Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 12

=2. Summary Beginning.=--There are two common ways of beginning an interview story with a summary. First, the lead may begin with a _that_-clause which embodies the gist of the interview; this is like the _that_-clause beginning of the report of a speech; thus:

That the apparent apathy among the voters of the country is merely contentment with the present administration of affairs by the Republican party is the contention of ex-Senator John M. Thurston of Nebraska. Mr. Thurston was at Republican national headquarters today, etc.--_New York Evening Post._

Secondly the summary beginning is used in the case of an interview that is a denial or an a.s.sertion by the man interviewed. The lead begins with a clause or a participial phrase embodying the substance of the interview, and the name of the speaker is made the subject of a verb of denying or a.s.serting; thus:

Declaring that his office is run as economically as possible, Sheriff H. E. Franke denied on Sunday that he had expended more than $688 for auto hire to collect $1,409.28 of alleged taxes. (The second paragraph begins with a direct quotation.)--_Milwaukee Sentinel._ Although he had sharply criticised Roosevelt's special message condemning some of the uses to which the possessors of large fortunes are putting their wealth, President Jacob Gould Schurman, Cornell University, declined to discuss Roosevelt or his policies in Milwaukee yesterday. He said that he was not talking politics. (The rest of the report is a quotation of his views on college athletics.)--_Milwaukee Free Press._

=3. Quotation Beginning.=--Many reports of interviews begin with a direct quotation. The logic of this is that the expression of opinion is, in some cases, of more interest than the name of the man who expressed the opinion. Sometimes the name of the speaker is not considered worth mentioning and in that case a direct quotation is the only advisable beginning; thus:

"With the prices of food for hogs and cattle going up, it is natural that the food--beef and pork--for us humans should keep pace." This was the logic of an east-side butcher who discussed the probable rise in the prices of meat.--_Milwaukee Free Press._

Sometimes a short quotation is used at the beginning of the lead very much as a t.i.tle is used in a speech report; thus:

NEW YORK, June 1.--"A business proposition which should have been put in effect nearly twenty years ago," was John Wanamaker's comment today on the adoption of 2-cent letter postage between the United States and Great Britain and Ireland.--_Milwaukee Free Press._

If the quotation at the beginning consists of only one sentence the name of the speaker may be run into the same paragraph; thus:

"Judge McPherson's recent decision declaring Missouri's 2-cent fare confiscatory is an indication that vested interests are ent.i.tled to some protection and that legislatures must not go too far in regulating them," said Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, president of the Canadian Pacific road, on Sunday.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._

However if the quotation at the beginning contains more than one sentence it is best to paragraph the quotation separately and leave the name of the speaker until the second paragraph; thus:

"The American Federation of Labor will enter the national campaign by seeking to place labor candidates on the tickets of the old parties. An independent labor party is eventually contemplated. But there is not time to get results in that way in the next national campaign." So said H. C. Raasch, national president of the tile-layers, upon his return yesterday, etc.--_Milwaukee Free Press._

=4. Human Interest Beginning.=--This is a designation devised to cover a mult.i.tude of beginnings. A human interest interview may begin with a quotation, a summary, a name, or an action. The aim is necessarily toward unconventionality and the form of the lead is left to the originality of the reporter. A few examples may ill.u.s.trate what is meant by the human interest beginning:

"There goes another string. Drat those strings!" Only Joseph Caluder didn't say "Drat." "Say, do you know that I have spent pretty nearly $1,000 for strings for that violin? Well, it's a fact. Listen." Etc.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._

Fire Marshal James Horan never bought a firecracker, but for many years he has celebrated Independence day in the thick of fires. He never owned a gun or revolver. His last prayer before trying to s.n.a.t.c.h a little needed sleep Friday night will be of the twofold form, etc.--_Chicago Post._

After what has been said about the body of a speech report, there is little more to be said about the body of an interview story. The same rules apply in both cases. The body of the report should contain as much direct quotation as possible. However nothing less than a sentence should be quoted--that is, every quotation should be a complete sentence, with indirect explanation. Whenever "Said the speaker" or "Mr.

Brown continued" or any similar expression is worked into the direct quotation it should always be placed at the end of the sentence; never begin a quotation in this way:--Mr. Jones continued, "Furthermore I would say, etc." In the same way, when a paragraph contains both direct and indirect quotation, the direct quotation should be placed at the beginning. Whenever it is possible, construct solid paragraphs of quotation, and solid paragraphs of summary. The report as a whole must have coherence and a logical sequence; for this a limited amount of indirect quotation may be used to fill in the gaps in the logic of the direct quotation.

According to the usage of the best newspapers of to-day the reporter must never be brought into the report of an interview. His existence must never be mentioned although every reader knows that some reporter secured the interview. In the old days reporters delighted in bringing themselves into their stories as "representatives of the press" or "a reporter for the Dispatch," but that practice has gone the way of the reporter's leather-bound notebook. The interview may be told satisfactorily without a mention of the reporter; hence newspaper usage has put a ban on his appearance in his story.

GROUP INTERVIEWS

We have said that a man is seldom interviewed without a reason; there is always a timeliness in interviewing. Any unusual event of broad importance becomes an excuse for the editor to print the opinion of some prominent man on some phase of the event. Sometimes the event is of such importance that the editor wishes to print the opinions of several men on the subject; or more than one prominent man may be involved in the affair and the public may wish to hear the opinions of every one involved. In such a case when several men are interviewed in regard to the same event it is considered rather useless and ineffective to print their interviews separately and the several interview stories are gathered together into one story and arranged in such a way that they may be compared. There are several ways of doing this.

If the case or event is very well known, a lead or summary of the several interviews is considered unnecessary and the words of the various men are grouped together under a single headline. This may be ill.u.s.trated by the interviews that were printed after the confessions of the McNamara brothers of Los Angeles in the recent dynamiting case. The _Wisconsin State Journal_ may be taken as representative. This paper printed the statements of twelve prominent men interested in the case in a three-column box under a long head; thus:

=Leaders Discuss the Case= Samuel Gompers, president American Federation of Labor--I am astounded; I am astounded; my credulity has been imposed upon. It is a bolt out of a clear sky. * * * * * John T. Smith, president Missouri Federation of Labor--I can not believe it. But if the McNamaras blew up the Times building they should be fully punished. * * * * * Gen. Harrison Grey Otis, publisher of the Times--The result may be and ought to be, etc.

If the case had not been of such broad interest a lead embodying a summary of the interviews might have preceded the individual statements.

It might have been done in this way:

Great surprise has been expressed by the prominent labor leaders of the country at the confession of the McNamara brothers in Los Angeles yesterday. That organized labor had no connection with the work of these men and that they should be fully punished is the consensus of opinion. Samuel Gompers, president American Federation of Labor--I am astounded; I am astounded; my credulity has been imposed upon. It is a bolt out of a clear sky. John T. Smith, president Missouri Federation of Labor--I can not believe it. Etc.

In such a story as the above, the statements are usually printed without quotation marks; each paragraph begins with a man's name, followed by a dash and what he said. The grouping together of several interviews is often done less formally. The whole thing may be written as a running story, and sometimes the names of the persons interviewed are omitted; thus:

Proprietors of the big flower shops, the places from which blossoms are delivered in highly polished and ornate wagons, drawn by horses that might win blue ribbons, and where, in the proper season, a single rose costs three dollars, do not approve of the comments made by a dealer who recently failed. Among these sayings was one to the effect that young millionaires spend a thousand dollars a week on flowers for chorus girls who earn twelve dollars a week, and who sometimes take the flowers back to the shop to exchange them for money to buy food and clothes. "That's all nonsense," said one dealer. (This paragraph is devoted to his opinion on the matter.) "We have enough trouble in this business," said another dealer, "without having this silly talk given to the public." (This paragraph gives this dealer's opinion)--_New York Evening Post._

(Each paragraph is devoted to a single interview.)

The same paragraph may be done with more local color as in the following:

Chinatown feels deeply its bereavement in the deaths of the Empress Dowager and the Emperor of China. Chinatown mourns, but it does so in such an un.o.btrusive Oriental way that the casual visitor on sympathy bent may feel that his words of condolence would be misplaced. A reporter from this paper was a.s.signed yesterday to go up to Chinatown and in as delicate a way as possible to gather some of the sentiments of appreciation of the merits of Kuang-hsu and his lamented aunt, Tzu-hsi. He was told that he might write a little about the picturesque though nevertheless sincere expressions of mourning that he might observe in Pell and Mott streets. Mr. Jaw Gum, senior partner in the firm of Jaw Gum & Co., importers of cigars, cigarettes, dead duck's eggs and Chinese delicatessen, of 7 Pell street, was at home. Mr. Gum was approached. "We would like to learn a little about the arrangements that are being made by the Chinese to indicate their sorrow at the deaths of their beloved rulers." "What number?" queried Mr. Gum. The question was repeated. "P'licyman, he know," remarked Mr. Gum sagely. (So on for a column with interviews and statements from several of Mr. Gum's neighbors.)--_New York Sun._

But this is very much like a human interest story--the reporter takes part in it--and we shall discuss that later.

XII

COURT REPORTING

Probably few cla.s.ses of news stories present such a lack of uniformity and such a variety of treatments as the reports of court news. Legal stories belong to one of the few sorts of stories that do not tend to become systematized. But there is a reason for almost everything in a newspaper and there is also a reason for the freedom that reporters are allowed in reporting testimony. The reason in this case is probably in the fact that very rarely do two court stories possess the same sort of interest or the same news value.

We have seen that reports of speeches are printed in the daily press because our readers are interested in the content of the speech or in the man who uttered it. In the same way, our readers are interested in interviews because of the man who was interviewed, because of their content, or because of their bearing on some current event. On the other hand there is an infinite number of reasons why a court story is worth printing or why it may not be worth a line. Sometimes the interest is in the persons involved; sometimes in the significance of the decision.

People may also be interested in a case because of its political or legal significance or merely because of the sensational testimony that is given. And again a very trivial case may be worth a large amount of s.p.a.ce in the daily paper just because of its human interest--because of the pathos or humor that the reporter can bring into it. Thus the resulting reports are hard to cla.s.sify. Each one depends on a different factor for its interest and each must be written in a different way so that its individual interest may be most effective. However there are general tendencies in the reporting of court news.

The news itself is comparatively easy to get. In a large city every court is watched every day by a representative of the press, either a reporter for an individual paper or for a city news gathering a.s.sociation. In some cities where there is no independent news gathering agency papers sometimes club together to keep one reporter at each court. The man who is on duty must watch all day long for cases that are of interest for one reason or another. Even with all this safeguarding sometimes an important case slips by the papers; often the reporter on duty considers of little interest a case that is worth columns when some paper digs into it. Every reporter however who is trying to do court reporting should learn the ordinary routine of legal proceedings; for example, the place and purpose of the pleas, the direct and cross examination of witnesses, and other legal business.

As we shall see when we begin to write court reports, it is necessary to exercise every possible trick to put interest into the story. In the actual court room all that relieves the dreary monotony of legal proceedings is an occasional bit of interesting testimony. And when the reporter tries to report a case he sometimes finds that interesting testimony is all that will lighten up the dull monotony of his story.

Therefore while he is listening to a case he tries to get down verbatim a large number of the interesting questions and answers. Or if he is unable to be present he tries to get hold of the court stenographer's record to copy out bits of testimony for his account. Beyond this recording of testimony there is really little difficulty in court reporting except the difficulty of separating the interesting from the great ma.s.s of uninteresting matter.

As to the actual writing of the report of a legal trial, the one thing that the reporter must remember is that a case is seldom reported for the public's interest in the case itself. There is usually some other reason why the editor wants a half a column of it. That reason is the thing that the reporter must watch for and when he finds it he must make it the feature of his report to be embodied in the first line of the lead.

When we try to play up the most interesting feature of a court report we find that we must fall back upon the same beginnings that we used in reporting speeches and interviews. There are several possible ways of beginning such a story, depending upon the phase of the case or its testimony that is of greatest importance.

=1. Name Beginning.=--The proper name beginning is very common. It is always used when any one of prominence is involved in the story or when the name, although unknown, can be made interesting in itself--as in a human interest story. The name is usually made the subject of the verb testified, as in this lead:

A. F. Law, secretary of the Temple Iron Company, a subsidiary company of the Reading Coal and Iron Company, called before the government investigation of the alleged combination of coal carrying roads, testified today in the Federal building that four roads had contributed $488,000 to make up the deficit of the Temple company during three years of coal strikes.--_New York Sun._

The name of a well-known company often makes a good beginning:

The Standard Oil Company sent a sweeping broadside into the Government's case yesterday at the hearing in the suit seeking to dissolve the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey under the Sherman anti-trust law, when witnesses began to tell of the character of a number of men the Government had placed upon the witness stand.--_New York Times._

The name of the judge himself may be used in the first line:

Judge Mulqueen of General Sessions explained today why he had sentenced two prisoners to "go home and serve time with the families." This punishment was imposed yesterday when both men pleaded drunkenness as their excuse for trivial offenses.--_New York Evening Post._