Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 5

Fire, starting in a moving picture theatre, 4418 Third avenue, drove the tenants of the building out into the icy street while the snowstorm was at its height shortly before 12 o'clock last night.

the striking feature of the story is buried--we do not get the unusual picture of a little group of people shivering in the street during a blinding snowstorm while they watch their homes burn. A simple transposition of the _while_-clause puts the feature in the first line.

Thus:

While the snowstorm was at its height shortly before 12 o'clock last night, fire, starting in a moving picture theatre, 4418 Third avenue, drove the tenants of the building out into the icy street.

The lead is not perfect now; it might be greatly improved, but it is better than before.

A few of the possible beginnings for a lead are:

1. _Noun._--The simplest beginning of a lead is of course the use of a noun as subject of the princ.i.p.al verb. For example, "Fire destroyed the residence of----" or "A flashlight setting fire to a lace curtain started a fire----" or "The Plaza Hotel had a few uncomfortable moments last night----" etc. The subject of the verb may of course have its modifiers--adjectives and phrases--but it should not be separated too widely from its verb. One point is to be noted in the use of a simple noun at the beginning; an article should not precede the noun if it can be avoided, for the very simple reason that an article is not worth the important s.p.a.ce that it takes at the beginning of the lead. In the case of fire no article is necessary. In other cases it is usually possible to put in an adjective or some other word that will take the article's place. However, never begin a story like this: "Supreme Court of the United States decided----" or "Young man in evening dress was arrested last night----" or "House of John Smith was destroyed yesterday----".

Obviously something is lacking and, if no other word will supply the lack, use the article, _the_ or _a_. When the _noun_-beginning is used the reporter must never forget that two or more nouns, however different, if subject of the same verb, require a plural verb. The verb may be active or pa.s.sive, whichever is more convenient, but rarely is the object of an active verb put first--simply because English cannot bear this transposition of subject and predicate.

2. _Infinitive._--Other parts of speech aside from nouns may be subjects of verbs and so other parts of speech as subjects of the princ.i.p.al verb of the lead may be placed at the beginning of the lead. An infinitive with its object and modifier may occupy the first line as subject of the main verb; e.g.:

To rescue his own son during the burning of his own house was a part of yesterday's work for Fireman Michael Casey, who, etc.

Here the infinitive "to rescue" and its object are the subject of the verb "was," and the construction is perfectly grammatical.

Unfortunately the English language has another infinitive which very much resembles a present participle--the infinitive ending in _-ing_; e.g., _rescuing_. Without an article this part of speech must, of course, be used only as an adjective, but with an article it becomes an infinitive, to be treated as a noun; e.g., _the rescuing of_. It would be perfectly grammatical to begin the above lead in this way: "The rescuing of his own son ... was the work, etc." But it would be ungrammatical to begin it thus: "Rescuing his own son was the work, etc." For in the second case the word "rescuing," if used with an object, is not an infinitive but a participle, and must be used only as an adjective, thus: "Rescuing his own son, Fireman Casey performed his duty, etc.," or "In rescuing his own son, Fireman Casey performed his duty." The two uses should never be confused.

3. _Clause._--Another expression that may be used as subject of the lead's princ.i.p.al verb is a clause--usually a _that_-clause. For instance, "That the entire wholesale district was not destroyed by fire last night is due to, etc." Here the _that_-clause is subject of the verb is and the expression is entirely grammatical as well as very useful as a beginning.

4. _Prepositional Phrase._--When the feature of a story is an action rather than a thing, a noun can hardly be used to express it. Very often this lead may be handled by means of a prepositional phrase at the beginning. For example, one of the stories in the last chapter begins: "With her home on fire and with smoke swirling around her head, Mrs.

John, etc." In this case the prepositional phrase modifies the subject and should not be far from it. Another variation of this is the prepositional phrase of time, modifying the verb; e.g., "During the wedding of Miss Mary Jones, last night, the house suddenly caught fire, etc." This beginning is effective if it is not overworked, but the reader should never be held back from the real facts of the story by a string of complicated phrases, intended to build up suspense.

5. _Participial Phrase._--Very much like the prepositional phrase beginning is the participial beginning. "Sliding down an eighty-foot extension ladder with a woman in his arms, Fireman John Casey rescued, etc." It must be borne in mind that the participial phrase must modify a noun and there should be no doubt in the reader's mind as to the noun that it modifies. It would of course be absurd to say "Sliding down an eighty-foot extension ladder, fire seriously burned John Casey----," but such things are often said. Never should this participial phrase be used as the subject of a verb, as "Returning home and finding her house in ashes was the unusual experience of Mrs. James, etc." The phrase must always modify a noun just like an adjective.

6. _Temporal Clause._--A feature may often be brought to the beginning of the lead by a simple transposition of clauses. Should the time be important a subordinate _when_ or _while_ clause may precede the princ.i.p.al clause of the sentence; i.e., "When the snowstorm was at its height early this morning, a three-story brick building burned, etc.,"

or "While 15,000 people watched from the street below, 250 girls escaped from the burning building at, etc."

7. _Causal Clause._--Should the cause of an action or an occurrence be attractive enough for the first line, a _for_ or a _because_ clause may begin the lead. "Because a tinsmith upset a pot of molten solder on the roof of pier No. 19, two steamers were burned, etc."

This does not exhaust the list of possible beginnings. There are a dozen possible constructions for the beginning of any story; these are merely the commonest ones. Anything unusual or of doubtful grammar should be avoided because of the many possible alternatives that present themselves. And in every lead correct grammar should be considered above all else. If a lead is ungrammatical no clever arrangement of details can make it effective or other than ludicrous. For instance, this lead, taken from a newspaper, ill.u.s.trates an unfortunate attempt to crowd too many details into a short lead:

Bitten by a rattlesnake, Myrtle Olson's leg was slashed with a table knife, washed the wound with kerosene, then covered the incision with salt by her mother. Myrtle still lives.

Another paper tried to arrange it more happily, thus:

Bitten by a rattlesnake, Myrtle Olson's mother slashed her daughter's leg with a table knife, washed the wound with kerosene, then covered the incision with salt. Myrtle still lives.

There is evidently something wrong in this. It would be a good exercise to try to express the idea grammatically.

Before we go on to the consideration of the body of this story a few _Don'ts_ in regard to writing leads may be in order.

Don't begin a lead with a person's name unless the person is well known.

We are always interested in anything unusual that a man may do or anything unusual that he may suffer, but unless we know the man we are not at all interested in his name. Suppose that a man performs some thrilling act or suffers some unusual misfortune in a city of 100,000 people. Probably not more than one hundred people know him, and of that number only one or two will read the story. Then why begin with his name when his action is of greater interest to all but a few of our readers?

And yet every reader wants to know whether the victim is one of his friends. Therefore the man's name must be mentioned in the lead, although it should not come at the beginning. On the other hand, if the man is prominent in the nation or the community and well known to all our readers, his name adds interest to the story and we begin with the name. There is a growing tendency among American newspapers to begin all of their stories with a name. The tendency appears to be the result of an attempt to break away from the conventional lead and to begin in a more natural way--also an easier way. But the name beginning is after all illogical, and any reporter is safe in following the logical course in the matter. If the name is not important begin with something that is important.

Don't waste the main verb of the sentence on a minor action while expressing the princ.i.p.al action in a subordinate clause. This is a violation of emphasis. For example, "Fatally burned by an explosion in his laundry, Hing Lee was taken to the hospital." Naturally he would be taken to the hospital, but why put the emphasis of the whole sentence on that point?

Don't resort to the expression "was the unusual experience of----" "was the fate of----" or any like them. Every word in the lead must count, and here are five words that say nothing at all. Use their place to tell what the unusual experience was. For instance, don't say "To stand in a driving snowstorm and watch their homes burn to the ground was the unusual experience of two families, living at, etc."; say instead, "Standing in a driving snowstorm two families watched their homes burn to the ground." The latter says the same thing more effectively in less s.p.a.ce. The use of this expression--"was the unusual experience of"--is always the mark of a green reporter.

Don't overwork the expression "Fire broke out." All fires "break out,"

but usually we are more interested in the result of the fire than in its "breaking out." Try to use some expression that will give more definite information.

Don't be wordy. Editors are always calling for shorter and more concise leads. If you can say a thing in two words don't use half a dozen. For example, "Four members of the local fire department were rendered unconscious by the deadly fumes from bursting ammonia pipes." This takes three times as much s.p.a.ce as "Four firemen were overcome by ammonia fumes," and it does not express the idea any more effectively.

Don't introduce minor details into the lead. If the reader wants the details he may read the rest of the story. Take the following lead as an example:

Rushing back into his burning laundry, a one-story brick building, to rescue from the flames his savings, amounting to $437, with which he hoped to raise himself from the rank of laborer to that of a prosperous merchant, and which was hidden under the mattress of his bed in the back room of the laundry, Hing Lee, a Chinaman, who lives at 79 Nicollett avenue and has been in this country but three months, was overcome by smoke and so seriously burned that he had to be removed to the St. Mary Hospital and may not live, when his establishment was destroyed by a fire which, starting from the explosion of the tank of the gasolene stove on which he was cooking his dinner, gutted his laundry, entailing a loss of $1,000, shortly before noon to-day.

It is entirely grammatical, but if the reader succeeds in wading through it there is nothing left to tell about the fire. Why not begin the story in this way and leave something for the rest of the story?

Because he rushed back into his burning laundry to rescue his savings, Hing Lee, a Chinese laundryman, 79 Nicollett avenue, was seriously burned to-day.

Don't waste the first line of the lead on meaningless generalities. Get down to the facts at once. For instance, "The presence of mind and bravery of Fireman David Mullen saved Mrs. Daniel Looker from being burned to death in her flat, etc." We are willing to grant his bravery and presence of mind, but we want to know at once what he did: "By sliding down an eighty-foot extension ladder through flames and smoke with an unconscious woman in his arms, Fireman David Mullen rescued Mrs.

Daniel, etc." Equally useless is the beginning, "A daring rescue of an unconscious woman from the fourth story of a blazing flat building was made by Fireman David Mullen to-day, etc." Tell what the daring rescue was and let the reader manufacture a fitting eulogy.

Don't exaggerate the facts to make a feature. When a few persons are frightened don't turn it into a dreadful panic. Every little fire is not a holocaust and the burning of a small barn does not endanger the entire city, unless your imagination is strong enough to guess what might have happened had there been a high wind and no fire engines. A narrow escape from death does not always excuse the beginning, "Scores killed and injured would have been the result, _if_----" All beginnings of this kind give a false impression and do not tell the truth. If a story has no striking feature be satisfied to tell the truth about it without trying to make a world-wide disaster out of it for the sake of a place on the front page. Exaggeration for a feature is one of the bad elements of sensational journalism. For example, seven lives were lost in this fire, but this is the way the story was written, for the sake of a three-column scare-head:

That 500 sleeping babes and 100 more who were kneeling in prayer in St. Malachi's Home, a Roman Catholic inst.i.tution for the care of orphans at Rockaway Park, are alive to-day is due to the coolness of the nuns in charge and the children's remembrance of their teacher's fire drills.

The suspense is built up in such a way that at the end of the lead we do not know what happened and read on with breathless interest to find that there was a small fire at the Home and seven children were burned.

=The Body of the Story.=--"A good beginning is half done," according to the proverb. In writing a news story a good beginning is more than half done--two-thirds at least. The lead is the beginning, and when that has been written we are ready to go on to the body of the story with a clear conscience.

Our lead has told the reader the main facts of the case and the most unusual feature. If he reads further he is looking for details. In giving him these we return to the ordinary rules of narration. We start at the very beginning of the story and tell it logically and in detail to the end. We tell it as if no lead preceded it and repeat in greater detail the incidents briefly outlined in the lead. Never should the body of the story depend upon the lead for clearness. If the feature of the story is a rescue and you have briefly described the rescue in the lead, ignore the lead and describe the rescue all over again in the body of the story in its proper place. The number of details that are to be introduced into the story is limited only by the s.p.a.ce that the story seems to be worth. But no point should be mentioned in the story unless s.p.a.ce permits of its being made clear.

The ordinary rules of English composition apply to the writing of the body of the story. The copy must be paragraphed, cut up into paragraphs that are rather shorter than ordinary literary paragraphs, since the narrowness of the newspaper column makes the paragraph seem longer.

Heterogeneous details must not be piled together in the same paragraph, but the facts must be grouped and handled logically. No paragraph should be noticeably longer than the others, and it is decidedly bad to paragraph one sentence alone simply because it does not seem to go in with any other sentence. If the fact is important expand it into a paragraph by the introduction of further details; if it is unimportant either cut it out of the story altogether or attach it to the paragraph to which it seems most logically to belong.

One fact, already stated, must be borne in mind as the body of the story progresses. The report should be built up in such a way that the editor can slash off a paragraph or two at the end without injuring the story--without sacrificing any important facts. To do this the reporter should bring the important parts of the story as near the beginning as the logical order will permit. The interest of a perfect news story is like an inverted cone. The interest is abundant at the beginning and gradually dwindles out until there is nothing more to say when the end is reached. Just how far the dwindling should be carried depends upon the amount of s.p.a.ce that the story seems to be worth in the paper.

This may seem difficult. It may be hard to see how a story can be told in its logical order while at the same time the most interesting facts are placed at the beginning, even if they logically belong near the end.

For example, we may take the story of an unusual robbery. A well-dressed man goes into a grocery store to get some b.u.t.ter and tries to rob the grocer. In the ensuing scuffle the would-be robber escapes. A young woman who happens to be pa.s.sing sees the end of the fight and pursues the robber down the street until he runs into a saloon. She calls a policeman who is standing on the corner and the officer rushes into the saloon, up three flights of stairs and finds the robber on the roof behind a chimney. The officer shouts to another policeman, and together they arrest the robber.

Now, what is the most interesting thing in the story? Probably the pursuit--a young woman chasing a robber down the street. Our lead might be written in this way:

After being chased down Sixth street by a young woman, a robber, who had attempted to rob the grocery store of Charles Young, 1345 Sixth street, was arrested on the roof of a saloon at 835 Sixth street, at 7 o'clock last night.

The lead might be arranged in a different way, but these are the facts that it would contain. Before we consider the arrangement of the body of the story it may be well to go back to the interviews by which we secured the story. In getting the facts we would probably talk to Young, the groceryman, and to the saloonkeeper into whose establishment the robber fled. We could probably interview the policeman who made the arrest, but let us suppose that the young woman could not be found. The groceryman would tell us about the attempted robbery and the escape, with the girl in pursuit. The saloonkeeper would tell us how the man fled into his saloon and ran up the stairs to the roof; then how two policemen came and made the arrest. The policeman could tell us how a young woman ran up to him and told him that a robber had fled into the saloon; then he would describe the arrest. None of these stories is told just as we want the newspaper story--each one tells us only a part of the story. If the finished story were written by a green reporter it would probably tell the story in the order in which it was obtained.

That is if the reporter saw the policeman first, then the saloonkeeper, and lastly the groceryman; his story would tell in the first paragraph what the policeman said, in the second paragraph what the saloonkeeper said, and in the last paragraph what the grocer said. At least that is the way in which green reporters in the cla.s.sroom attempted to write the story.