Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 11

This example was chosen because, while it is written in accordance with the rules of the speaker beginning, it is obviously too long and complicated--over 110 words. It would be better to gather it together and condense it as in the following:

Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot opened the second day's session of the national conservation congress yesterday by an address in which he expressed his entire satisfaction and his confidence in the att.i.tude of President Taft toward conservating the national resources.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._

ST. PAUL, Minn., Feb. 10.--Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee, Ala., in an address at the People's Church tonight predicted that within two years the liquor traffic would be driven out of all the southern states but two.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._

There are obviously other beginnings that cannot be cla.s.sed under any of the above heads. Some of them, much like the "freak" leads that may be seen in many newspapers of the present day, may be called free beginnings for want of a better name. These free beginnings are quite effective when properly handled but the novice must use them with fear and trembling. They may be witty or they may be sarcastic, but they are usually dangerous. The difference in the eight beginnings discussed above is mainly one of grammatical construction; the same fundamental ideas govern them all. Their purpose is always to play up a striking statement or a summary of the speech report and to give at the very outset the necessary explanation concerning the speech.

THE BODY OF THE REPORT

The body of the report of a speech is not so distinct from the lead as the body of an ordinary news story. In the news story it is safe to a.s.sume that many readers will not go beyond the lead, but in the report of a speech this is not so true. It is less possible to give the main facts in the lead of a speech report and the rest of the story is more necessary. Hence it must be written with as great care as the lead.

The body of the report should consist of direct quotation in so far as possible. The reader is interested in what the speaker said and it is impossible to make a summary in indirect discourse as convincing as the actual quotation of his words. Be sure that the quotations are the speaker's exact words or very nearly his exact words, so that he cannot accuse you of misquoting him. The spirit of his words must be in the quotation, anyway.

In these quotations nothing less than a complete sentence should be quoted. Do not patch together sentences of indirect and direct quotation, like the following--He said that some of us are p.r.o.ne to let things be as they are, "because the philanthropic rich help in our times of trouble and in sickness." Such quotation is worse than no direct quotation at all. Of course, this does not mean that one cannot add "said the speaker" to a direct quotation, but it means that "said the speaker" can be added only to quotations that are complete sentences.

Furthermore whenever it is necessary to bring in "said the speaker," or similar expressions, they should be added at the end of the quoted sentence--the least emphatic part of a newspaper sentence.

Obviously a condensed report of a speech can only quote sentences here and there throughout the speech--the high spots of interest, as we called them before. These must not be quoted promiscuously and disconnectedly. The original speech had a logical order and set forth a logical train of thought. These should be followed as far as possible in the report. Bring in the quotations in their true order and fill the gaps between them with indirect discourse to knit them together and to give the report the coherence of the original speech. But do not carry this indirect explanation to the extent of making your copy a report of the speech in indirect discourse with occasional bits of direct quotation to ill.u.s.trate. Remember that, after all, the direct quotation is the truly effective part of the speech.

Whenever a paragraph contains both direct and indirect quotation, the direct quotation should always precede the indirect. But it is much better to paragraph the two kinds of quotation separately, making each paragraph entirely of direct, or entirely of indirect, quotation. If a paragraph must contain both, begin it with the direct so that as the reader glances down the column he will see a quotation mark at the beginnings of most, if not all, of the paragraphs. By the same sign, when your notes are lacking in direct quotations, bring in as many of the quotations as possible at the beginning of the report and let the indirect summary occupy the end where it may be cut off by the editor if he does not wish to run it.

Here is a good ill.u.s.tration of a part of the body of a good speech report--it is the second paragraph of one of the stories quoted under the "Speaker" beginning above:

"I can not account for the moral revolution that is sweeping over the South," he continued. "The sentiment against whisky is deeper than the mere desire to get it away from the black man. That same sentiment is found in counties that contain no negro population. People who say that the law will not be enforced have not been in the South.--B. T. Washington's speech, _Milwaukee Sentinel._

You will notice that although the above paragraph is composed entirely of direct quotation it has no quotation mark at the end. This is, of course, in accordance with the old rule of rhetoric which says that in a continuous quotation each paragraph shall begin with a quotation mark but only the last shall be closed by a quotation mark.

To ill.u.s.trate the errors that may be made in reporting speeches we might write the above paragraph as follows:

Mr. Washington continued by saying that he could not account for the revolution that is sweeping over the South. "The sentiment against whisky is deeper than the mere desire to get it away from the black man." He says that "the same sentiment is found in counties that contain no negro population." People who say that the law will not be enforced "have not been in the South," according to Booker T. Washington.

The clumsiness of this mingling of direct and indirect quotation is very clear, as is the weakness of beginning with an explanation that is really subordinate.

Much more could be said about the reporting of speeches. Very few things will make a man so angry as the misquoting of his words. Therefore, whatever other faults your report of a speech may have, let it be accurate and truthful.

XI

INTERVIEWS

If you compare any interview story with any speech report in any representative newspaper, you will readily see how a discussion of interviews easily becomes an explanation of the differences between interview stories and speech-reports; that is, how the report of an interview differs from the report of a public utterance of a more formal kind. There are few differences in the written reports. Each usually begins with a summary or a striking statement and consists largely of direct quotation. Were it not for the line or two of explanation at the end of the introduction, it would be practically impossible to tell the one from the other, to tell which of the reports sets forth statements made in a public discourse and which gives statements made in a more private way to a reporter.

The difference lies behind the report, in the way the reporter obtained the statements and quotations. And the whole difference depends upon the att.i.tude of the man who made the statements--whether his words were a conscious or an unconscious public utterance. When a man speaks from a platform he utters every sentence and every word with an idea of possible quotation--he is not only willing to be quoted but he wants to be quoted. But when he speaks privately to a reporter he usually dreads quotation. Of course, he expects that you will print a few of his remarks but he is constantly hoping that you will not remember and print them all. He speaks more guardedly, too, since he is not sure of the interpretation that may be given to his words. Hence it is a very different matter to report what a man says in public and to get statements for the press from him in private. Any one can report a speech but great skill is required to get a good interview--especially if the victim is unwilling to talk.

The first matter that a reporter has to consider is the means of retaining the statements until he is able to write his story. It is a simple matter to get quotations from a speech because it is possible to sit anywhere in the audience and write down the speaker's words in a notebook as they are uttered. But the notebook must be left behind when you try to interview. When a man is not used to being interviewed nothing will make him reticent so quickly as the appearance of a notebook and pencil; he realizes that his words are to appear in print just as he utters them and he immediately becomes frightened. Ordinarily so long as he feels that what he says is going into the confidential ear of the reporter--and out of the other ear just as quickly--he is willing to talk more freely and openly and to say exactly what he thinks. This, of course, does not apply to prominent men who are used to being interviewed and prefer to have their remarks taken down verbatim. Such an interview, however, is little more than a call to secure a statement for publication.

It might be well to settle the notebook question here and now when it a.s.sumes 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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.serts 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 a.s.sertion. 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 a.s.sertion 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, att.i.tude, 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 cla.s.ses from the upper two, the present freshman and soph.o.m.ore cla.s.ses 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, acc.u.mulated since the close of the market on Sat.u.r.day. (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.