Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 1

Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence.

by Grant Milnor Hyde.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this book is to instruct the prospective newspaper reporter in the way to write those stories which his future paper will call upon him to write, and to help the young cub reporter and the struggling correspondent past the perils of the copyreader's pencil by telling them how to write clean copy that requires a minimum of editing.

It is not concerned with the _why_ of the newspaper business--the editor may attend to that--but with the _how_ of the reporter's work. And an ability to write is believed to be the reporter's chief a.s.set. There is no s.p.a.ce in this book to dilate upon newspaper organization, the work of the business office, the writing of advertis.e.m.e.nts, the principles of editorial writing, or the how and why of newspaper policy and practice, as it is. These things do not concern the reporter during the first few months of his work, and he will learn them from experience when he needs them. Until then, his usefulness depends solely upon his ability to get news and to write it.

There are two phases of the work which every reporter must learn: how to get the news and how to write it. The first he can pick up easily by actual newspaper experience--if nature has endowed him with "a nose for news." The writing of the news he can learn only by hard practice--a year's hard practice on some papers--and it is generally conceded that practice in writing news stories can be secured at home or in the cla.s.sroom as effectively as practice in writing short stories, plays, business letters, or any other special form of composition. Newspaper experience may aid the reporter in learning how to write his stories, but a newspaper apprentices.h.i.+p is not absolutely necessary. However, whether he is studying the trade of newspaper writing in his home, in a cla.s.sroom, or in the city room of a daily paper, he needs positive instruction in the English composition of the newspaper office--rather than haphazard criticism and a deluge of "don'ts." Hence this book is concerned primarily with the writing of the news.

Successful newspaper reporting requires both an ability to write good English and an ability to write good English in the conventional newspaper form. And there is a conventional form for every kind of newspaper story. Many editors of the present day are trying to break away from the conventional form and to evolve a looser and more natural method of writing news stories. The results are often bizarre and sometimes very effective. Certainly originality in expression adds much to the interest of newspaper stories, and many a good piece of news is ruined by a bald, dry recital of facts. Just as the good reporter is always one who can give his yarns a distinctive flavor, great newspaper stories are seldom written under the restriction of rules. But no young reporter can hope to attain success through originality and defiance of rules until he has first mastered the fundamental principles of newspaper writing. He can never expect to write "the story of the year"

until he has learned to handle everyday news without burying the gist of his stories--any more than an artist can hope to paint a living portrait until he has learned, with the aid of rules, to draw the face of a plaster block-head. Hence the emphasis upon form and system in this book. And, whatever the form may be, the embodiment must be clear, concise, grammatical English; that is the excuse for the many axioms of simple English grammar that are introduced side by side with the study of the newspaper form.

The author offers this book as the result of personal newspaper experience and of his work as instructor in cla.s.ses in newspaper writing at the University of Wisconsin. Every item that is offered is the result of an attempt to correct the mistakes that have appeared most often in the papers of students who are trying to do newspaper writing in the cla.s.sroom. The seemingly disproportionate emphasis upon certain branches of the subject and the constant repet.i.tion of certain simple principles are to be excused by the purpose of the book--to be a text-book in the course of study worked out in this school of journalism. The use of the fire story as typical of all newspaper stories and as a model for all newspaper writing is characteristic of this method of instruction. Four chapters are devoted to the explanation of a single principle which any reader could grasp in a moment, because experience has shown that an equivalent of four chapters of study and practice is required to teach the student the application of this principle and to fix it in his mind so thoroughly that he will not forget it in his later work of writing more complicated stories. It is felt that the beginner needs and must have the detailed explanation, the constant reiteration and some definite rules to guide him in his practice. Hence the emphasis upon the conventional form. Since, in the application of the newspaper principle of beginning with the gist of the story, the structure of the lead is of greater importance than the rest of the story, this book devotes the greater part of its discussion to the lead.

The suggestions for practice are attached in an attempt to give the young newspaper man some _positive_ instruction. Most reporters are instructed by a system of "don'ts," growled out by busy editors; most correspondents receive no instruction at all--a positive suggestion now and then cannot but help them both. Practice is necessary in the study of any form of writing; these suggestions for practice embody the method of practice used in this school of journalism. The examples are taken from representative papers of the entire country to show the student how the stories are actually written in newspaper offices.

Madison, Wisconsin, June 3, 1912.

NEWSPAPER REPORTING AND CORRESPONDENCE

I

GATHERING THE NEWS

Unlike almost any other profession, that of a newspaper reporter combines two very different activities--the gathering of news and the writing of news. Part of the work must be done in the office and part of it outside on the street. At his desk in the office a reporter is engaged in the literary, or pseudo-literary, occupation of writing news stories; outside on the street he is a detective gathering news and hunting for elusive facts to be combined later into stories. Although the two activities are closely related, each requires a different sort of ability and a different training. In a newspaper office the two activities are rarely separated, but a beginner must learn each duty independent of the other. This book will not attempt to deal with both; it will confine itself mainly to one phase, the pseudo-literary activity of writing news stories.

However, introductory to the discussion of the writing of newspaper stories, we may glance at the other side of the newspaper writer's work--the gathering of the news. Where the newspaper gets its news and how it gets its news can be learned only by experience, for it differs in different cities and with different papers. But an outline of the background of news-gathering may a.s.sist us in writing the news after it is gathered and ready for us to write.

=1. Reporter vs. Correspondent.=--There are two capacities in which one may write news stories for a paper. He may work on the staff as a regular reporter or he may supply news from a distance as a correspondent. In the one case he works under the personal supervision of a city editor and spends his entire time at the regular occupation of gathering and writing news. As a correspondent he works in a distant city, under the indirect supervision of the city, telegraph, or state editor, and sends in only the occasional stories that seem to be of interest to his paper. In either case the same rules apply to his news gathering and to his news writing. And in either case the length of his employment depends upon his ability to turn in clean copy in the form in which his paper wishes to print the news. Both the reporter and the correspondent must write their stories in the same form and must look at news and the sources of news from almost the same point of view.

Whatever is said of the reporter applies equally to the correspondent.

=2. Expected and Unexpected News.=--The daily news may be divided into two cla.s.ses from the newspaper's point of view: expected and unexpected news. Expected news includes all stories of which the paper has a previous knowledge. Into this cla.s.s fall all meetings, speeches, sermons, elections, athletic contests, social events, and daily happenings that do not come unexpectedly. They are the events that are announced beforehand and tipped off to the paper in time for the editor to send out a reporter to cover them personally. These events are of course recorded in the office, and each day the editor has a certain number of them, a certain amount of news that he is sure of. Each day he looks over his book to note the events that are to take place during that day and sends out his reporters to cover them.

The other cla.s.s includes the stories that break unexpectedly. Accidents, deaths, fires, storms, and other unexpected happenings come without warning and the reporting of them cannot be arranged for in advance.

These are the stories that the paper is most anxious to get and the things for which the whole staff always has its eyes and ears open.

Seldom are they heard of in time for the paper to have them covered personally, and the reporting of such stories becomes a separate sort of work--the gathering and sorting of the facts that can be obtained only from chance witnesses.

=3. News Sources.=--There are certain sources from which the paper gets most of its tips of expected events and its knowledge of unexpected events. These every editor knows about. The courts, the public records, the public offices, the churches, and the schools furnish a great many of the tips of expected news. The police stations, the fire stations, the hospitals, and the morgues furnish most of the tips of unexpected news. Whenever an event is going to happen, or whenever an unexpected occurrence does happen, a notice of it is to be found in some one of these sources. Such a notice or a casual word from any one is called a "tip" and indicates the possibility of securing a story. The securing of the story is another matter. A would-be reporter may get good practice from studying the stories in the daily papers and trying to discover or imagine from what source the original news tip came. He will soon find that certain cla.s.ses of stories always come from certain sources and that there is a perceptible amount of routine evident in the accounts of the most unexpected occurrences.

=4. Runs and a.s.signments.=--Between the news tip and the finished copy for the compositor there is a vast amount of news gathering, which falls to the lot of the reporter. This is handled by a system of runs and special a.s.signments. A reporter usually has his own run, or beat, on which he gathers news. His run may cover a certain number of police stations or the city hall or any group of regular news sources. Each day he must visit the various sources of news on his beat and gather the tips and whatever facts about the stories behind the tips that he can.

The tips that he secures furnish him with clues to the stories, and it is his business to get the facts behind all of the tips on his beat and to write them up, unless a tip opens up a story that is too big for him to handle alone without neglecting his beat.

a.s.signments are used to cover the stories that do not come in through the regular sources, and to handle the big stories that are unearthed on the regular beats. The editor turns over to the reporter the tip that he has received and instructs him to go out and get the facts. A paper's best reporters are used almost entirely on a.s.signments, and when they go out after a story they practically become detectives. They follow every clue that the tip suggests and every clue that is opened up as they progress; they hunt down the facts until they are reasonably sure that they have secured the whole story. The result may not be worth writing, or it may be worth a place on the front page, but the reporter must get to the bottom of it. Whether on a beat or on an a.s.signment every reporter must have his ears open for a tip of some unexpected story and must secure the facts or inform the editor at once. It is in this way that a paper gets a scoop, or beat, on its rivals by printing a story before the other papers have heard of it.

=5. Interviews for Facts.=--To cover an a.s.signment and secure the facts of a story is not at all easy. If the reporter could be a personal witness of the happening which he is to report, the task would be simpler. But, outside the case of expected events, he rarely hears of the occurrence until after it is past and the excitement has subsided.

Then he must find the persons who witnessed the occurrence or who know the facts, and get the story from them. Perhaps he has to see a dozen people to get the information he wants. Getting facts from people in this way is called interviewing--interviewing for facts, as distinguished from formal interviewing for the purpose of securing a statement or an opinion that is to be printed with the name of the man who utters it. Although a dozen interviews may be necessary for a single story, not one of them is mentioned in the story, for they are of no importance except in the facts that they supply.

For example, suppose a reporter is sent out to get the story of a fire that has started an hour or two before he goes on duty. All that his editor gives him is the tip from the fire department, or from some other source, of a fire at such-and-such an address. When he arrives at the scene there is nothing left but smoldering ruins with perhaps an engine throwing a stream on the smoking debris and a few by-standers still loitering about. He can see with his own eyes what kind of building has burned, and how completely it has been destroyed. A by-stander may be able to tell him who occupied the building or what it was used for, but he must hunt for some one else who can give him the exact facts that his paper wants. Perhaps he can find the tenant and learn from him what his loss has been. The tenant can give him the name of the owner and may be able to tell him something about the origin of the fire. He must find the owner to get the value of the building and the amount of insurance carried. Perhaps he cannot find any of these people and must ask the fire chief or some one else to give him what facts and estimates he can.

If the fire is at all serious he must find out who was killed or injured and get their names and addresses and the nature of their injury or the manner of their death. Perhaps he can talk to some of the people who had narrow escapes, or interview the friends or relatives of the dead. Everywhere he turns new clues open up, and he must follow each one of them in turn until he is sure that he has all the facts.

=6. Point of View.=--The task would be easy if every one could tell the reporter just the facts that his paper wants. But in the confusion every one is excited and fairly bubbling over with rumors and guesses which may later turn out to be false. Each person who is interested in the incident sees and tells it only from his own point of view. Obviously the reporter's paper does not want the facts from many different points of view, nor even from the point of view of the fire department, of the owner, or of the woman who was rescued from the third floor. The paper wants the story from a single point of view--the point of view of an uninterested spectator. Consequently the reporter must get the facts through interviews with a dozen different people, discount possible exaggeration and falsity due to excitement, make allowances for the different points of view, harmonize conflicting statements, and sift from the ma.s.s what seems to him to be the truth. Then he must write the story from the uninterested point of view of the public, which wants to hear the exact facts of the fire told in an unprejudiced way. Never does the story mention any of the interviews behind it except when the reporter is afraid of some statement and wants to put the responsibility upon the person who gave it to him. And so the finished story that we read in the next morning's paper is the composite story of the fire chief, the owner, the tenant, the man who discovered the fire, the widow who was driven from her little flat, the little girl who was carried down a ladder through the smoke, the man who lost everything he had in the world, and the cynic who watched the flames from behind the fireline--all ma.s.sed together and sifted and retold in an impersonal way from the point of view of a by-stander who has been everywhere through the flames and has kept his brain free from the terror and excitement of it all.

The same is true of every story that is printed in a newspaper. Every story must be secured in the same way--whether it is the account of a business transaction, a bank robbery, a political scandal, a murder, a reception, or a railroad wreck. Seldom is it possible to find any one person who knows all the facts just as the newspaper wants them, and many a story that is worth but a stickful in the first edition is the result of two hours' running about town, half a dozen telephone calls, and a dozen interviews. That is the way the news is gathered, and that is the part of the reporter's work that he must learn by experience. But after all the gathering is finished and he has the facts, the writing of the story remains. If the reporter knows how to write the facts when he has them, his troubles are cut in half, for nowadays a reporter who writes well is considered a more valuable a.s.set than one who cannot write and simply has a nose for news.

=7. News-Gathering Agencies.=--This account of news gathering is of course told from the point of view of the reporter. Naturally it a.s.sumes a different aspect in the editor's eyes. Much of the day's news does not have to be gathered at all. A steady stream of news flows in ready for use from the great news-gathering agencies, the a.s.sociated Press, the United Press, the City Press, etc., and from correspondents. Many stories are merely summaries of speeches, bulletins, announcements, pamphlets and other printed matter that comes to the editorial office, and many stories come already written. Almost everybody is looking for publicity in these days and the editor does not always have to hunt the news with an army of ferrets. Cooperation in news gathering has simplified the whole matter. But it all has to be written and edited.

That is why great reporters are no longer praised for their cleverness in worming their way to elusive facts, but for their ability to write a good story. That is why we no longer hear so much about beats and scoops but more about clean copy and "literary masterpieces."

=8. How the Correspondent Works.=--The correspondent gathers news very much as the reporter does, but he does it without the help of a city editor. He must be his own director and keep his own book of tips, for he has no one to make out his a.s.signments beforehand. He has to watch for what news he can get by himself and send it to his paper of his own accord, except occasionally when his paper instructs him to cover a particularly large story. But he gets his tips and runs down his facts just as a reporter does. Just as much alertness and just as much ability to write are required of him.

The correspondent's work is made more difficult by what is called news values. Distance affects the importance of the facts that he secures and the length of the stories he writes. He must weigh every event for its interest to readers a hundred or a thousand miles away. What may be of immense importance in his community may have no interest at all for readers outside that community. He must see everything with the eyes of a stranger, and this must influence his whole work of news gathering and news writing. This matter will be taken up at greater length in the next chapter.

=9. Correspondent's Relation to His Paper.=--The relations of a correspondent to the paper or news a.s.sociation to which he is sending news can best be learned by experience. Every paper has different rules for its correspondents and different directions in regard to the sort of news it wants. The rules regarding the mailing of copy and the sending of stories or queries by telegraph are usually sent out in printed form by each individual paper to its correspondents. But while gathering news and writing stories for a distant paper, a correspondent must always regard himself as a reporter and write his stories in the form in which they are to appear in print if he wishes to remain correspondent for any length of time. The following rules are taken from the "INSTRUCTIONS TO CORRESPONDENTS" sent out on a printed card to the correspondents of the St. Louis _Star_:

QUERY BY WIRE ON ALL STORIES you consider are worth telegraphing, unless you are absolutely certain _The Star_ wants you to send the story without query, or in case of a big story breaking suddenly near edition time. If you have not time to query, get a reply and send such matter as might be ordered before the next edition time; send the story in the shortest possible number of words necessary to tell it, asking if additional matter is desired.

Write your queries so they can be understood. Never send a "blind" query. If John Smith, a confirmed bachelor, whose age is 80 years, elopes with and marries the daughter of the woman who jilted him when he was a youth, say so in as few words as possible, but be sure to convey the dramatic news worth of the story in your query. Do not say, "Bachelor elopes with girl, daughter of woman he knew a long time ago." In itself the story which this query tells might be worth printing, but it would not be half so good a story as the elopement of John Smith, 80, bachelor, woman hater, with the daughter of his old sweetheart.

When a good story breaks close to edition time and the circ.u.mstances justify it, use the long-distance telephone, but first be reasonably certain _The Star_ will not get the story from another source.

Write your stories briefly. _The Star_ desires to remunerate its correspondents according to the worth of a story and not for so many words. One good story of 200 words with the right "punch"

in the introduction is worth a dozen strung over as many dozen pages of copy paper with the real story in the last paragraph of each. Tell your story in simple, every-day conversational words: quit when you have finished. Relegate the details. Unless it is a case of identification in a murder mystery, or some similar big story, no one cares about the color of the man's hair. Get the princ.i.p.al facts in the first paragraph--stop soon after.

Send as much of your stuff as possible by mail, especially if you have the story in the late afternoon and are near enough to St. Louis to reach _The Star_ by 9 o'clock the next morning. If necessary, send the letter special delivery.

Don't stop working on a good story when you have all the facts; if there are photographs to be obtained, get the photographs, especially if the princ.i.p.als in the story are persons of standing, and more especially if they are women.

Correspondents will appreciably increase their worth to _The Star_ and enhance their earning capacity by observing these rules.

II

NEWS VALUES