Chapter IV: Part II: The News Story (2)

=80. Questioning Everyone.=--Because of these sharp discrepancies in men's natures and the fact that everyone sees an event from his own individual angle, it is necessary for a reporter to question everybody in any way connected with a story. He should see not only Mr. and Mrs. Davidson, if possible, but other witnesses of the shooting, acquaintances in the neighborhood, the servants in the house, and anyone else, no matter how humble, likely in any way to be connected with or to have knowledge of the occurrence. Oftentimes a janitor, a maid, or a chauffeur will divulge facts that the mistress or the detective bureau would not disclose for large sums of money. Frequently a child in the yard or on the back steps will give invaluable information. This is particularly true when the older persons are attempting to conceal facts or are too much excited from a death or an accident to talk. Children usually are less unstrung by distressing events and can give a more connected account. Moreover, they are almost always willing to talk, and they generally try to tell the truth.

=81. A Person's Previous Record.=--It is also well to inquire particularly about the past history or the previous record of the person involved. If the woman is a divorcee or the man an ex-convict, or if one of the children previously has been arraigned in police court for delinquency, or if any one of the participants has ever been drawn into public notice, such items will be worth much in identifying the characters in the story. If the man whose house is burning lost another house, well insured, a year ago; if the widow has married secretly her chauffeur two months after her husband's sudden death from ptomaine poisoning; if the man who spoke last night was the preacher who declared all protestant churches will some day return to the confessional;--if such facts can be obtained, they will add greatly to the interest and the value of the story, and the reporter should make every effort to obtain them. Their interest lies, of course, either in the fact that they aid the public in identifying the persons, or that they provide material for interesting conjectures as to probable results. Sometimes, indeed, this correlation of present and past facts grows so important that it becomes the main story.

=82. Full Details.=--While questioning different persons in an attempt to get all the facts, one should take care to record all details. It is far easier to throw away unneeded material when writing up the events than to return to the scene for neglected information. In particular, one should learn the name and address of every person in any way connected with the story, no matter how much trouble it may require to get the information. A man who is merely incidental at the beginning of the inquiry may prove of prime importance an hour later or in the follow-up next day. Even the telephone number of persons likely in any way to become prominent--or where such persons may be reached by telephone--should be obtained. For, try as one will to get all the facts, one often needs to get additional information after returning to the office. In such a plight, it is of great value to know where a man may be reached who does not have a telephone in his own home. Pictures, too, of the persons concerned are valuable. The news-reading public likes illustrations, and whether the photograph is or is not used, it is easily returnable by next day's mail. All papers promise to return photographs unharmed.

=83. Getting Names Correctly.=--It would seem unnecessary to urge the necessity of getting initials and street addresses and of spelling names correctly; yet so many newspaper men err here that specific attention must be directed to it. Numerous libel suits have been started because a reporter got an initial or a street address wrong and there happened to be in the city another person with the printed name and street address. Even if the story does not contain cause for libel, a person whose name has been misspelled never quite forgives a journal for getting it wrong. The reporter should remember that many of the Smiths in the world are Smythes in print and many of the Catherines spell it Katharyne in the city directory. And such persons are sensitive.

=84. Speeches.=--In covering speeches the reporter should make an effort to get advance copies of what the speaker intends to say,--and a photograph of him if he is an important personage. A large per cent of the impassioned and seemingly spontaneous bursts of oratory that one hears on church, lecture, and political platforms are but verbal reproductions of typewritten manuscript in the speaker's inside coat pocket, and if the newspaper man will ask for carbon copies of the oratory, the lecturer will be glad to provide them in advance,--in order to have himself quoted correctly. He will also be glad to provide the photograph. These advance copies of speeches are called "release" stories. That is, they are marked at the top of the first page, "Release, June 12, 9:30 P.M.," meaning that no publication shall be made of that material before 9:30 P.M. of June 12. Newspapers always regard scrupulously a release date, and a reporter need never hesitate to give his word that publication of speeches, messages, and reports will be withheld until after delivery. An editor of a paper in the Middle West once thought to scoop the world by printing the President's message to Congress the evening before its delivery, but he was so promptly barred from the telegraphic wires thereafter that he paid dearly for his violation of professional honor. With these advance copies of speeches in his possession the reporter may write at his own convenience his account of the lecture; or if he is rushed--and has the permission of the city editor--he may even stay away from the meeting. On the other hand, if the speaker is of national importance, it may be well to consult with the city editor about going out fifty miles or more to catch the train on which the distinguished guest is coming. In this way one can have an interview ready for publication by the time the great man arrives and sometimes can obtain a valuable scoop on rival papers.

=85. Attending Lectures.= Where one is not able to get a typewritten copy of a speech, the only alternative is to attend the lecture. Newspaper men usually are provided with free tickets, which they should obtain in advance, as the rush of the lecture hour throws unexpected duties on those responsible for the program, and one may sometimes be considerably inconvenienced in getting an admission card. Inside there is generally a table close to the platform, where newspaper men may write comfortably. If the reporter has been given an advance copy of the speech, he should listen closely for any variations from the typewritten manuscript, as speakers in the excitement resulting from the applause or disapproval of the audience often lose their heads and make indiscreet statements or disclose state secrets that furnish the best story material for the paper next morning. If one does not have an advance copy, one should attempt to get the speech by topics, with occasional verbatim passages of particularly pithy or dynamic passages. As in the case of interviews, it is better not to attempt to take too much of the lecture word for word. The significance, the spirit of the address is of greater worth than mere literalness. If the city editor wants a verbatim report, he will send a stenographer.

=86. A Newspaper Man's Honor.=--In conclusion, emphasis may be laid on the reporter's attitude toward obtaining news. He must go after a story with the determination to get it and to get it honorably. Once he has started after an item, he must not give up until he has succeeded. But he must succeed with honor. Stories are rampant over the United States of newspaper men stealing through basement windows at night, listening at keyholes, bribing jurymen to break their oath, and otherwise transgressing the limits of law and honor. But the day of such reportorial methods has passed. To-day a newspaper expects every man on its staff to be a gentleman. It wants no lawbreakers or sneaks. Stories must be obtained honestly and written up honestly. The man who fakes a story or willfully distorts facts for the sake of injuring a man or making a good news article will be discharged from any reputable newspaper in America. And he ought to be.

VIII. ORGANIZATION OF THE STORY

=87. On the Way to the Office.=--The organization of the news material before beginning to write makes for speed, accuracy, and interest. On the way back to the office the reporter must employ his time as profitably as when getting the news, so that when he enters the city room he may have his facts arranged for developing into story form and may be able to hang his article on the city editor's hook in the briefest time possible.

=88. Speed.=--Next to accuracy, speed is a newspaper man's most valuable asset. Some journalists even put speed first, and Mr. Thomas Herbert Warren but voiced the opinion of many of the fraternity when he wrote,

Thrice blessed he whose statements we can trust,
But four times he who gets his news in fust.

When the reporter starts back to the office, he has in his pocket a mass of jumbled facts, most of which have a bearing on the prospective story, but many of which have not. Even those facts that are relevant are scattered confusedly among the different sheets, so that in order to write his story he must first rearrange his notes entirely. He may regroup these mentally while writing, by jumping with his eye up and down the pages, hunting on the backs of some sheets, and twisting his head sideways to get notes written crosswise on others. But all this takes valuable time,--so much, indeed, that the wise reporter will have on hand, either in his mind or on paper, a definite plan for his story.

=89. Accuracy.=--That the reorganization of one's notes preparatory to writing will aid accuracy of statement and of presentation needs little argument. To paraphrase Herbert Spencer's words on reading: A reporter has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power available. To recognize and interpret the facts recorded in his notes requires part of his power; to strike in ordered sequence the typewriter keys that will put those facts on paper requires an additional part; and only that part which remains can be used for putting his ideas into forceful, accurate sentences. Hence, the more time and attention it takes to read and understand one's notes, the less time and attention can be given to expressing the ideas, and the less vividly will those ideas be presented. Moreover, when a writer attempts to compose from jumbled notes, because of his attention being riveted on expressing clearly and forcefully what he has jotted down, he is liable to include in his story facts that do not properly belong there, or to omit some illegibly written but important item, and so fail to present the incidents fairly and accurately.

=90. Interest.=--Finally, the third reason for ordering one's notes carefully before writing is to insure interest to the reader. The same story almost always can be presented in several different ways. Every story, too, must possess a specific point, a _raison d'etre_: as, the heinousness of the crime, the cleverness of the brigands, the loneliness of the widow. This _point_ of the story, this angle from which the reporter writes, is determined largely by the writer's selection of details, which in turn is dominated by the policy of the paper and the interest of the readers. If the paper and its patrons care particularly for humorous stories, certain dolorous facts are omitted or placed in unimportant positions, and the readers have a fair but amusing view of the occurrence. If they favor sob stories, the same incident, by a different selection or arrangement of details, may be made pathetic. But the reporter must select his details with such a purpose in mind. And unless he has some such definite motive and has so organized his material before beginning to write, he will present a more or less prosaic narrative of events with little specific appeal to the reader. Of course, one oftentimes is too rushed to take so much care in preparation for writing. Frequently, indeed, a reporter cannot wait until he can get back to the office, but must telephone the facts in to a rewrite man, who will put them into story form. But it is fair to say that the discerning reporter never idles away his time in the smoking compartment of the car when returning with a story. His mind is, and should be, engrossed with the story, which he should strive to make so good that it will appear on the front page of the paper.

=91. Four Orders of Organization.=--In organizing material for writing, one may adopt any one or a combination of four different orders: time order, space order, climactic order, complex order. Of these, probably ninety-five per cent of all the news stories published are organized on the time order or a combination of it with one or more of the other three. Of the remaining three, probably four per cent of the stories are written in the climactic order, leaving only about one per cent for the space and complex orders. Numerous articles, of course, are a combination of two or more of these orders.

=92. Time Order.=--The time order is a simple chronological arrangement of the incidents, as illustrated in the following:

=BOY BURNS TOES IN BED=

|Fearing the wrath of his father, Kenneth Cavert, |
|5-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. George Cavert, Rankin|
|and Franklin streets, suffered in silence while fire|
|in his bed Friday evening painfully burned two of |
|his toes and caused severe burns on his body. |
| |
|The lad went to bed shortly after dark Friday |
|evening. About a half-hour later he went downstairs |
|for a drink. A few minutes later he went down again |
|for a drink. |
| |
|Shortly afterward Mr. and Mrs. Cavert smelled cloth |
|burning in the house, and going upstairs to |
|investigate, found the boy in bed, wide awake, the |
|blankets in flames, which surrounded the lad and had|
|already seared his toes. One of the bed rails was |
|burned almost in two and the bed clothing ruined. |
| |
|The lad afterward said he went downstairs to get a |
|mouthful of water to spit on the flames. "I spit as |
|hard as I could," said he, "but I couldn't put out |
|the fire." |
| |
|Although he will not tell how the fire started, it |
|is supposed he was playing with matches.[6] |

[6] _Appleton_ (Wisconsin) _Daily Post_, October 14, 1915.

=93. Space Order.=--The space order explains itself, being nothing else than descriptive writing. The following story of the _Eastland_ disaster in 1915 illustrates the space order:

=VICTIMS' PROPERTY LISTED=

|A line of showcases extends down the center of the |
|public hearing room on the first floor of the city |
|hall. Arranged for display are a hundred or more |
|cameras of all sizes, thermos bottles, purses, hand |
|bags, and even a snare drum. |
| |
|Around the room are racks on which are hanging |
|cloaks and coats, here a red sweater, there a white |
|corduroy cloak. Under them are heaps of hats, mostly|
|men's straw, obviously of this year's make. There |
|are several hundred women's headgear, decorated with|
|feathers and ribbons. |
| |
|Along one side are piled suit cases and satchels, |
|open for inspection. They are packed for departure |
|with toothbrushes and toothpaste, packages of gum, |
|tobacco and books. A dozen baseball bats are leaning|
|against one of the pillars near the end of the |
|showcase. There are several uniforms to be worn by |
|bandmen. In the extreme corner, surrounded by |
|hundreds of shoes, of all kinds, is a collapsible |
|go-cart. |
| |
|De Witt C. Cregier, city collector, stood behind one|
|of the showcases yesterday afternoon, with a |
|jeweler's glass, examining bits of ornament. |
| |
|Piled before him in long rows were envelops. One by |
|one, he or his assistants dumped the contents on the|
|glass case and read off descriptions of each article|
|to a stenographer: |
| |
|"One pocket mirror, picture of girl on back; one |
|amethyst filigree pendant; one round gold embossed |
|bracelet; gold bow eye-glasses; Hawthorne club badge|
|attached to fob; two $1 bills." |
| |
|As the articles were listed they were put back into |
|the envelops. Had it not been for one circumstance, |
|it might have been a pawnshop inventory. |
| |
|There was the jewelry worth more than $10,000, |
|articles for personal use, and musical instruments. |
|But under the long rows of coats, hats, and shoes, |
|there was a pool of water. It dripped from the red |
|sweater onto a straw hat beneath. It fell into shoes|
|and the place smelled of wet leather. |
| |
|When the bodies of those who perished in the |
|_Eastland_ disaster were removed from the water, |
|their clothing and jewelry were taken by the police |
|and tabulated. There was no space in the custodian's|
|office; so he hastily fitted up the public |
|hearing-room, brought in showcases and had |
|carpenters build racks for the clothing....[7] |

[7] _Chicago Tribune_, July 26, 1915.

=94. Climactic Order.=--The climactic order is that in which the incidents are so arranged that the reader shall not know the outcome until he reaches the last one or two sentences. The following story, though brief, illustrates well the climactic order of arrangement:

=VALUED A DRESS ABOVE LIFE=

|First, there was the young man. One night, while |
|they were on the way to a movie, Ambrosia noticed |
|the young man was looking rather critically at her |
|dress. |
| |
|When one is 17 and lives in a big city where there |
|are any number of girls just as good looking, |
|besides a lot who are better looking, it is a |
|serious matter when a young man begins to look |
|critically at one's dress. |
| |
|Particularly is it serious when the acquisition of a|
|new dress is a matter of much painstaking planning; |
|of dispensing with this or that at luncheon; of |
|walking to work every day instead of only when the |
|weather is fine; and of other painful sacrifices. |
| |
|Ambrosia didn't say anything. She pretended she |
|hadn't noticed the young man's look. But that night,|
|in her room on East Thirteenth Street, Ambrosia |
|indulged in some higher mathematics. It might as |
|well be vouchsafed here that the address on East |
|Thirteenth Street is 1315, and that Ambrosia's name |
|is Dallard, and that she is an operator for the Bell|
|Telephone Company. The net result of her |
|calculations was that, no matter how hard she saved,|
|she wouldn't be able to buy a new dress until |
|December or January. Meanwhile,--but Ambrosia knew |
|there couldn't be any meanwhile. She had to have |
|that dress. |
| |
|Ambrosia found a card, and on it was the name of a |
|firm which ardently assured her it wanted to afford |
|her credit. Then there was a little something about |
|a dollar down and a dollar a week until paid for. |
| |
|So Ambrosia got her dress. It had cost her $1, and |
|it would be entirely hers when she had paid $14 |
|more. Ambrosia wore it to a movie and the young man |
|admiringly informed her she "was all dolled up." And|
|everyone was happy. |
| |
|One never can tell about dresses, though; |
|particularly $15 ones. One night, when Ambrosia was |
|wearing the new possession for the third time, it |
|developed a long rip. The cloth was defective. |
| |
|Ambrosia took the dress back. The installment firm |
|was sorry, but could do nothing, and of course the |
|firm expected her to keep paying for it. |
| |
|Ambrosia left the dress, and went back to her old |
|one. The young man noticed it the next time they |
|went out together. Shortly afterward, when he should|
|have called, he didn't. A collector for the |
|installment house did, though. Meanwhile, Ambrosia |
|was saving to buy another dress. She was quite |
|emphatic about the bill from the installment |
|house--she wouldn't pay it. |
| |
|Once in awhile she saw the young man, but she didn't|
|care for more calls until the new dress was |
|forthcoming. |
| |
|Tuesday it looked as if everything would come out |
|all right. She had $9 saved. Wednesday she would |
|draw her salary--$6. She knew where she could buy |
|just what she wanted for $12.50. It was much better |
|looking than the old dress and better material. She |
|even made an anticipatory engagement with the young |
|man. |
| |
|Wednesday came--Ambrosia went to draw her salary. |
|The installment house had garnisheed it. |
| |
|To-day Ambrosia's job is being kept open by the |
|telephone company, and it is thought some |
|arrangement may be made by which the installment |
|house will not garnishee her salary next week. |
| |
|At the General Hospital she is reported as resting |
|well. She was taken there in an ambulance yesterday |
|afternoon after trying to kill herself by inhaling |
|chloroform.[8] |

[8] _Kansas City Star_, January 1, 1917.

=95. Complex Order.=--The complex order, sometimes called the order of increasing complication, is that in which the writer proceeds from the known to the unknown. Generally a story following this method of organization is nothing else than simple exposition. The following Associated Press story illustrates the type:

=AERIAL TORPEDO BOAT INVENTED=
[_By Associated Press._]

|Washington, July 22.--An aerial torpedo boat for |
|attack on ships in protected harbors is projected, |
|it was learned to-day, in patents just issued to |
|Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, now attached to the |
|navy war college, but formerly aid for operations to|
|Secretary Daniels. |
| |
|The plan contemplates equipping a monster aeroplane,|
|similar to a number now under construction in this |
|country for the British government, with a Whitehead|
|torpedo of regulation navy type. |
| |
|Swooping down at a distance of five sea miles from |
|the object of attack, the air craft would drop its |
|deadly passenger into the water just as it would |
|have been launched from a destroyer. The impact sets|
|the torpedo's machinery in motion and it is off at a|
|speed of more than forty knots an hour toward the |
|enemy ship. |
| |
|Admiral Fiske believes the flying torpedo boat would|
|make it possible to attack a fleet even within a |
|landlocked harbor. The range of the newest navy |
|torpedoes is ten thousand yards and even the older |
|types will be effective at seven thousand yards. |
| |
|Carried on a huge aeroplane, the 2,000 pound weapon |
|would be taken over harbor defenses at an altitude |
|safe from gunfire. Once over the bay, the machine |
|would glide down to within ten or twenty feet of |
|water, the torpedo rudders would be set and it would|
|be dropped to do its work while the aeroplane arose |
|and sped away.[9] |

[9] _Minneapolis Tribune_, July 22, 1915.

=96. Climactic Order Difficult.=--Of the four organization plans, the hardest by far to develop is the climactic order, which should be avoided by young reporters. This method of arrangement is on the short-story order, and the beginner will find it difficult to group his incidents so that each shall lead up to and explain those following and at the same time add to the reader's interest. Some papers as yet admit only rarely the story developed climactically, but it is growing in popularity and the reporter should know how to handle it.

=97. Important Details.=--With the climactic order of arrangement eliminated, the reporter is practically limited to the simple time order, or a combination of it with one of the other two kinds,--which is the normal type of story. But he must keep in mind one other factor,--to place the most important details first and the least important last. There are two reasons why this method of arrangement is necessary. In the first place, readers want all the main details first, so that they may learn immediately whether or not they are interested in the story and if it will be worth their while to read the whole article. They are too busy to read everything in the paper; they can choose only those stories that excite their interest. If, therefore, they can learn in the first paragraph what the whole story is about, they will not be delayed and fatigued unnecessarily by reading non-essentials with the hope of finding something worth while.

=98. Unimportant Details.=--The second reason for such an organization is that stories appearing in the early editions have to be cut down to fit into the more valuable and limited space of the later issues. At the beginning of the day news is relatively scarce, and the front-page, left-hand column of the first edition may carry a story that will be cut in half in the city edition and be relegated to an inside page. More important news has come in as the day has aged. A reporter, therefore, must plan his stories with a view to having the last part, if necessary, cut off,--so that, indeed, if the news editor should prune the story down to only the first paragraph, the reader would still be given the gist of what has happened. Note the following story, how it may be cut off at any paragraph and still present a perfect, though less imposing whole:

=SCHOOLBOY SUES BRIDE, AGED 40=

|Villisca, Ia., Dec. 27.--Claude Bates, 17 years old |
|and formerly of Villisca, has brought suit in Polk |
|county for the annulment of his marriage to the |
|widow Patrick, 40 years old and the mother of four |
|children, two of whom are older than their |
|stepfather. |
| |
|Bates is still in school, and became acquainted with|
|the widow when he went to her home to call on one of|
|her daughters. According to the petition, young |
|Bates made such a hit with the mother of his best |
|girl that she herself fell in love with him, and was|
|soon a rival of her own daughter. The older woman |
|knew many tricks with which the daughter was |
|unacquainted, and in the end she managed to "bag" |
|the game. |
| |
|The marriage, which took place in Chicago, was kept |
|a secret even after the couple returned home, and it|
|was not until young Bates told the whole story to |
|his mamma a few days ago that his family had an |
|inkling of the true state of affairs. Now the suit |
|has been filed by the boy's mother, because the |
|young husband himself is too young to go into court |
|without a guardian. |
| |
|As one of the causes of the suit, the petition cites|
|that Bates was inveigled into the marriage through |
|"the wiles, artifices, and protestations of love" on|
|the part of the widow. Furthermore, the petition |
|charges that the two were married under assumed |
|names, that their ages were falsely given, and that |
|their residences, as given the marriage clerk, were |
|false. |
| |
|According to the petition, young Bates was attending|
|school, where he met Mrs. Patrick's daughter and |
|fell in love with her. He called at the house and |
|met the mother, who was divorced from her first |
|husband some ten years ago. There were four of the |
|Patrick children, their ages being 13, 15, 17, and |
|20 years. Bates himself was just 15 at that time. |
|The petition sets up that almost immediately after |
|becoming acquainted with Mrs. Patrick the latter |
|began her attempts to induce young Bates to marry |
|her.[10] |

[10] _Des Moines Register_, December 27, 1914.

=99. Accuracy of Presentation.=--One very definite caution must be given concerning the organization of the story,--the necessity of presenting facts with judicial impartiality. When the reporter is arranging his material preparatory to writing, casting away a note here and jotting down another there, he can easily warp the whole narrative by an unfair arrangement of details or a prejudiced point of view. Frequently a story may be woefully distorted by the mere suppression of a single fact. A newspaper man has no right willfully to keep back information or to distort news. Unbiased stories, or stories as nearly unbiased as possible, are what newspapers want. And while one may legitimately order one's topics to produce a particular effect of humor, pathos, joy, or sorrow, one should never allow the desire for an effect to distort the presentation of the facts.

IX. THE LEAD[11]

[11] Before reading this chapter, the student should examine
the style book in the Appendix, particularly that part
dealing with the preparation of copy for the city desk.

=100. Instructions from the City Editor.=--Before beginning the story, the reporter should stop at the city editor's desk, give him in as few words as possible an account of what he has learned, and ask for instructions about handling the story, about any feature or features to play up. The city editor may not offer any advice at all, may simply say to write the story for what it is worth. In such a case, the reporter is at liberty to go ahead as he has planned; and he should have his copy on the city editor's desk within a very few minutes. The city editor, however, may tell him to feature a certain incident and to write it up humorously. If the reporter has observed keenly, he himself will already have chosen the same incident and may still proceed with the writing as he planned on the way back to the office. A careful study of instructions given reporters will quickly convince one, however, that in nine cases out of ten the city editor takes his cue from the reporter himself, that in the reporter's very mood and method of recounting what he has learned, he suggests to the city editor the features and the tone of the story, and is merely given back his own opinion verified. Not always is this the case, however. One reporter on a Southern daily--and a star man, too--used to say that he could never predict what his city editor would want featured. So he used always to come into the office armed with two leads, and sometimes with three.

=101. Two Kinds of Leads.=--The story, technically, is made up of two parts--the lead and the body. The lead is easily the more important. If a reporter can handle successfully this part of the story, he will have little trouble in writing the whole. The lead is the first sentence or the first group of sentences in the story and is of two kinds, the summarizing lead and what may be called the informal lead. The summarizing lead gives in interesting, concise language the gist of the story. The informal lead merely introduces the reader to the story without intimating anything of the outcome, but with a suggestion that something interesting is coming. Of the two types the summarizing lead is by far the more common and may be considered first.

=102. Summarizing Lead.=--The summarizing lead may be a single sentence or a single paragraph, or two or three paragraphs, according to the number and complexity of the details in the story. A brief story usually has a short lead. A long, involved story made up of several parts, each under a separate head, often has a lead consisting of several paragraphs. Sometimes this lead, because of its importance as a summary of all the details in the story, is even boxed and printed in black-face type at the beginning of the story. Then follow the different parts, each division with its own individual lead.

=103. Contents of the Lead.=--What to put into the lead,--or to feature, as reporters express it in newspaper parlance,--one may best determine by asking oneself what in the story is likely to be of greatest interest to one's readers in general. Whatever that feature is, it should be played up in the lead. The first and great commandment in news writing is that the story begin with the most important fact and give all the essential details first. These details are generally summarized in the questions _who_, _what_, _when_, _where_, _why_, and _how_. If the writer sees that his lead answers these questions, he may be positive that, so far as context is concerned, his lead will be good.

=104. Construction of the Lead.=--In constructing the lead, the most important fact or facts should be put at the very first. For this reason, newspaper men avoid beginning a story with _to-day_, _to-morrow_, or _yesterday_, because the time at which an incident has occurred is rarely the most important fact. For the same reason, careful writers avoid starting with _the_, _an_, or _a_, though it often is necessary to begin with these articles because the noun they modify is itself important. The name of the place, too, rarely ever is of enough importance to be put first. An examination of a large number of leads in the best newspapers shows that the features most often played up are the result and the cause or motive. Thus:

=Result=

|As a result of too much thanksgiving on Thanksgiving|
|Day, Prof. Harry Z. Buith, 42, 488 Sixteenth Street,|
|a prominent Seventh Day Adventist, is dead. |

=Cause=

|Just plain ordinary geese and a few ganders held up |
|a train on the Milwaukee road to-day and forced |
|their owner, Nepomcyk Kucharski, 1287 Fourth Avenue,|
|into district court. |

=Cause and Result=

|Because Harry A. Harries, 24, 2518 North Avenue, |
|wanted two dollars for a license to marry Anna |
|Francis, 17, 4042 Peachtree Avenue, his aged mother |
|is dying this morning in St. Elizabeth Hospital. |

Sometimes, particularly in follow or rewrite stories, probable results become the feature.

=Probable Results=

|That immediate intervention in Mexico by the United |
|States will be the result of the Villa raid last |
|night on Columbus, N.M., is the general belief in |
|official Washington this morning. |

Another feature often played up in leads is the means or method by which a result was attained.

=Means=

|A sensational half-mashie shot to the lip of the cup|
|on the eighteenth green won to-day for Mrs. Roland |
|H. Barlow, of the Merion Cricket Club, Philadelphia,|
|over Miss Lillian B. Hyde, of the South Shore Field |
|Club, Long Island, in the second round of the |
|women's national golf championship tournament at the|
|Onwentsia Club. |

=Method=

|Working at night with a tin spoon and a wire nail, |
|Capt. Wilhelm Schuettler dug 100 feet to liberty and|
|escaped from the Hallamshire camp sometime early |
|this morning. |

Often it is necessary to feature the name:

=Name=

|Cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa, archbishop of |
|Bologna, Italy, was to-day elected supreme pontiff |
|of the Catholic hierarchy, in succession to the late|
|Pope Pius X, who died Aug. 20. He will reign under |
|the name of Benedict XV. |

=Name=

|President Wilson and Mrs. Norman Galt have selected |
|Saturday, Dec. 18, as the date of their marriage. |
|The ceremony will be performed in Mrs. Galt's |
|residence, and the guests will be confined to the |
|immediate members of the President's and Mrs. Galt's|
|families. |

Even the place and the time have to be featured occasionally.

=Place=

|New Orleans will be the place of the annual meeting |
|of the Southern Congress of Education and Industry, |
|it was learned from a member of the Executive |
|committee to-day. |

=Place=

|Chicago was selected by the Republican National |
|committee to-night as the meeting place of the 1916 |
|Republican national convention, to be held June 7, |
|one week before the Democratic convention in St. |
|Louis. |

=Time=

|Monday, Sept. 20, is the date finally set for the |
|opening of the State Fair, it was announced by the |
|Program Committee to-day. |

=105. Form of the Lead.=--The grammatical form in which the lead shall be written depends much on the purpose of the writer. Some of the commonest types of beginnings are with: (1) a simple statement; (2) a series of simple statements; (3) a conditional clause; (4) a substantive clause; (5) an infinitive phrase; (6) a participial phrase; (7) a prepositional phrase; (8) the absolute construction.

=106. Leads with Short Sentences.=--The value of the first two kinds is their forcefulness. Often reporters break what might be a long, one-sentence, summarizing lead into a very short sentence followed by a long one, or into a number of brief sentences, each of which gives one important detail. Such a type of lead gains its force from the fact that it lends emphasis to the individual details given in the short sentences. Note the effect of the following leads:

OAK PARK HAS A "TYPHOID MARY"

|The epidemic of fever that has been sweeping through|
|the western suburb since the high school banquet |
|more than a month ago was traced yesterday to a |
|woman carrier who handled the food in the school |
|restaurant. |

|George Edward Waddell, our famous "Rube," fanned out|
|to-day. It was not the first time Rube had fanned, |
|but it will be his last. Tuberculosis claimed him |
|after a two-year fight. |

|If Mrs. Mary McCormick sneezes or coughs, she will |
|die. Her back was broken yesterday by a fall from a |
|third-story window. Thomas Wilson is being held |
|under a $5,000 bond pending her death or recovery, |
|charged by the police with pushing her from the |
|window. |

=107. Lead Beginning with a Conditional Clause=--The lead beginning with a conditional clause is valuable for humorous effects or for summarizing facts leading up to a story. As a rule, however, one must avoid using more than two such clauses, as they are liable to make the sentence heavy or obscure.

|If Antony Fisher, 36, 1946 Garden Street, had not |
|written Dorothy Clemens she was a "little love," he |
|would be worth $1,000,000 now. But he wrote Dorothy |
|she was a little love. |

|If Joe Kasamowitz, 4236 Queen's Avenue, speaks to |
|his wife either at her home or at the news-stand she|
|conducts at the St. Paul Hotel; if he loiters near |
|the entrance to the hotel; or if he even attempts to|
|call his wife over the telephone before Saturday, he|
|will be in contempt of court, according to an |
|injunction issued to-day by Judge Fish. |

=108. Lead Beginning with a Substantive Clause.=--The substantive clause has two main values in the lead,--to enable the writer to begin with a direct or an indirect question, and to permit him to shift to the very beginning of the lead important ideas that would normally come at the end of the sentence.

|That Jim Jeffries was the greatest fighter in the |
|history of pugilism and Jim Corbett the best boxer, |
|was the statement last night by Bob Fitzsimmons |
|before a crowd of 5,000 at the Orpheum theater. |

|That he had refused to kiss her on her return from a|
|long visit and had said he was tired of being |
|married, was the testimony of Mrs. Flora Eastman |
|to-day in her divorce suit against Edwin O. Eastman,|
|of St. Louis. |

=109. Lead Beginning with a Phrase.=--Infinitive, participial, and prepositional phrases are valuable mainly for bringing out emphatic details. But the writer must be careful, particularly in participial constructions, to see that the phrases have definite words to modify.

|To see if the bullet was coming was the reason |
|Charlie Roberts, aged 7, 2626 Ninth Street, looked |
|down his father's pistol barrel at 8:00 A.M. to-day.|

|Playing with a rifle longer than his body, |
|three-year-old Ernest Rodriguez, of Los Angeles, |
|accidentally shot himself in the abdomen this |
|morning and is dying in the county hospital. |

|Almost blinded with carbolic acid, Fritz Storungot, |
|of South Haven, groped his way to Patrolman Emil |
|Schulz at Third Street and Brand Avenue last night |
|and begged to be sent to the Emergency Hospital. |

|With her hands and feet tied, Ida Elionsky, 16, swam|
|in the roughest kind of water through Hell Gate |
|yesterday, landing safely at Blackwell's Island. |

=110. Lead Beginning with Absolute Construction.=--The absolute construction usually features causes and motives forcibly, but it should be avoided by beginners, as it is un-English and tends to make sentences unwieldy. The following illustrates the construction well:

|Her money gone and her baby starving, Mrs. Kate |
|Allen, 8 Marvin Alley, begged fifteen cents of a |
|stranger yesterday to poison herself and child. |

=111. Accuracy and Interest in the Lead.=--The two requirements made of the lead are that it shall possess accuracy and interest. It must have accuracy for the sake of truth. It must possess interest to lure the reader to a perusal of the story. Toward an attainment of both these requirements the reporter will have made the first step if he has organized his material rightly, putting at the beginning those facts that will be of most interest to his readers.

=112. Clearness.=--But the reporter will still fail of his purpose if he neglects to make his lead clear. He must guard against any construction or the inclusion of any detail that is liable to blur the absolute clarity of his initial sentences. In particular, he must be wary of overloaded leads, those crowded with details. It is better to cut such leads into two or more short, crisp sentences than to permit them to be published with the possibility of not being understood. If a reader cannot grasp readily the lead, the chances are nine out of ten that he will not read the story. Note the following overloaded lead and its improvement by being cut into three sentences:

|Barely able to see out of her swollen and discolored|
|eyes, and her face and body covered with cuts and |
|bruises, received, it is alleged, when her father |
|attacked her because of her failure to secure work, |
|Mary Ellis, 15 years old, living at 1864 Brown |
|Street, when placed on the witness stand Monday, |
|told a story which resulted in Peter Ellis, her |
|father, being arrested on a charge of assault with |
|intent to do great bodily harm. |

|Charged with beating unmercifully his daughter, |
|Mary, 15, because she could not obtain work, Peter |
|Ellis, 1864 Brown Street, was arraigned in police |
|court Monday. The girl herself appeared against |
|Ellis. Her body, when she appeared on the witness |
|stand, was covered with cuts and bruises, her face |
|black from the alleged blows, and her eyes so much |
|swollen that she could hardly see. |

The following lead, too, is overloaded and all but impossible to understand:

|Two letters written by H. M. Boynton, an advertising|
|agent for the Allen-Procter Co., to "Dear Louise," |
|in which he confessed undying love and which are |
|replete with such terms of endearment as "little |
|love," "dear beloved," "sweetheart," "honey," and |
|just plain "love," and which were alleged by him to |
|have been forged by his wife, Mrs. Hannah Benson |
|Boynton, obtained a divorce for her yesterday in |
|district court on the grounds of alienated |
|affections. |

Few readers would wade through this maze of shifted constructions and heavy, awkward phrasing for the sake of the divorce story following. In the following form, however, it readily becomes clear:

|Two love letters to "Dear Louise" cost H. M. |
|Boynton, advertising agent for the Allen-Procter |
|Co., a wife yesterday in district court. The letters|
|were produced by Mrs. Hannah Benson Boynton to |
|support her charge of alienated affections, and were|
|replete with such terms of endearment as "undying |
|love," "honey," "sweetheart," "dear beloved," |
|"little love," and just plain "love." Boynton |
|claimed that the letters were forged. |

=113. Boxed Summaries and Features.=--When a story is unusually long and complicated and the number of details numerous, or when important points or facts need particular emphasis, it is customary to make a digest of the principal items and box them in display type before the regular lead. Boxed summaries at the beginning of a story are really determined by the city editor and the copy readers, but a grouping of the outstanding facts for boxing is often a welcome suggestion and a valuable help to the sub-editors. If the reporter is in doubt about the need of a boxed summary, he may make it on a separate sheet and place it on the city editor's desk along with the regular story. Types of stories that most frequently have boxed summaries are accidents, with lists of the dead and the injured in bold-face type; important athletic and sporting events, with summaries of the records, the crowds in attendance, the gate receipts, etc.; speeches, trials, and executions, with epigrams and the most important utterances of the judges, lawyers, witnesses, or defendants; international diplomatic letters, with the main points of discussion or most threatening statements; lengthy governmental reports, etc. An illustration of the boxed summary is the following, featuring the last statement of Charles Becker, the New York police lieutenant, electrocuted in 1915 for the death of Herman Rosenthal:

=POLICE OFFICER PAYS PENALTY WITH HIS LIFE=
+----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| "MY DYING STATEMENT." |
| |
| "Gentlemen: I stand before you in my full senses, |
| knowing that no power on earth can save me from the|
| grave that is to receive me. In the face of that, |
| in the face of those who condemn me, and in the |
| presence of my God and your God, I proclaim my |
| absolute innocence of the foul crime for which I |
| must die. |
| |
| "You are now about to witness my destruction by the|
| state which is organized to protect the lives of |
| the innocent. May almighty God pardon everyone who |
| has contributed in any degree to my untimely death.|
| And now on the brink of my grave, I declare to the |
| world that I am proud to have been the husband of |
| the purest, noblest woman that ever lived,--Helen |
| Becker. |
| |
| "This acknowledgment is the only legacy I can leave|
| her. I bid you all good-bye. Father, I am ready to |
| go. Amen." |
| |
| "CHARLES BECKER." |
+----------------------------------------------------+
|Ossining, N. Y., July 30.--At peace with his Maker, |
|a prayer on his lips, but with never a faltering of |
|his iron will, Charles Becker expiated the murder of|
|Herman Rosenthal at 5:55 this morning. Pinned on his|
|shirt above his heart, he carried with him the |
|picture of his devoted wife. In his hand he clutched|
|the crucifix. |
| |
|The death current cut off in his throat the whisper,|
|"Jesus have mercy." It was not the plea of a man |
|shaken and fearful of death, but rather the prayer |
|of one with the conviction that he was innocent. |
| |
|Just before he entered the death chamber he declared|
|to Father Curry, "I am not guilty by deeds, |
|conspiracy or any other way of the death of |
|Rosenthal. I am sacrificed for my friends." |
|Previously at 4 A.M. he issued "My Dying Statement."|
|It was a passionate reiteration of innocence, and is|
|left as his only legacy to his wife: "I declare to |
|the world that I am proud to have been the husband |
|of the purest, noblest woman that ever lived,--Helen|
|Becker." |
| |
|Absolute quiet reigned in the death house at 5.50 |
|A.M. Suddenly the little green door swung open. |
|Becker appeared. He had no air of bravado. Behind |
|him in the procession came Fathers Cashin and Curry.|
|Becker walked unassisted to the death chamber. As he|
|entered he glanced about, seemingly surprised. His |
|face had the expression of a person coming from |
|darkness into sudden light, but there was no hint of|
|hesitancy to meet death in the stride with which he |
|approached the chair which had already claimed the |
|lives of four others in payment for the Rosenthal |
|murder. |
| |
|The doomed man held a black crucifix in his left |
|hand. It was about ten inches long, and as he calmly|
|took his place in the chair, he raised it to his |
|lips. Following the chant of the priests, he |
|entoned, "Oh, Lord, assist me in my last agony. I |
|give you my heart and my soul." |
| |
|When all was ready, the executioner stepped back and|
|in full view of the witnesses calmly shut the |
|switch. As the great current of electricity shot |
|into the frame of the former master of gunmen, the |
|big body straightened out, tugging at the creaking |
|straps. For a few moments it stretched out. A slight|
|sizzling was heard and a slight curl of smoke went |
|up from the right side of Becker's head, rising from|
|under the cap. When the shock was at its height, his|
|grip tightened to the crucifix, but as the |
|electrocutioner snapped the switch off the cross |
|slipped from the relaxed fingers. A guard caught it.|
|The whole body dropped to a position of utter |
|collapse. |
| |
|Becker's shirt was then opened. As the black cloth |
|was turned back to make way for the stethoscope, the|
|picture of Mrs. Becker was revealed. It was pinned |
|inside. The doctors pushed it aside impatiently, |
|evidently not knowing what it was. They held |
|stethoscopes to the heart. Another shock was |
|demanded of the cool young executioner. He stepped |
|back and swung the switch open and shut again. The |
|crumpled body clutched the straps again. Once more |
|the doctors felt his heart. They seemed to argue |
|whether there was still evidence of life. Once again|
|the executioner was appealed to and once again he |
|snapped on and off the switch. The lips then parted |
|in a smile. The stethoscope was applied and it was |
|declared that Becker was dead....[12] |

[12] George R. Holmes, of the United Press
Associations, in _The Appleton Post_,
July 30, 1915.

=114. Informal Lead.=--The opposite of the summarizing lead is the informal, or suspense, lead. This type begins with a question, a bit of verse, a startling quotation, or one or two manifestly unimportant details that tell little and yet whet the appetite of the reader, luring him to the real point of interest later in the story. Such leads, sometimes known as "human interest" leads, are admittedly more difficult than those of the summarizing type, their difficulty being but one effect of the cause which makes them necessary. An examination of a large number of these leads shows that their purpose is to make attractive news that for some cause is lacking in interest. Most frequently the news is old; often it is merely commonplace; or possibly it may have come from such a distance that it lacks local interest. In such cases the aid of the informal lead is invoked for the purpose of stimulating the reader's interest and inducing him to read the whole story. And this explains the difficulty of the informal lead. Its originality must compensate for the poverty of the news it presents. It must be more attractive, more striking, more piquant than the ordinary lead. And the only ways of obtaining this attractiveness, this piquancy, are by novelty of approach and of statement.[13]

[13] For an additional discussion of the informal lead,
see Chapter XIX.

=115. Question Lead.=--A few illustrations of informal leads will make clearer their exact nature. First may be cited the question lead, two examples of which are given below, with enough of the story appended in each case to show the method of enticing the reader into the story.