Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 14

These facts usually consist of the names of the couple, the names of the bride's parents, and the time and the place of the wedding. Additionally the reporter may give the minister's name, the names of the maid of honor and of the best man, the reception or breakfast to follow, and where the couple will be at home.

The wedding of Miss Gladys Jones and Richard Smith will take place on Wednesday evening in All Angels' Church. The bride is a daughter of Mrs. Charles Jones, who will give a bridal supper and reception afterward at her home.

There are of course many other ways to begin the announcement. "Miss Mary E. MacGuire, daughter of, etc."; "Invitations have been issued for the wedding of Miss, etc."; "One of the weddings on for Tuesday is that of Miss, etc."; "Cards are out for the wedding on Sat.u.r.day of Miss, etc."; and many others. In each case the bride's name has the place of importance.

=3. Announcements of Engagements.=--Announcements of engagements are usually even briefer than wedding announcements. The item consists merely of one sentence in which the young lady's mother or parents make the announcement with the name of the prospective groom.

Mrs. Russell D. Jones of 45 Ninth street announces the engagement of her daughter, Natalie, to John MacBaine Smith.

The item may also begin "Mr. and Mrs. X. X. So-and-So announce, etc.,"

or simply "Announcement is made of the engagement of Miss Stella Blank, daughter of, etc."

=4. Receptions and Other Entertainments.=--If a paper is to keep up in society news, it must report many social entertainments. However, such events are treated by large dailies as simply, briefly, and impersonally as possible. Such a story, like the report of a wedding, consists merely of certain usual facts. The name of the host or hostess, the place, the time, and the special entertainments are of course always included.

Sometimes the occasion for the event, the guests of honor, and a description of the decorations are added,--also the names of those who a.s.sisted the hostess.

Mrs. James Harris Jones gave a reception yesterday at her home, 136 Fifth street, for her daughter, Miss Dorothy Jones. In the receiving line were Miss Marjorie Smith, Miss, etc. * * The reception was followed by an informal dance.

If the event is held especially for debutantes, the fact is noted at the very start. "A number of debutantes a.s.sisted in receiving at a tea given by, etc."; "The debutantes of the winter were out in force, etc."

Such a story is usually followed by a list of guests, a list of out-of-town guests, a list of subscribers, or something of the sort.

Ordinarily the list is not tabulated but is run in solid, thus:

The guests were: Miss Kathleen Smith, Miss Georgia Brown, etc.

Very often the names are grouped together, thus:

The guests were: The Misses Kathleen Smith, Georgia Brown; Mesdames Robert R. Green, John R. Jones; and the Messrs. George Hamilton, Francis Bragg, etc.

The number of variations in such stories is limited only by the ingenuity of the people who are giving such entertainments. But in each case the reporter learns to give the same facts in much the same order.

And he gives them in an uncolored, impersonal way that makes the items interesting only to those who are directly connected with them. The story may vary from a single sentence to half a column, but it always begins in the same way and elaborates only the same details. Before trying to write up social entertainments, a reporter should always be sure of the use of the various words he employs--"chaperon,"

"patroness," etc. For instance, can we say that "Mr. and Mrs. Smith acted as chaperons"?

=5. Social Announcements.=--Social announcements of any kind are usually, like the wedding and engagement announcements, confined to a single sentence. They tell only the name of the host and hostess, the name of the guest of honor or the occasion for the event, the time, and the place. Thus:

Mrs. Charles P. Jones will give a dance this evening at her home, 181 Nineteenth street, to introduce her sister, Miss Elsie Holt.

A study of the foregoing sections on society stories shows how definitely a reporter is restricted in the facts that he may include in his social items--how conventional social stories have become. This very restraint in the matter of facts makes it the more necessary for a reporter to exercise his originality in the diction of social items. He must guard against the use of certain set expressions, like "officiating," "performed the ceremony," and "solemnized." While restricted in the facts that he may give, he must try to present the same old facts in new and interesting ways--he may even resort to a moderate use of "fine writing," if he does not become florid or frivolous.

=6. Unusual Social Stories.=--Just as soon as any of these stories contains a feature that is of interest to the general public in an impersonal way it leaves the general cla.s.s of social news and becomes a news story to be written with the usual lead. Even the presence of a very prominent name will make a news story out of a social item. For instance, the wedding of Miss Ethel Barrymore was written by many papers as a news story. On the other hand, an unusual marriage, an unusual elopement, or anything unusual and interesting in a wedding gives occasion for a news story. Here is one:

Because their 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, married a man other than the one they had chosen, who is wealthy, Mr. and Mrs. Markovits of 3128 Cedar street have gone into deep mourning, draped their home in crepe and announced to their friends that Sarah is dead.--_Philadelphia Ledger._

Or the story may be handled in a more humorous way, thus:

There is really no objection to him, and she is quite a nice young woman, but to be married so young, and to go on a wedding journey with $18 in their purses--but Wallace Jones, student of the Western University, and Ruth Smith, student in the McKinley High School, decided it was too long a time to wait, and a nice old pastor gentleman in St. Joe has made them one.--_Milwaukee Free Press._

=7. Obituaries.=--Like many other cla.s.ses of newspaper stories, the obituary has developed a conventional form which is followed more or less rigidly by all the papers of the land. Every obituary follows the same order and tells the same sort of facts about its subject. It begins with a brief account of the deceased man's death, runs on through a very condensed account of the professional side of his life and ends with the announcement of his funeral or a list of his surviving relatives.

The lead is concerned only with his death, answering the usual questions about _where_, _how_, and _why_, and is written to stand alone if necessary. It ordinarily begins with the man's full name, because of course the name is the most important thing in the story, and then tells who he was and where he lived. This is followed, perhaps in the same sentence, by the time of his death, the cause, and perhaps the circ.u.mstances. Thus:

CAMBRIDGE, Ma.s.s., Nov. 25.--Dr. John H. Blank, professor of Greek at Harvard since 1887 and dean of the Graduate School since 1895, died at his home in Quincy street today from heart trouble. Professor Blank was an authority on cla.s.sical subjects.--_New York Tribune._

This, as you see, might stand alone and be complete in itself. Many obituaries, however, add another paragraph after the lead in which the circ.u.mstances of the death are discussed in greater detail. Here is the second paragraph of another obituary:

At 8:30 tonight Mr. Blank was walking with his wife on the veranda of the Delmonte Hotel, when he suddenly gasped as if in great pain and fell to the floor. He was carried inside, but was dead before the physicians reached his bedside. Apoplexy is said to have been the cause.

Next comes the account of the deceased man's life. It is told very briefly and impersonally and concerns itself chiefly with the events of his business or professional activities. It is but a catalogue of his achievements and the dates of those achievements. These facts are usually obtained from the file of biographies--called the morgue--which most newspapers keep. The account first tells when and where he was born and perhaps who his parents were. Next his education is briefly discussed. Then the chief events of his professional or business life.

The date of his marriage and the maiden name of his wife are included somewhere in or at the end of this account. Usually a list of the organizations of which the man was a member and a list of the books which he had written are attached to this account. One of the foregoing obituaries continues as follows:

He was born in Urumiah, Persia, on February 4, 1852, being the son of the Rev. Austin H. Blank, a missionary. He was graduated from Dartmouth in 1873, and that college awarded him the degrees of A. M. in 1876 and LL.D. in 1901. From 1876 to 1878 he studied at Leipzig University. He was a.s.sistant professor of ancient languages at the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College from 1873 to 1876, a.s.sociate professor of Greek at Dartmouth from 1878 to 1880, and dean of the collegiate board and professor of cla.s.sical philology at Johns Hopkins in 1886 and 1887. In 1906 and 1907 he served as professor in the American School of Cla.s.sical Studies in Athens. (Then follows a list of the organizations of which he was a member and the periodicals with which he was connected.) He married Miss Mary Blank, daughter of the president of Blank College, in 1879, and she survives him. --_New York Tribune._

The obituary usually ends with a list of surviving relatives--especially children and very often the funeral arrangements are included. This is the last paragraph of another obituary:

His first wife, Mary V. Blank, died in 1872. Three years later he married Mrs. Sarah A. Blank, of Hightstown, N. J., who with four daughters, survives him. The funeral will be held tomorrow at 11:30 o'clock. The burial will be in the family plot in Greenwood Cemetery.

This is the standard form of the obituary which is followed by most daily newspapers in fair-sized cities. The form is characterized by an extreme conciseness and brevity and an absolutely impersonal tone. Very rightly, an obituary is handled with a sense of the sanctified character of its subject It offers no opportunity for fine writing or human interest; it simply gives the facts as briefly and impersonally as possible.

XIV

SPORTING NEWS

Division of labor on the larger American newspapers has made the reporting of athletic and sporting events into a separate department under a separate editor. The pink or green sporting sheets of the big papers have become separate little newspapers in themselves handled by a sporting editor and his staff and entirely devoted to athletic news, except when padded out with left-over stories from other pages. Although on smaller papers any reporter may be called upon to cover an athletic event, in the cities such news is handled entirely by experts who are thoroughly acquainted with all phases of the athletic sports about which they write. The stories on the pink sheet enjoy the greatest unconventionality of form to be seen anywhere in the paper except on the editorial page. And yet, because athletic reporters are usually men taken from regular reporting and because the same ideas and necessities of news values govern the sporting pages, athletic stories follow, in general, the usual news story form.

One may expect to find under the head of sports almost any news that is any way connected with college, amateur, or professional athletics. The stories include accounts of baseball and football games, rowing, horse racing, track meets, boxing, and many other forms of sport, as well as any discussions or movements growing out of these sports. Many of the stories are only a few lines in length while others may cover a column or more. But in general each one has a lead which answers the questions _when?_ _where?_ _how?_ _who?_ and _why?_ and runs along much like an ordinary news story. For, after all, even athletic stories are written to attract and to hold the reader's interest whether or not he is directly interested in the sport under discussion. Any reporter who is called upon to cover an athletic event is safe in writing his story in the usual news story form.

As it would be impossible to discuss all the various stories that come under the head of athletic news, the reporting of college football games will be taken as typical of the others. The rules that are suggested for the reporting of football games may be applied to baseball games, track meets, and other sporting events. The same principles govern all of them and the stories usually summarize results in about the same way.

Football stories may be divided into three general cla.s.ses: the brief summary story of a stickful or a trifle more; the usual football story of a half column or less; and the long story that may be run through a column or more, depending upon the importance of the game.

All three of these stories are alike in the general facts which they contain; they differ only in the number of minor details which they include in the elaboration of these general facts. Each one tells in the first sentence what teams were competing, the final score, when and where the game was played, and perhaps some striking feature of the game--the weather, the conditions of the field, the star players, or a sensational score. After that, with more or less expansion, each of the stories gives the essential things that the reader wants to know about the game. These consist usually of the way in which the scoring was done, a comparison of the playing of the teams, a list of the star players, the weather conditions, and the crowd. If the writing of the story includes a discussion of each of these points in more or less detail, the game will be covered in all of its essential phases. The three kinds of stories differ, from one another, not in the facts that they include, but in the length at which they expand upon these facts.

One rule should be noted in the writing of all these stories or of any athletic story--avoid superlatives. To a green reporter almost every game seems to be "the most spectacular," "the most thrilling," "the hardest fought," "the most closely matched," but a broad experience is necessary to defend the use of any superlative about the game.

=1. The Brief Summary Story.=--This is the little story of a stickful or less, which merely announces the result of some distant or unimportant game. Taken in its shortest form it gives only the names of the teams, the score, the time and place of the game, and perhaps a word or two of general characterization. As it is allowed to expand in length it takes up as briefly as possible the following facts in the order in which they are given: the scoring, the comparison of play, the star players or plays. It is a mere announcement of the result of the game and no more, for that is all the reader wants. The line-ups and other tables are usually omitted, and nothing is included that goes beyond this narrow purpose. Here are a few examples:

IOWA CITY, Ia., Nov. 25.--Sensational end runs by McGinnis and Curry near the end of the final quarter of play gave Iowa a 6-to-0 victory over Northwestern here this afternoon. Fort Atkinson High School defeated Madison High today in the final moments of play when a punt by Davy, fullback for Madison, was blocked and the ball recovered behind the line, giving Fort Atkinson the game, 2 to 0.

INDIANAPOLIS, June 3.--Indianapolis started its at-home series today by defeating Kansas City, 3 to 2. Robertson was in fine form, striking out five men, permitting no one to walk and allowing only six hits. Score: (Tables.)

LAFAYETTE, Ind., June 1.--With the score 41 1-3 points, athletes representing the University of California won the twelfth annual meet of the Western Intercollegiate Athletic Conference a.s.sociation today. Missouri was second with 29 1-3 points, Illinois third with 26, Chicago fourth with 15 and Wisconsin fifth with 12 1-2.