Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence Part 2

Unlike any other imaginable piece of writing, the news story discloses its most interesting facts first. It does not lead the reader up to a startling bit of news by a tantalizing suspense in an effort to build up a surprise for him; it tells its most thrilling content first and trusts to his interest to lead him on through the details that should logically precede the real news. Therefore every editor admonishes his reporters "to give the gist of the news first and the details later."

There are other reasons for this peculiar reversal of the logical order of narrative. Few readers have time to read the whole of every story, and yet they want to get the news--in the shortest possible time.

Therefore the newspaper very kindly tells the important part of each story at the beginning. Then if the reader cares to hear the details he can read the rest of the story; but he gets the news, anyway. Again, if the exigencies of making up the stories into a paper of mechanically limited s.p.a.ce require that a story be cut down, the editor may slash off a paragraph or two at the end without depriving the story of its interest. Imagine the difficulty of cutting down a story that is told in its logical order! If the real news of the story were in the last paragraph it would go in the slas.h.i.+ng, and what would be left? Whereas, if the gist of the story comes first the editor may run any number of paragraphs or even the first paragraph alone and still have a complete story.

The arrangement of news stories in American newspapers is thus a very natural one, resulting from the exigencies of the business. Just how to fit every story to this arrangement is a difficult task. However, there are certain rules that the reporter may apply to each story, and these are very simple.

In the first place, almost every story has a feature--there is some one thing in it that is out of the ordinary, something that gives it interest and news value beyond the interest in the incident behind it.

No two stories have the same interesting features; if they had, only one of them would be worth printing and that would be the first. This extraordinary feature the reporter must see at once. If a building burns he must see quickly what incident in the occurrence will be of interest to readers who are reading of many fires every day. If John Smith falls off a street car the reporter must discover some interesting fact in connection with Mr. Smith's misfortune that will be new and attractive to readers who do not know John and are bored with accounts of other Smiths' accidents. The accident itself may be interesting, but the part of the accident that is out of the ordinary--the thing that gives the accident news value--is the feature of the story, and the reporter must tell it first.

Thoroughly determined to tell the most interesting part, the gist, of his story in the first paragraph, the reporter must remember that there are certain other things about the incident that the reader wants to know just as quickly. There are certain questions which arise in the reader's mind when the occurrence is suggested, and these questions must be answered as quickly as they are asked. The questions usually take the form of _when?_ _where?_ _what?_ _who?_ _how?_ _why?_ If a man falls off the street car we are eager to know at once who he was, although we probably do not know him, anyway; where it happened; when it happened; how he fell; and why he fell. If there is a fire we immediately ask what burned; where it was; when it burned; how it burned; and what caused it to burn. And the reporter must answer these questions with the same breath that tells us that a man fell off the car or that there was any fire at all.

The effort to answer these questions at once has led to the peculiar form of introduction characteristic of every newspaper story. Newspaper people call it the lead. It is really nothing but the statement of the briefest possible answers to all these questions in one sentence or one short paragraph. It tells the whole story in its baldest aspects and aims to satisfy the reader who wants only the gist of the story and does not care for the details. When all his questions have been answered in one breath he is ready to read the details one at a time, but he won't be satisfied if he must read all about how the fire was discovered before he is told what building burned, when it burned, etc. For example:

Fire of unknown origin caused the practical destruction of the famous old "Crow's Nest," at Tenth and Cedar streets, perhaps the best known and oldest landmark in the Second ward, yesterday afternoon.--_Milwaukee Free Press._

This is the lead of an ordinary news story--a newspaper report of a fire. The lead begins with "Fire" because the story has no unusual feature--no element in it that is more interesting than the fact that there was a fire. The reporter considers "Fire" the most important part of his story and begins with it. As soon as we read the word "Fire" we ask, "When?"--"Where?"--"What?"--"Why?"--"How?" The reporter answers us in the same sentence with his announcement, "yesterday afternoon"--"at Tenth and Cedar Streets"--"the famous old 'Crow's Nest,' perhaps the best known and oldest landmark in the Second ward"--"unknown origin."

_How_ is not worth answering, in this case, beyond the statement that the destruction was practically complete. Thus the reporter has told us his bit of news and answered our most obvious questions about it at the very beginning of his story--in one sentence. According to newspaper rules this is a good lead. The order of the answers will be considered later. For the present we are concerned only with the facts that the lead must contain.

V

THE SIMPLE FIRE STORY

The simplest news story is the story which has no feature--which has no fact in it more important than the incident which it reports--e.g., the fire at the end of the last chapter. If we recall the various elements of news value we note that any incident may be given greater news value by the presence of some unusual or interesting feature--a great loss of life, an unusual time, a strikingly large loss of property, or simply a well-known name. Such a story is called a story with a feature, because its interest depends not so much on the incident itself as upon the unusual feature within the incident. On the other hand, many news stories do not have features. Many stories are worth printing simply because of the incident which they report, without any unusual feature within them. For example, a building may burn with no loss of life, no great loss of property, and no striking occurrence in connection with the burning. Such a fire is worth reporting, but there is no fact in the story more interesting than the fact that there was a fire; the story has no feature.

The leads of these two kinds of stories are different. When a story has a feature it is customary to play up that feature in the first line of the lead. If the story has no feature, is simply the record of a commonplace event, the lead merely announces the incident and answers the reader's questions about it.

The commonest of featureless stories is the simple fire story in which nothing out of the ordinary happens, no one is killed, no striking rescues take place, and no tremendous amount of property is destroyed.

This may be taken as typical of all featureless stories. The reporter, in writing a report of such a fire, merely answers in the lead the questions _when_, _where_, _what_, _why_, and perhaps _how_, that the reader asks concerning the fire. The most striking part of the story is that there was a fire; hence the story begins with "Fire." For example:

Fire today wrecked the top of the six-story warehouse at 393 to 395 Was.h.i.+ngton street, used by the United States army as a medical supply store-room for the Department of the East. Capt. Edwin Wolf, who is in charge of the warehouse, says the loss on tents, blankets, cots, and other bedding stored on the floors of the building was large.--_New York Mail._

As one reads down through the rest of the story he finds nothing more striking than the fact that there was a fire. Therefore there is no particular feature. No one was killed; no one was injured; the loss was not extraordinary for a New York fire--nothing in the story is of greater interest than the mere fact that there was a fire. Hence the story begins with the word "Fire." Notice that it does not begin "A fire" or "The fire"--for the simple reason that the word _fire_ does not need an article before it. The editor will also tell you that it is not considered good to begin a story with an article, for the beginning is the most important part of a story and it is foolish to waste that advantageous place on unimportant words.

The first word tells the reader that there has been a fire. He immediately asks where?--what burned?--when?--how much was lost? And the reporter proceeds to answer his questions in their order of importance.

The reporter who wrote this story apparently thought that the time was of greatest importance and slipped it in at once--"today." He might just as well have left the time until the end of the sentence because it is not of very great interest. He considers the question "_Where_" of next importance, and answers with "the top of the six-story warehouse at 393 to 395 Was.h.i.+ngton Street." The question "what?" he answers with a clause, "used by the United States army as a medical supply store-room for the Department of the East." He does not try to answer the question "_why_?" because, as the rest of the story tells us, no one knew exactly what caused the fire. And as for the "_How_?" there is nothing extraordinary in the way that it burned beyond the fact that it burned.

Thus, in one sentence, he has answered all four questions about the fire, except a little query concerning the amount of the loss. That he considers worth a separate sentence of details.

This is not a perfect lead. Many editors would consider it faulty, but it ill.u.s.trates one way of writing the lead of a featureless fire story.

Obviously there are faults; for instance, the time is given an undue amount of emphasis and the cause is omitted.

Suppose that we construct another lead from the same story--a lead which would be more in accordance with the logic of newspaper writing. We shall begin with the word "fire," but after it we shall slip in a little mention of the cause since to the reader not directly acquainted with the property that point is always of the greatest importance. Then we shall tell where the fire was and after that what was burned. And last of all we shall give the time since that is of least importance to the average reader. This would be the result:

Fire of unknown origin wrecked the top of the six-story warehouse at 393-395 Was.h.i.+ngton street, used by the United States army as a medical supply store-room for the Department of the East, destroying a large number of tents, blankets, cots, and other bedding, today.

We might as well have put the _what_ before the _where_ or altered the lead in any other way. But we would always begin with the word "fire"

and answer all the questions that the reader might ask--in one short simple sentence. This const.i.tutes our lead. We have told the casual reader what he wants to know about the fire. We give him more details about the fire if he wants to read them, but after we have stated the case clearly in the lead we no longer reckon his time so carefully and allow ourselves some lat.i.tude in the telling. After the lead we begin the story from the beginning and tell it in its logical order from start to finish, always bearing in mind that the editor may chop off a paragraph or two at the end.

Hence the second paragraph of the story as it appeared in _The Mail_ begins:

John Smith, a man employed in the stock-room on the sixth floor, saw smoke rolling out of one corner and notified other employees in the building, while Patrolman Hogan turned in an alarm.

We are back at the beginning now and telling things as they came. The next paragraph of the story tells us how they fought the fire, and the third tells us how they finally brought it under control. The last paragraph of the story reads:

There are three such warehouses in the country, one at St. Louis, another at San Francisco, but the one in this city is by far the largest. In it are kept supplies for the Departments of the East, Gulf, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines.

The editor of _The Mail_ had plenty of s.p.a.ce that day and saw fit to run this last paragraph, but we should not have lost much had he chopped it off. Perhaps the reporter's copy contained still another paragraph telling about Captain Wolf, but that did not pa.s.s the editorial pencil.

Even more of the story might have been slashed without depriving us of much of the interesting news.

Judging from the above story a newspaper account is divided into two separate and independent parts: the lead and the detailed account. The lead is written for the casual reader and contains all the necessary facts about the fire; it may stand alone and const.i.tute a story in itself. The detailed account is written for the reader who wants to hear more about the incident, and is written in the logical order of events--with an eye to the danger of the editor's pencil threatening the last paragraphs. In other words, the reporter tells his story briefly in one paragraph and then goes back and tells it all over again in a more detailed way. If the story is of sufficient importance the second telling may not be sufficient and he may go back a third time to the beginning and tell it again with still greater detail--but that is another matter. For the present we shall consider only the lead and the first detailed account.

There are certain other points to be noticed in the report of a featureless fire. Under no condition should it begin with the time. Why?

Because, unless the time is of extreme interest, no one cares particularly when the fire occurred. And if the time is of great interest--as, for instance, if a church should burn while the congregation is in it--then the time becomes a feature to be played up and the story is no longer a featureless story. We are now considering stories in which nothing is of greater interest than the mere fact that there was a fire.

The same is true of the location. Who cares what street the fire was on until he knows more about the fire? If the location were of such significant importance as to be played up, the story would no longer be a featureless story.

The paragraphing is also important. Since the lead is in itself a separate part of the story it should always be paragraphed separately.

Do not let the beginning of the detailed account lap over into the lead, and do not introduce into the first paragraph any facts which are not absolutely a part of the lead--that is, facts that are absolutely essential to a general knowledge of the fire. When once you begin to tell the story in detail tell it logically and paragraph it logically.

Do not tell us that John Smith discovered the fire and that the loss is $500 in the same paragraph. Take up each point separately and treat it fully before you leave it--then begin a new paragraph for the next item.

To take a hypothetical case, suppose that misfortune visits the home of John H. Jones, who lives at 79 Liberty Street. A defective flue sets his house on fire and it burns to the ground. By inquiry we find that the house is worth about $4,000 and is fully insured.

There is nothing particularly striking about the story. We are sorry for Mr. Jones, but many houses worth $4,000 are set on fire by poor chimneys and many more houses burn down. No one was hurt, no one was killed; the most striking part of it all is that there was a fire. We would begin with the word "Fire." Perhaps our readers would be most interested in the cause of the fire and we shall tell them that first.

Then we shall tell them what burned, when it burned, and where it stood.

There is nothing else that a casual reader would want to know and the lead would read:

Fire starting in a defective chimney destroyed the residence of John H. Jones, 79 Liberty street, at midnight last night, causing a loss of $4,000, covered by insurance.

Our casual reader is satisfied. For the reader who wishes to know more about the fire we add a paragraph or two of detail. First, we may tell him who discovered the fire; then how the Jones family managed to escape; and after that how the fire was extinguished, and we might slip in a paragraph explaining just what trouble in the chimney made a fire possible. The editor may chop off any number of paragraphs or cut the story down to the lead, and yet our readers will get the facts and know just exactly what was the reason for the fire bell and the red sky at midnight last night.

VI

THE FEATURE FIRE STORY

A fire story without a feature begins with "Fire" because there is nothing in the story more interesting than the fact that there has been a fire. Such was the case in the burning of John Jones's house in the last chapter. But just as soon as any part of the story becomes more interesting than the fact that there was a fire, the story is no longer featureless--it is a fire story with a feature, or, for the purposes of our study, _a feature fire story_. This feature may be related to the story in one of two ways. In the first place, the answer to some one of the reader's questions may be the feature--e.g., the answer to _when_, _where_, _what_, _how_, _why_, _who_. On the other hand, the feature may be in some unexpected attendant circ.u.mstance that the reader would not think of; for instance, loss of life, an interesting rescue, or something of that sort. Such a distinction is entirely arbitrary and would not be considered in a newspaper office, but it will make the matter simpler for the purposes of study.

A. FEATURES IN ANSWERS TO READER'S CUSTOMARY QUESTIONS

(_When_, _Where_, _What_, _How_, _Why_, _Who_).