most difficult part of a newspaper’s
task, the adjustment, arrangement and choice between various items of
news, is relegated to an allotment of space on less imperative terms
and is more governed by mere routine. The simple explanation of this
material consolation to editors and sub-editors lies in the fact that
competition about mere news is not, speaking relatively in respect
of American practice, tuned up to the same pitch of keenness. As we
shall see in the next chapter, the English papers are content to have
a comparatively large amount of their mere news provided from common
sources.
[3] This contrast of which I speak is an extremely
difficult matter to write about. I have perhaps made
rather more of the point than many journalists,
especially in London, would allow to be true. There is
now no paper in London worked exactly under what I have
called the typical English system, but all the daily
papers have evolved their own separate practice from
something very like it. It prevails in the provinces,
and will ultimately, I have no doubt, be transformed
gradually to something more resembling the American
system. For instance, in London practice the functions
of (1) the Chief Sub-Editor, and (2) the News Editor
are coming to be very much the same as those of the
City Editor and Managing Editor in New York.
The effect of this on the usual arrangement of the staffs of English
papers is that the type of organization is more primitive, the working
of it less vehement and more elastic and variation from one settled
type more common. No two English newspapers have their staffs organized
in exactly the same way. Yet there is practically very little departure
from the grand traditional tripartite division of functions, including
the editor with his personal staff of leader-writers or budding
editors, the room of sub-editors, and the corps of reporters. This
system is so flexible that it need not be materially altered in form
to meet the most varying needs. Even the most progressive, sensational
and restless innovators, who have half adopted the latest American
impetuosities, can fit them tolerably well into the English framework.
The editor and his staff share the responsibilities of power and
round them they have an extensive group of half-employed satellites,
differentiating into all shades of expertism and virtuosity. The
sub-editors are not, as a layman often imagines them from their name
to be, assistant editors, but those whose business it is to exercise
the art of “sub-editing”; that is to say, of correcting, revising,
arranging, selecting and passing judgment on news and “copy” of all
kinds, except strictly “editorial” matter. In their quiet room filled
with news clippings, flimsies and MSS. lies the core of an English
newspaper, just as in America the critical work is done over the city
editor’s telephone. The “sub-editors” have one great advantage over
the American “copy-readers” in that they have a real and often final
control of and power over copy and much of the responsibility of
deciding what is to be considered “optional” at the last moment rests
with them. The reporters are dwindling both in number and function
owing to the inroads of two outside institutions; firstly, the purely
reporting or shorthand work is now almost completely taken over by the
great newsagencies, and secondly the semi-amateur outside specialist
is coming to fill up more and more space both in the daily and evening
papers. For instance there are people, who make a comfortable income
by writing signed and unsigned articles on gardening on half a dozen
papers; others specialize as reporters on naval and military matters,
photography, golf, cycling, motor-cars, aviation, the weather, health,
comic paragraphs, etc.; celebrated professors resign government posts
and earn increased incomes by writing on science; dons at college write
regularly on their special subjects. So that the sphere of the regular
reporter narrows every day and his work is tending more and more to be
confined to selecting incidents of an unusual kind and dressing them up
in a way, which amounts to very much the same thing, as the American
“newspaper story,” although the style of doing it is rather different.
The conscious aim of all news-collectors and reporters on all
Anglo-Saxon newspapers is to score a “scoop” or a “beat,” which is the
technical press name for an exclusive item of sensational interest. In
America this achievement is still but very rarely within the powers
of an individual reporter. A striking instance of a success of this
kind in amateur detective work was made by a reporter on the _New York
World_ at the time when an attempt was made on the life of Russell
Sage in December, 1891. The point of the sensation was that no apparent
clue remained of the identity of the man, who threw the dynamite bomb,
as his own body was almost completely destroyed. He had penetrated
into Sage’s office in Broadway but mismanaged his throw, so that he
himself was blown up without leaving any more traces than a few scraps
of cloth and a button or two. This was the reporter’s opportunity. He
secured one of the buttons and an adhering fragment of cloth. On the
button was the name of a well-known Boston tailor. So with this clue
in his possession, which had escaped the attention of the police, he
took the next train to Boston. Interviewing the tailor and showing
the cloth he found that a suit of this cloth had lately been made for
a young Boston broker, named Henry Norcross. Further enquiry about
Norcross’s antecedents and a visit to his home elicited the facts that
Norcross had lately been in financial trouble and had been missing for
several days. Putting two and two together the reporter risked the
conclusion that Norcross and the potential murderer were one and the
same man, and, inducing his paper to adopt his view, he obtained one
of the greatest newspaper successes in New York. For the matter had
been the sole topic of conversation in town for days and the subsequent
verification of the facts fully confirmed his brilliant and daring
hypothesis.
Those individual “beats” are rare and are becoming rarer. Their most
frequent opportunity used to occur in war correspondence but nowadays
in war all news is served out by the censor in common to a group of
correspondents and the only task left to the latter is to arrange
to wire the news according to the dimensions of the parental purse
at home. Outside war a modern “scoop” is obtained only by elaborate
and organized expenditure, undertaken a long time beforehand for
some special purpose with the risk that the whole scheme may fall
through and the money be wasted. A classic instance of a successful
“beat” of this kind was the expedition organized by Stanley at the
expense of the _New York Herald_ and the _Daily Telegraph_ to find
Livingstone in Africa. A comparative failure of the same kind was the
Jackson-Harmsworth exploration towards the North Pole. The _Daily Mail_
achieved an inverted “scoop,” when it announced the massacre of the
legations at Pekin.
The _Daily Chronicle_ of London in the beginning of 1912 successfully
brought off a sensational “beat,” no doubt by previous arrangement
and at great expense, in being the only paper to receive an authentic
telegram from Captain Amundsen, on his returning from the discovery
of the South Pole. This “beat” was respected by all the London papers
of the day and was only quoted by permission next day to a limited
extent. In New York a different situation arose. The New York _Times_
had purchased the American copyright of this telegram from the London
_Chronicle_ and expected to have it as exclusive news; since however
New York time is five hours later than English time, there was time
for Hearst’s paper, the New York _American_, to have the whole article
telegraphed from Europe and to publish it simultaneously with the New
York _Times_. The quarrel developed into a law-suit, turning on the
question, whether there is copyright in news in the United States or
whether there may be copyright in the literary form of news, a question
long vexed in Europe and not yet entirely decided.
Another extensive “scoop” hardly known, but quite unequalled, in London
was obtained by the _Manchester Guardian_, who had prepared for it long
beforehand. The death of Queen Victoria took place at 6.30 on a Monday
evening and on the following Tuesday morning there appeared in the
ordinary way, incorporated in the daily paper, some twenty full pages
of biography by several distinguished writers with a large number of
illustrations, at a time when illustrations hardly ever appeared in
the daily press. The success of this unexpected tribute to the late
Queen was prodigious. Editions of many thousands were absorbed at once
and single copies were sold in Lancashire towns by private speculators
for five shillings each. The sale continued for five days and after a
million copies of the issue had been sold, the publication was closed
down out of mere weariness and in order to allow the ordinary work of
the office to be carried on.
An amusing instance of a “beat,” which “fell down,” dates back to
the time when the Oxford and Cambridge boat race was a matter of
more absorbing interest to the general public than it is nowadays. A
provincial evening paper with small circulation endeavoured to force
itself to the front by engineering a sensational success. It prepared,
some little time before the result was to be announced, two complete
editions, one printed in dark blue ink announcing an Oxford victory,
the other printed in a lighter blue colour announcing Cambridge as the
winner. That year there was a dead heat.
A more important if not so disastrous a failure is recorded by Sir
William Russell, who was sent on a special mission for the _Times_ to
Dublin to report the trial of O’Connell in 1844. He came back in a
specially chartered steamboat well ahead of any one else and as he was
entering the _Times_ office among a group of shirt-sleeved men, whom he
took to be compositors of his own paper, one came up touched his hat
and said, “We are glad to hear, sir, they have found O’Connell guilty
at last.” “Oh yes!” replied Russell innocently, “all guilty but on
different counts.” This individual turned out to be an emissary of the
_Morning Herald_, who stole Russell’s secret from him in the very jaws
of the rival office.
If the ambition of the newspaper man is to achieve a “scoop” or
“beat,” his ever present fear, and one much more imminently near
to him than the corresponding hope, is an inadvertent libel. The
great libel actions of the past, which have become historic, such as
the Parnell letters and Pigott case, were generally the result of
deliberate intention of the newspaper to run the risk in question, but
only a newspaper editor knows how often accidental libels have been
avoided by mere luck and at other times unfortunately not avoided at
all. Libels lurk in single words misplaced, in head lines, in queer
coincidences, in accidental resemblances of name or description. Many
instances have come within my personal recollection, of which the
following are a few. There was the celebrated Artemus Jones case,
where an occasional contributor writing for a northern paper was
giving a character sketch of people on their holidays at a French
watering place. He mentioned as a purely supposititious character, a
certain Artemus Jones, who apparently misbehaved himself or conducted
himself in a reprehensible manner. Now there happened to be living
in the neighbourhood a real Artemus Jones, a fairly well-known man,
who was also even a frequent contributor to the same paper. The real
man brought evidence of damage to his reputation and was awarded a
considerable sum in compensation.
An even more curious coincidence occurred in the case of a disreputable
weekly paper, now I am glad to say, long dead. This paper throve on
scandal and one week it produced a circumstantial story, which the
printers for fear of being held liable for damages refused to print;
the story was then elaborately altered, fresh names and places
being substituted. When the story appeared in print, it proved to be
substantially true of another incident, which had happened elsewhere
under circumstances sufficiently similar to justify action being taken.
The matter had to be settled out of court.
One peculiarly unlucky case, I remember, which turned out the other way
in the end, arose out of a mistake in the advertisements. A Liverpool
firm of solicitors had sent for insertion a notice of winding-up
proceedings to be taken against a firm of shaky credit. A daily paper
in a neighbouring town received this order and had the advertisement
set up in type for Saturday morning’s paper. On Friday night very late
came a telegram from the solicitors, withdrawing the advertisement, as
their own claims had been satisfied. Unfortunately the compositor in
charge that night made an innocent but fatal mistake; he withdrew the
wrong advertisement and next morning the incriminating advertisement
appeared without any authorization. The newspaper had no defence and
the damages threatened to be very serious. However, finally the firm
in question had been so fatally shaken in their credit by this wholly
accidental revelation of the true state of their affairs, that they
went into liquidation and had no money to bring an action against the
newspaper. But the manager of the newspaper had an unhappy time.
A reporter’s mistake, although quickly corrected, once had far-reaching
consequences. A man concerned in a petty police court case was reported
as convicted, when he was really acquitted. The true version came in
three minutes later but meanwhile the evening paper had gone to press.
A hurried rush was made by the editor and staff to the machine room to
stop the edition and to the publishing room to recover all the guilty
copies. Seventeen had been sold and of these fourteen were immediately
recovered from the newsboys. The remaining three did not at the time
seem to constitute much danger but unfortunately one of these papers
fell into the hands of the agent of an evening paper in another town,
whose business it was to get news for his paper cheap by wiring all
news items from early issues of his rival. This agent had already wired
through the fatal paragraph, which cost his paper £500. The original
mistake cost the first evening paper only £200, because they were held
to have caused less damage than the other.
Besides editorial matter, which includes both political, social
and decorative items, and besides the news “stories,” the ordinary
newspaper has to include correspondence from the provinces, from
abroad and special correspondence, of which by far the most important
and sensational kind is war correspondence. But before passing on to
consider correspondence in general we must note one form of newspaper
enterprise, the invention of American ingenuity and now universally
employed everywhere, the interview, which does not exactly fall under
any of the above categories. Interviewing has acquired a bad name,
first because undoubtedly, when maliciously or stupidly done, it may
be an annoyance or a serious nuisance to the individual interviewed;
secondly, however, because human vanity, desperately afraid of
detection, often proclaims the institution a bore, when in reality it
is of the greatest value to the person concerned by enabling him to
give forth his views on important occasions without being under the
necessity of seeking publicity or being compromised, as he would be
by a considered written statement. There is a great deal of interview
matter now formally disclaimed under circumstances not entirely
justifiable, as the mistake really lies with the person, who has
changed his views, and the discredit would fall on the interviewer, if
newspaper authorities were not fully aware of the weaknesses of public
and semi-public characters.
There is hardly any need for describing what interviewing is, as it
is a conspicuous feature of the press, but there may be some interest
to the public in realizing what an extremely difficult art it is. The
interviewer has to bring all his experience and art to bear to correct
the errors or deceptions of his subject; he must be prepared to conquer
his reticences and check his exuberances; to remember beforehand what
he himself wishes to know and to render faithfully afterwards what
information he has acquired. An experienced American journalist lays
down the following rules, for what is perhaps the most difficult branch
of all newspaper work. “Interviewing is hard work. Finding your man
sometimes is the worst part of the task, but more often it is still
harder to get him to talk. People to be interviewed are of three kinds;
those who talk too much, those who talk too little and those who will
not talk at all. And after you do get your man to talking it takes
the concentration of all your mental powers to do your part of the
work. You must pay the closest attention to what he is saying, grasp
and remember the points he makes, take notes on the statistics he
may quote, jot down some of his striking sentences, keep up your end
of the conversation and at the same time bear in mind all the other
questions, which you still must ask, for it will avail nothing to think
of a neglected point afterwards. Before approaching your man be sure
you have outlined clearly in your mind just what questions you wish to
ask him. Impress each thought upon your mind when it is uttered and
when you return to your desk you will be surprised to see how much of
your conversation you can reproduce from memory. An important trick in
interviewing is to be on the look-out for any pet phrase, which the
speaker is in the habit of using and to work this into the article once
or twice. It gives a lifelike touch to the story. As you proceed with
the body of the article, take care not to be too rigidly verbatim.
Wherever there is any part of the talk that is dull and wordy, give
the pith of the matter in your own words and then drop into direct
quotation again. A well-written interview with a prominent man on an
important subject is a thing of which any reporter may be proud.” One
may add to this that the most delicate tasks in interviewing have often
to be done without shorthand notes or pencil and paper, lest the
subject should be liable to nervousness and be checked in the current
of his (or her) conversation.
The correspondence of a paper from outlying districts, from the
provinces and largely also from abroad has been almost completely
taken from the shoulders of individual papers both in America and in
the United Kingdom by the great newsagencies, which we shall consider
in the next chapter. So also has the recital of ordinary incidents
in the streets of the capital town, those for instance, which do not
merit special attention from the home corps of reporters. This has been
especially the case in London, where twenty years ago the man, who
made his living by selling short “pars” to a dozen papers, flourished
greatly under the name of “penny-a-liner.” He has almost completely
disappeared. The paragraphist of to-day is a much more elegant person,
well educated and with some expert knowledge, of which he can make
a monopoly. He flourishes chiefly on the needs of the metropolitan
evening papers and on the well established institutions, known as the
London letters of the leading provincial papers. By a man of this class
and education the calling is not followed as a career in itself but as
an aid to literature or the professions or sometimes, in between jobs,
by the trained journalist. On the other hand the London press does
not reciprocate the compliment; there are no provincial paragraphists
and little provincial news in any London paper, except perfunctory
paragraphs at the bottom of a column. I was told the other day on good
authority that the _Times_ for twenty years had no important article
on the Manchester Ship Canal, one of the most extensive engineering
enterprises of twenty-five years ago.
There is probably no respect, in which individual newspapers in this
country differ so much as in the copiousness, merit and character of
their foreign correspondence. This arises from the fact that the mere
news is covered almost entirely by the wealthy foreign telegraphic
agencies. In the case of America this is only partially true, because
there is a peculiar circumstance, which renders telegraphic competition
between daily newspapers for foreign news almost unnecessary over
there. Owing to the difference in time between European cities and
especially between London and New York, American newspapers can present
to their readers at the cost only of Atlantic “press rates” all the
news of the world from the London papers. London is thus the capital
of the world in the matter of international news. She has an hour’s
advantage or a little more from Berlin and Vienna; with Paris she is in
constant touch by telephone; so that all that New York or Chicago has
to do is to keep a bright newspaper man in London to run through the
early editions at 4 a.m., and send the pick of it through to his paper.
The only competition in foreign news within the reach of American
correspondents in London is either for exclusive political news, which
seldom comes their way and is not much wanted by the American public
in any case, or else the manufacture from European sources of some
ordinary newspaper “story.”
On the other hand the London papers and one or two provincial British
papers find the question of foreign news a great problem. The public
services of foreign news are now so comprehensive that to supplement
them effectively requires great and permanent resources. A newspaper
can easily spend £10,000 or £15,000 a year in this direction without
adding appreciably to its attractiveness and a more important
consideration appears in this sphere, that any open rivalry attempted
can seldom be begun and afterwards dropped, without serious loss of
prestige. It follows therefore that the majority of daily papers
in the United Kingdom have almost completely withdrawn from avowed
competition in foreign news. Their practice is to rely on agency news
altogether in ordinary times and on occasions of special excitement
to supplement these services either by sending an expert in foreign
politics to the centre of disturbance or by forming a combined news
service with other papers or by both. These resources are habitually
used during war by most of the provincial press and by the weaker
London papers.
The richer London papers still avowedly keep their salaried
correspondents in the capitals of Europe and America and arrange for
occasional letters and telegrams from locally appointed correspondents
in the East and in the British colonies and dependencies. In this
respect the London _Times_ occupies a unique position in the world. It
has correspondents regularly appointed everywhere and is probably the
only newspaper independent of Reuter, except the New York _Sun_, which
for special reasons has to be. It never prints less than a full page of
foreign news, much of it special to itself and most of it telegraphed.
It is the only paper, which has continuously scored important “beats”
on news of first-class international importance. Of these probably
the most vitally influential on the course of foreign politics was the
secret information obtained by De Blowitz of the intended military
pressure by Germany on France in 1875, which perceptibly affected
the mutual relations of various powers, and the most sensational
was his carrying off a copy of the draft Treaty of Berlin from the
Conference in his hat. De Blowitz had arranged to meet his informant
in the diplomatic corps every day at a club or restaurant and without
recognition or salutation to exchange hats with him in the corridor
every day as a regular habit. The hats thus offered a secret and sure
method of communication of documents without the dangers of open
intercourse.
The other London papers do not aim so high as the _Times_. The _Morning
Post_ has a corps of serious students of affairs abroad, whose news
is sent on a consistent plan to enable the paper to maintain an
independent attitude on foreign politics. The _Daily Telegraph_ spends
vast sums on the regular transmission of paragraphs from Paris and
Berlin on lines similar to the London letter of a provincial paper.
This regular fare is varied by sensational telegraphed descriptions,
when occasion arises. But it can hardly be said to aim at any
consistent scheme of policy with regard to foreign affairs. The
succeeding changes in the editorial control of the _Standard_ have
rendered its policy in this respect somewhat erratic but its reputation
abroad still stands very high. The foreign correspondence of the
halfpenny London papers is spasmodic and liable to very considerable
variations in extent. In the case of the _Daily Chronicle_ not very
much special foreign matter is given, but the paper has organized a
syndicated service of some independent value in connection with one
or two provincial papers. The _Daily News_ maintains its traditional
special consideration of foreign affairs, treated however in a manner
closely adapted to the views and policy of the paper. The _Daily Mail_
and _Daily Express_ practically treat their foreign news, as American
papers treat all their news, that is, according to its sensational
value, but the former on special occasions will lavish expenditure
quite on the most magnificent scale and will make almost any sacrifice
in order to get a “beat.”
War correspondence falls into the same category as a foreign news
service and is treated in much the same fashion everywhere. The
public is so infatuated with the early stages of a war and so bored
and incapable of serious interest in it after a few weeks, that the
proper treatment of war news is the most serious problem, which a
newspaper manager has to face. For an editor, the situation is confined
to a simple issue even if his task of arranging for news requires
great brilliancy in planning and judgment in selecting his men. For
him it is a question of spending what is allowed him by the manager
and proprietor and he cuts his clothes according to his cloth. But
for those, who have to supply the sinews of war correspondence in
[4]thousands of pounds the task is most unpleasant. The manager sees
his advertising revenue curtailed and his expenses of distribution
increased, while he obtains in return only a slight increase of revenue
from greatly increased but useless circulation. The popular impression
that newspapers and their owners like wars is fundamentally false.
The only kind of war that a newspaper manager would really welcome
is one that would last only three weeks, of which he had exclusive
information; he might then be repaid all that it would cost him. The
most dangerous feature of war from the point of view of newspaper
finance is that a vast expenditure must be kept up long after the
general public has ceased to take serious interest in it. A little can
be saved in telegraphing at this stage and a correspondent or two may
be cautiously withdrawn, but for the most part, wherever the men are
first placed, there they must stay, even if they send nothing. The
unfortunate manager lies awake at night thinking of a thin line of men,
servants, donkey-boys, despatch-bearers, horses, ponies, camels, and
mules all eating their heads off uselessly at the front day after day
with little revenue coming in wherewith to feed them.
[4] Probably the maximum figure reached in extravagant
war-costs was in the case of a New York paper during
the Cuban war, which estimated its special _monthly_
expenditure at $300,000, or at the rate of £720,000 a
year. This rate was maintained, however, only for a
short period during the height of the war.
There is a great deal of romance and glamour attached to war
correspondents personally, to the men, who suffer hardships and risk
their lives more from fever than from bullets at the front, but none
to the organization which sends them unwillingly abroad. It is a
plain fact however that the public at present takes less and less
interest every year in either foreign or war correspondence. The great
public is intelligent and quick but not at all addicted to continuous
attention devoted to anything but its business and serious amusements.
It has become so much accustomed to have its interest sensationally
stimulated at frequent intervals that nothing will hold it very long.
All news has to partake of the nature of a “story” in the newspaper
sense; the fate of kingdoms, the marriage of a Gaiety actress, the
trial of a clever criminal will weigh differently for the time with the
man in the train and the tram car but the duration of his interest will
not be appreciably different in any case. Of the three the trial will
probably be remembered the longest. The amount of space now devoted to
this class of special correspondence remains still more a matter of
tradition than calculation but the latter is slowly overtaking it and
daily curtailing it. The dictum of a leading London manager about news
is, that he will not print anything that interests less than a third of
his readers and such a policy is beginning to cover the whole field and
to narrow news down steadily only to those things which are next door
to the daily preoccupation of the majority of readers.
In any account, however brief, of the characteristics of the American
method of manufacturing “stories” one cannot omit to mention that
extraordinary phenomenon of their journalism; the Sunday paper. Of
these there are some which consist of the daily issue with additional
supplements, which are conducted on the plan of a magazine. They are on
the whole the exceptions and the majority are built on a sensational
scale both as to size and as to general eccentricity of character. To a
stranger, even if he be English, they are almost incomprehensible and
indescribable and, as criticism on these points is quite a delicate
matter, it would be safer to repeat an American description of them.
“The average Sunday paper is like nothing else on earth. It might well
be called a literary dime museum, for the editor presents not ‘stories’
that will simply amuse or entertain, but only those which will attract
attention, because of their absurdity and the pictures, which sometimes
cover whole pages, are, if anything, more unusual than the text.”