Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 8

In an effort to bring about the reinstatement of one of their number who had been discharged for non-unionism, a hundred or more journeymen bakers wrecked the bakeshop of Pincus Jacobs, at No. 1571 Lexington avenue, early this morning.--_New York Evening Post._

In the case of a storm the human life element is of greatest importance, then the damage to property, and last, the peculiar circ.u.mstances. For example:

CLEVELAND, Dec. 11.--Fifty-nine lives were the cost of a storm which pa.s.sed over Lake Erie Wednesday night and Thursday, and more than $1,000,000 worth of vessel property was destroyed.--_New York Evening Post._

If the story is concerned with a flood the human-life element is first, then the damage, the cause, the freaks of the flood, or the present situation. For example:

PARKERSBURG, W. Va., March 10.--Three persons are known to have perished in a flood which swept down upon the city on Friday when two water reservoirs on Prospect Hill burst without warning. Forty houses were destroyed and many persons are missing. The property damage will be nearly $500,000.

=6. Police Court News.=--The ordinary run of police court news is in a cla.s.s by itself. Usually the only news value in the story depends upon some unusual incident or circ.u.mstance that attracts the attention of the reporter. This is of course the source of many of the stories of crime, mentioned before, but many stories turn up at the police courts which are not concerned with crime, although in some cases they are concerned with criminals. In this field of reporting there are many opportunities for the human-interest story which will be taken up in a later chapter.

When the incident is reported in an ordinary news story the feature is usually in some attendant circ.u.mstance and the story might well be cla.s.sed with one of the above groups. Here are two examples from the daily press:

Because he did not have sufficient money to buy flowers for his sweetheart, Henry Trupke, aged 21 years, forged a check for $22.50 on a grocer, J. Sieberlich, 781 Third street, and after a week's chase was caught last night as he got off a Wisconsin Central train.--_Milwaukee Sentinel._

But a few hours before receiving a sentence of two years in the house of correction for stealing furs from the store of Lohse Bros., 117 Wisconsin street, John Garner, self-confessed thief, was married to Rose Strean, one of the witnesses in the case, which was tried yesterday in the munic.i.p.al court.--_Milwaukee Free Press._

=7. Reports of Meetings, Conferences, Decisions, etc.=--This group includes all reports of meetings, or conferences, of bodies of any sort, political or otherwise, reports of judicial or legislative hearings or decisions, or announcements of resolutions pa.s.sed. Such as:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15.--Acquisition of the telegraph lines by the government and their operation as a part of the postal system is the latest idea of Postmaster General Hitchc.o.c.k. Announcement was made today that a resolution to this effect will be offered to Congress at the present session.--_Wisconsin State Journal._

There is always one thing in these stories that gives them news value--the purpose or result of the conference, hearing, or announcement. This purpose or result, of course, must be played up. The one point that the reporter should remember is that a well-written lead begins with the result or purpose of the meeting or announcement rather than with the name of the meeting or the name of the body that makes the announcement. Never begin a story thus: "At a meeting of the Press Club held in the Auditorium last night it was resolved that----" Transpose the sentence and begin with a statement of what was resolved. In the following story the order is wrong:

The Supreme Court of the United States, through the opinion delivered by Justice Vandevanter, today declared const.i.tutional the employers' liability law of 1908.

The import of the decision is buried; it should be written thus:

The employers' liability law of 1908 was today declared const.i.tutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Vandevanter delivered the opinion of the court, made in four cases.

In these stories, as in all other news stories, the lead must begin with the fact or statement that gives the story news value. Burying this fact or statement behind two or three lines of explanation spoils the effectiveness of the lead. A student of journalism may gain very good practice in the writing of news stories by looking over the leads that appear in the daily papers and transposing those leads which bury their news behind explanations. The first line of type in a lead is like a shop's show window and it must not be used for the display of packing cases.

=8. Stories on Other Printed Matter.=--A large part of a newspaper's s.p.a.ce, especially in smaller cities, is devoted to stories based on printed bulletins, announcements, city directories, legislative bills, and published reports of various kinds. Sometimes a news story is written upon a pamphlet that was issued for advertising purposes--because there is some news in it. In all of these stories the reporter must look through the pamphlet to find something of news value or something that has a significant relation to other news. Smaller papers often print stories on the new city directory; the increase or decrease in population is treated as news and a very interesting story may be written on a comparison of the names in the directory. In university towns the appearance of a new university catalog or bulletin of any sort is the occasion for a story which points out the new features or compares the new bulletin with a previous one. Reporters and correspondents in political centers, like state capitals, get out stories on committee and legislative reports and on new bills that are proposed or pa.s.sed by the legislature. The writing of these stories is very much like the reporting of a speech, which will be discussed later.

The newest or most interesting feature in the report or bill is played up in the lead as the feature of the story, followed by the source of the story, the printed bulletin upon which the story is based; thus:

A new plan for placing the control of all water power in the state in the hands of the legislature was proposed in the minority report of Senators J. B. Smith and L. C. Blake, of the special legislative committee on drainage, issued today.

These eight cla.s.ses of news stories do not include all the news stories that a newspaper prints, but they are in a way typical of all the others that are not mentioned. It will be noted from these that all news stories, just like the fire story, are usually written in about the same way. Each one has a lead which begins with the feature of the story--i.e., the fact or incident in the story which gives it news value and makes it of interest--and concludes by answering the reader's questions, when, where, who, how, why, concerning the feature. Each story begins again after the lead, and in one or more paragraphs explains, describes, or narrates the incident in detail and in logical order. This body of the story which follows the lead, while following in general the logical order, is so written that its most interesting facts are near the beginning and its interest dwindles away toward the end.

This is to enable the editor in making up his paper, to take away from the end of any story, as we have seen before, a paragraph or more without spoiling the story's continuity or depriving it of any of its essential facts. The form of the conventional fire story may be used as a model in the writing of any news story.

In writing the body of a story to explain, describe, or narrate the incident mentioned in the lead, every effort should be directed toward clearness. This is particularly true of stories which are in the main narrations of action. The number of facts that may be included must depend upon the length of the story; if all of the facts cannot be included without overburdening the story, cut out some of the details of lesser importance, but treat those that are included in a clear readable way. Short sentences are always much better in newspaper writing than long involved sentences. p.r.o.nouns should always be used in such a way that there can be no doubt in regard to their antecedents. If a relative clause or participial expression sounds awkward make a separate sentence of it. In other words, be simple, concise, and clear--that is better in a newspaper than much fine writing.

IX

FOLLOW-UP AND REWRITE STORIES

The terms "rewrite story" and "follow-up, or follow, story," are names which newspaper men apply to the rehashed or revised versions of other news stories. A large newspaper office employs one or more rewrite men who spend their entire time rewriting stories. To be sure, a part of their work consists of rewriting, or simply recasting, poorly written copy prepared by the reporters. But the major part of their work, the part that interests us, involves something more than that. It involves the rejuvenation of stories that have been printed in a previous edition or in another paper, with the purpose of bringing the news up to the present moment.

News ages very rapidly. What may be news for one edition is no longer news when another edition goes to press an hour later. A feature that may be worth playing up in a morning paper would not have the same news value in an evening paper of the same day. The news grows stale so quickly because new things are continually happening and new developments are continually changing the aspect of previous stories.

If a story has been run through two or three editions and new developments have changed it, the story is turned over to a rewrite man for consequent alteration. A story in a morning paper is no longer news for an evening paper of the same date, but a clever rewrite man, with or without new developments added to the story, can recast it so that it will appear to contain more recent news than the original story. The story of an arrest in a morning paper begins with the particulars of the arrest; but when the evening paper's rewrite man has rearranged it for his paper it has become the story of the trial or the police court hearing which followed the arrest. Perhaps the evening paper sends a man to get the later developments in the case, but every rewrite man knows the steps that always follow an arrest and he can rewrite the original story without additional information. His account of the later developments is called either a rewrite or a follow-up story, depending upon the method employed. The same fundamental idea of rejuvenating the former story governs the preparation of both the rewrite and the follow-up story, but while the rewrite story contains no additional news, the follow-up presents later facts in addition to the old news.

=1. The Rewrite Story.=--The rewrite story is primarily a rehashing of a previous news story without additional facts. It attempts to give a new twist to old facts in order to bring them nearer to the present time.

Without the aid of later facts the rewrite man can only select a new feature and revise the old facts. For example, suppose that a $100,000 grain elevator burns during the night. The fire would make a big story in a city of moderate size and the papers next morning would treat it at length. If no one were killed or injured the story would probably begin with a simple announcement of the fire in a lead of this kind:

Fire destroyed the grain elevator of the H. P. Jones Produce Company, First and Water streets, and $50,000 worth of wheat at 2 o'clock this morning. The total loss is estimated at $150,000.

Then the reporter would describe the fire at length, including all obtainable facts. By afternoon almost every one in the city has read the story--and yet the afternoon papers must print something about the big fire. If no new facts can be obtained the previous story must be rehashed and presented with a new feature that will make it appear to be a later story. It is useless to begin the evening story with a mere announcement of the fire, for that is no longer news, and the rewrite man must find a new beginning to attract the attention of his readers.

Perhaps in looking over the morning story, he finds that the fire was the result of spontaneous combustion in the grain stored in the elevator. In the morning story this fact was rather insignificant in the face of the huge loss, and most readers pa.s.sed over it hastily. The rewrite man, however, who has no later facts at his command, may seize it as a new feature. Instead of beginning his story with the fact of the fire, which is already known, he begins with the cause, which appears to be later news. His lead may be as follows:

Spontaneous combustion in the wheat bins of the H. P. Jones Produce Company's elevator, First and Water streets, started the fire which destroyed the entire structure with a loss of $150,000 this morning.

Or if the rewrite man is not so fortunate as to discover a new feature as good as this, he may have to resort to beginning with a picture of the present results of the fire--thus:

Smouldering ruins and a tangled ma.s.s of steel beams are all that remain of the H. P. Jones Produce Company's $100,000 grain elevator, First and Water streets, which was destroyed by fire this morning.

It will be noticed that, while these new rewrite leads begin with a new feature, each new lead contains all the facts presented in the previous lead and is told with an eye to the man who has not read the earlier account. After the lead the rewrite man retells the whole story for the benefit of readers who did not see the morning papers and rearranges the facts so that they appear new to those who read the previous stories.

Facts which the other papers buried he unearths and displays; details which appear to be later developments he crowds to the beginning. The whole story is sorted and rewritten in a new order and with a new emphasis. The result is a rewrite story which appears to be later, although it contains no new facts at all. It is seldom, of course, that such a rewrite story is used for local news, for very rarely is it impossible for a later paper to discover new facts. But in the case of news from the outside world, from other cities, the simple method of rehashing old facts must often be resorted to. If the story is based upon a single dispatch announcing an earthquake in Hawaii or a shipwreck in mid-ocean, many rewrite stories must be printed on the same facts before another message brings later news and additional details. An example of this is the treatment of the first few stories of the wreck of the White Star liner _t.i.tanic_. The story was a big one, but the first dispatches were very meager and many rehashings of these few facts had to be printed before later and more definite news could be obtained.

The simple rewriting of an old story ordinarily involves a condensation of the facts. If a morning paper printed two thousand words on the grain elevator fire above, an afternoon paper of the same day would hardly treat the story at such length. For the story is no longer big news. If a story has run through the first editions of a morning paper it would be cut down, as well as rehashed, in the later editions of the same paper. The story of the fire loses its initial burst of interest after the first printing, and only the essential facts and the facts that can be rejuvenated can be reprinted. The 2,000-word version in the morning paper may be worth only five hundred words or less four hours later.

=2. The Follow-up Story.=--If new facts are added to a story between editions the new version is no longer a simple rewrite story. It becomes a follow-up story, for it follows up the subsequent developments in the previous story and corresponds to the second or succeeding installments of a serial novel in which each installment begins with a synopsis of previous chapters. For example, if, in the grain elevator fire story, the body of a watchman were found in the ruins after the morning papers have gone to press, the story would immediately have a different news value for the evening papers. The story of the big fire is old, but the discovery of the body is new. Hence the rewrite man would begin with the later development--perhaps thus:

The body of a watchman was found this afternoon in the ruins of the H. P. Jones Produce elevator, which burned to the ground this morning with a loss of $150,000.

The new story, while retelling the princ.i.p.al facts in the previous account, would give prominence to the latest news, the discovery of the body. As an example from a newspaper, let us take the follow-up of a murder mystery. The first stories on this murder simply said that a grocer had been found dead in the cellar of his store and murder had been suggested. The follow-up on the next day (printed here) deals with a new development--has a new feature--and carries the story one step further in the attempt to unravel the mystery:

Developments yesterday in the story of the killing of James White, the Park street grocer, tended to support the contention of Coroner Donalds and the police that White was not murdered, but died by his own hand.

=3. a.n.a.lysis.=--So far we have treated the rewrite story and the follow-up story separately, but for the purposes of a.n.a.lysis and study they may be treated together, because the same fundamental idea governs both. Dissection of the follow-up story will also show us what the rewrite story is made of.

From the above clippings it will be seen that the lead of the follow-up story is very much like that of any news story. The lead has its feature in the first line and answers the reader's questions concerning that feature. It is simply a new story written on an old subject which has been given a new feature to make it appear new. Furthermore, it will be noticed that the lead of the follow-up story is complete in itself, without the original story that preceded it. Although the whole idea of the follow story is based on the supposition that all readers have read every edition of the paper and are therefore acquainted with the original story, yet for the benefit of those readers who have not read the previous story, the follow-up must be complete and clear in itself.

New facts are introduced into the follow story, but its lead tells the main facts of the original story so that no reader will be at loss to understand what it is all about--in other words, it gives a synopsis of previous chapters. In many follow-up stories the new developments are supplemented by an entire retelling of the original story. This is especially true when one paper is rewriting a story which broke too late for its preceding edition and was covered by a rival paper. At any rate, every follow-up story, like every other news story, must be so constructed as to stand by itself without previous explanation.

Of the 142 bodies of victims of the Triangle Waist Company's fire on Sat.u.r.day, that had been taken to the morgue up to noon yesterday when it was decided that all the dead had been recovered, all but 45 had been identified today.

This is a follow-up of a story two days before. Every reader of the paper probably knew everything that had been printed previously about the fire, and yet this lead very carefully recalls the fire to the reader's mind. Later in the story the princ.i.p.al facts of the original story are retold as if they were new and unknown.

It is interesting to see what in any given newspaper story can be followed up for a later story. The would-be reporter may get good practice in writing follow-up stories from the mere attempt to study out the next step in any given new story. With this next step as his feature he may try to write a follow-up story without additional information, and then compare it with other follow-up stories. For every news story contains within it clues to what may be expected to follow.

When any serious fire occurs certain additional facts may always be expected to follow. The finding of more dead, the unravelling of a mysterious origin, the re-statement of the loss, and the present condition of the injured are some of the possibilities that a rewrite man considers when he tries to prepare a follow-up story on a fire. The Washington Place fire in New York on March 25, 1911, furnished admirable material for the study of the rewriting of fire stories. The fire occurred on Sat.u.r.day afternoon too late for anything but the Sunday editions. The original story as it appeared in the Sunday papers and the Monday issues, of papers which had no Sunday editions, began like this: