Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 9

One hundred and forty-one persons are dead as a result of a fire which on Sat.u.r.day afternoon swept the three upper floors of the factory loft building at the northwest corner of Washington place and Greene street. More than three-quarters of this number are women and girls, who were employed in the Triangle Shirt Waist factory, where the fire originated.--_Boston Transcript, Monday._

The Monday stories on the fire followed up various phases as shown in the following. Each one while indicating that the story was a follow-up retold the princ.i.p.al incidents in the fire.

The death list in the Washington place and Greene street fire was swelled today to 145, a majority of the victims being young girls.--_Monday morning--second story._

At dawn today it was estimated that 25,000 persons had visited the temporary morgue on the covered pier at the foot of East Twenty-sixth street, set aside to receive the bodies of those who perished in the Washington place fire on Sat.u.r.day afternoon.--_Monday morning--second story._

The horror of the fire in the ten-story loft building at Washington place and Greene street late Sat.u.r.day afternoon, with its heavy toll of human lives, grows blacker each succeeding hour.--_Monday afternoon._

Of the 142 bodies in the morgue as a result of the Triangle Shirt Waist factory fire, all but fifty had been identified this morning.--_Monday afternoon._

On Tuesday other lines opened up for the rewrite man:

Sifting down the great ma.s.s of testimony at their disposal, city and county officials hoped today to draw closer to the source of responsibility for Sat.u.r.day's factory fire horror in which 142 persons lost their lives. Investigations started yesterday.--_Tuesday afternoon._

With all but twenty-eight of the victims of the Triangle Shirt Waist factory horror identified, District Attorney Whitman continues steadily compiling evidence. Funerals for scores of victims are being held today, while the relief fund, etc.--_Tuesday afternoon._

Borough President McAneny of Manhattan, the district attorney's staff, the fire marshal, the coroner and the state labor department are bending every energy toward fixing the blame for the loss of the 142 lives in the, etc.--_Tuesday afternoon._

Union labor, horrified by the full realization that the waste of human life in the Triangle Waist factory fire might have been saved had existing laws been enforced, today arranged for a monster demonstration of protest, etc.--_Tuesday afternoon._

And so the stories ran for many days until newspaper readers had lost all interest in the fire. Most of the stories were simply retellings of the original story with a new bit of information in the lead. People were ravenous for more details about the fire and the follow stories supplied them until they were satisfied. Rarely is a fire worth so many retellings.

A serious accident is often followed up in one or more editions. If many people are killed or injured, the revised list of dead or the present condition of the injured always furnishes material for a follow-up.

Sometimes the fixing of the blame, as in a railroad accident, or other resulting features are used as the basis of the rewriting.

In the case of a robbery the commonest material for a follow-up story is the resulting pursuit or capture. Very often a final report of the loss, the present condition of a robbed bank or public inst.i.tution, or perhaps the regaining of the booty, makes a feature for a new story. But usually the follow-up is concerned with the pursuit, capture, or trial. This is especially true if the original story has been told by an earlier paper and another later paper wishes to print a more up-to-date story on the robbery, such as:

MINOCQUA, Wis., Oct. 22.--It now begins to look as if the bandits who robbed the State Bank of Minocqua early Tuesday morning would make their escape with the booty. (This is followed by a re-telling of the entire story of the robbery and an account of the pursuit.)

The most usual follow-up of a murder story is interested in the pursuit, capture, or trial of the perpetrator of the deed. For example:

Following the discovery of the body of Pietro Barilla, an Italian, of Woodhaven, Long Island, who was stabbed to death by four men, presumably Black Hand members, in Lincoln Road, near Flatbush, early yesterday morning, the police arrested three men yesterday.

Very often the present condition of the victim of an attempted murder calls for a new story. The stories following the attempted murder of Mayor Gaynor of New York are good examples of the latter. If a mystery surrounds the crime a possible solution is grounds for a new story. The stories which might follow the unraveling of the mystery surrounding the fict.i.tious death of the grocer, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, would be second-day murder stories. The original story, let us say, was something like this:

James White, a groceryman, was found dying yesterday with a bullet wound in his abdomen, in the cellar of his grocery store at 1236 Park street.

The next story on the murder would be concerned with the unraveling of the mystery, thus:

The preliminary inquiry yesterday by Coroner John F. Donalds, into the mysterious death of James White, the Park street grocer, resulted in the conclusion that White was murdered.

And so the stories might run on day after day following the solution of the case like the succeeding chapters of a continued novel, and each one gives the synopsis of the preceding chapters in its lead, as every good follow-up story should do.

Suicide stories seldom offer material for follow-up stories unless there is some mystery surrounding the case. Sometimes the present condition of a resuscitated victim of attempted suicide or the disposition of the estate of a suicide offers material for rewriting.

Serious storms and floods are usually followed up for several days.

Readers are always interested in the present condition of the devastated region. Very often the list of dead and injured is revised from day to day, and any attempt to lend aid to the unfortunate victims is always a reason for a later story.

Any meetings, conferences, trials, conventions, or the like must be followed up day by day with succeeding stories. Each story is complete in itself, but each one adds one more chapter to the report of the meeting. This method of following a continued proceeding calls for a series of follow-up stories; examples of the stories that follow a continued legal trial will be given later under Court Reporting.

Many other ill.u.s.trations might be given of follow-up stories that appear daily in the newspapers. In the last a.n.a.lysis, the follow-up or the rewrite story is nothing more than an ordinary news story, and as such must be written in the same way. It begins with a lead which plays up a feature and answers the reader's questions about the subject; the body of the story runs along like the body of any news story. But it is different in being a later chapter of a previous account; while complete in itself, it must not only indicate the previous story, but must tell its most important facts for readers who may have missed the previous story. It is simply a news story which is tied to a previous story by a string of cause and effect.

=4. Following Up Related Subjects.=--In this connection it may be well to mention another kind of follow-up story that is usually written in connection with big news events. It is written to develop and follow up side lines of interest growing out of the main story. In its most usual form it is a statistical summary of events similar to the great event of the day--such as similar fires, similar railroad wrecks, etc., in the past. Any big story attracts so much attention among newspaper readers that the facts at hand are usually not sufficient to supply the public's demand for information on the subject. To satisfy these demands editors develop lines of interest growing out of the main event. They interview people concerning the event and concerning similar events; they describe similar events that have taken place in the past; they summarize and compare similar events in the past--in short, they follow up every line of interest opened up by the big story and write stories on the result.

These stories are of the nature of follow-up stories in that they grow out of, and develop, the main story in its greatest extent.

For example, the wreck of the ocean liner _t.i.tanic_ called for innumerable side stories because the public's interest demanded more facts than the newspapers had at hand to supply. Hence, the papers wrote up similar shipwrecks in the past, gathered together summaries of the world's greatest shipwrecks, interviewed people who had been in any way connected with shipwrecks or with any phase of this shipwreck, described glaciers and icebergs, estimated the depth of the ocean where the _t.i.tanic_ sank, described the White Star liner and other liners, pictured real or imaginary shipwrecks, and developed every other related subject. The real news in all this ma.s.s of material was very meager, but the related stories satisfied the greedy public and helped newspaper readers to understand and to picture the real significance of the meager news.

In the same way a disastrous fire, like the burning of the Iroquois Theater, calls for innumerable outgrowing stories. Even when the event reported in the main news story is not sufficiently important to call for related stories, it is often accompanied by a list (usually put in a box at the head of the story) of other similar events and their results.

These follow-up stories of related subjects are, in form, very much like feature stories, although they usually conform to the follow-up idea of mentioning in their leads the main news event to which they are related.

X

REPORTS OF SPEECHES

Every profession has its disagreeable tasks; journalism has perhaps more disagreeable tasks than any other profession. All of a reporter's work is not concerned with running down thrilling stories and writing them up in a whirl of breathless interest. Our readers demand other kinds of news, and it is the reporter's task to satisfy them faithfully. There is probably no phase of the work that is quite so irksome as the reporting of speeches, lectures, sermons, etc., and there is probably no phase of the work about which most reporters have fewer definite rules or ideas.

Read the reports of the same speech in two different papers and note the difference. They seldom contain the same things and more seldom do they tell what the speaker said, in the way and the spirit in which he said it. It is irksome work and difficult work to condense an hour's talk into three stickfuls, and few reporters know exactly how to go about it.

The report of a speech or a sermon or a lecture may come to a newspaper office in one of two ways. A copy of it may be sent to the paper or the reporter may have to go to hear the address and take notes on it. Very often the speaker kindly sends a printed or typewritten copy of his speech to the editor a few days in advance with the permission to release it--or print it--on a certain date, after the speech has been delivered in public. If the speech is to be printed in full, the task is a mere matter of editing and does not trouble the reporter. Very few speeches receive so much s.p.a.ce. The others must be condensed and put in shape for printing.

After all, the usual way to get a speech is to go to the public delivery of the speech and bring back a report of it. At first sight this is a difficult task and green reporters come back with a very poor resume.

However, a word or two of advice from the editor or some bitter experience eases the way. Some advice may be given here to prepare the would-be reporter beforehand.

Some reporters who know shorthand prefer to make a stenographic report of the entire speech and rearrange and condense it in the office. This method is advisable only in the case of speeches of the greatest importance; it is too laborious for ordinary purposes, since the account includes at most only a part of the speech. The best way, doubtless, to get a speech is to take notes on it. And yet this must be done properly or there is a danger of misinterpretation of statements or of undue emphasis upon any single part of the speech. The report of a speech should be as well balanced and logical as the speech itself, differing from the original only in length and the omission of details. The speech report must be accurate and truthful or the speaker may appear at the office in a day or two with blood in his eye. A few rules may be suggested as an aid to accuracy and truthfulness.

In the first place, do not try to get all the speech; do not try to get more than a small part of it--the important part. There are two ways of doing this. If the speech is well arranged and orderly it is easy to tell when the speaker has finished one sub-division and is beginning another. Each division and subdivision will naturally contain a topic sentence. Watch for the topic sentences and get them down with the briefest necessary explanation to make them clear. Political speeches or impromptu talks are, on the other hand, not always so logically arranged. Sometimes it is possible to get the topic sentences, but more often it is not. Then watch for the interesting or striking statements.

You will be aided in this by the audience about you. Whenever the speaker says anything unusually striking or of more than ordinary interest the audience will show it by signs of a.s.sent or dissent. Watch for these signs, even for applause--and take down the statement that was the cause. If the statement interested the original audience it will interest your readers. Naturally, mere oratorical trivialities must not be mistaken for striking statements.

When you get back to the office to write up the report of the speech you will feel the need of direct quotations--in fact, the length of your report will be determined by the number of direct quotations that you have to use in it--as well as by editorial dictum. It would be entirely wrong to quote any expressions of your own because they are somewhat like the speaker's statements, and it is impossible to quote anything less than a complete sentence in the report of a speech. Hence you will need complete sentences taken down verbatim in the exact words of the speaker. Make it a point to get complete sentences as you listen to the speech. Whenever a striking statement or an interesting part of the speech seems worth putting in your story get it down completely. You will find yourself writing most of the time because, while you are writing down one important sentence, the speaker will be uttering several more in explanation and may say something else of interest before you have finished writing down his first statement. Strict attention, a quick pencil, and a good memory are needed for this kind of work, but the reporting of speeches will lose its terrors after you have had a very small amount of practice.

Just as any news story begins with a lead and plays up its most striking fact in the first line, the report of a speech usually begins with the speaker's most striking or most important statement. As you are listening to his words watch for something striking for the lead--something that will catch the reader's eye and interest him. But you must exercise great care in selecting the statement for the lead.

Theoretically and practically it must be something in strict accordance with the entire content of the speech and, if possible, it should be the one statement that sums up the whole speech in the most concise way.

Somewhere in the discourse, at the beginning, at the end, or in some emphatic place, the speaker will usually sum up his complete ideas on the subject in a striking, concise way. Watch for this summary and get it down for the lead. However, there may be times when this summary, though concise, will be of little interest to the average reader and you will be forced to use some other striking statement. Then it is perfectly permissible to take any striking statement in the speech and use it for the lead, provided that the statement is directly connected with the rest of the discourse. But be fair to the speaker. Do not play up some chance remark as ill.u.s.trative of the entire utterance; don't bring in an aside as the most interesting thing in his speech. If a preacher forgets himself to the extent of expressing a chance political opinion, it would obviously be unfair to him for you to play up that remark as the summary of his sermon. Your readers would get a false impression and the preacher would be angry. If he considers the chance remark of real importance in his sermon he will back it up with other statements that will give you an excuse for using it. In brief, watch for the most interesting and most striking statement in the entire speech, and in selecting this statement be fair and just and try to avoid giving a false impression of the speaker or of the speech. If you follow this rule you will never be in any danger of getting your paper into difficulties.

Another rule in reporting lectures, speeches, etc., applies to the writing of all newspaper stories. Write your report at once while the speech is still fresh in your mind. Your report must preserve the logic and continuity of the speech--it must be a fair resume. Your notes will be at best mere jottings of chance sentences here and there. Do not allow them to get cold and lose their continuity. Write the report at once.

The writing of the report of a speech, lecture, or sermon is the same whether it is taken from a printed or stenographic copy of the discourse or from notes. It is perhaps easier to write from your notes because you have the important parts of the speech picked out, ready for use, by the aid of the rest of the audience. Before you can resume a printed copy of the speech you must go through it and pick out the important sentences which you wish to quote and decide upon the most striking statement for the lead. There is no definite rule that can be followed in this except to take the topic sentences whenever they are stated with sufficient clearness. When you have decided on the statements that you wish to quote you have really reduced the speech to a form practically identical with the notes taken from verbal utterance, and the writing in either case is the same.

The lead of the report is very much like the lead of any other news story--for the report of a speech is really a news story. As soon as the speech is mentioned, the reader unconsciously asks a number of questions about it and the reporter must answer them in the first sentence. As in any other news story the questions are: _What?_ _Who?_ _Where?_ _When?_ and perhaps _How?_ and _Why?_ Reduced to the case of the speech report, they amount to what did he say, who said it, where did he say it, when, and perhaps how and why did he say it. You may answer the _what_ by giving the subject of the discourse or by giving a striking statement in it. In every report the answer to some one of the questions is of greater interest and must be placed in the first line. If the speaker is of more than ordinary prominence his name makes a good beginning. If an ordinary person makes a speech at some meeting of prominence the _when_ or _where_ takes precedence over his name. But in most cases the reporter will find that none of these things is of sufficient importance for the beginning. Most public utterances that he will be called upon to report will be made by ordinary men in ordinary places and at ordinary times, and the most interesting part of the story will be what was said.

Sometimes it suffices to give the t.i.tle of the speech, but more often a striking statement from the speech makes the best beginning. However, although the speaker, the time, the place, etc., are overshadowed in importance by the subject or content of what the speaker says, they must be included in the same sentence with the t.i.tle or striking statement.