Chapter V: Part II: The News Story (3)

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|If you planned to wed in September and married in |
|July just to suit your own convenience, would you be|
|provoked if your dear neighbors immediately seated |
|themselves and wove a beautiful romance out of it? |
| |
|Grace Elliott Bomarie, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. |
|Charles Elliott Bomarie, of 930 Lawrence Avenue, and|
|sister of Bessie Bomarie, former famous champion |
|golf player, was not angry to-day. Instead she |
|laughed the merriest kind of a laugh over the |
|telephone and said: |
| |
|"Call me up in half an hour and I will tell you all |
|about it." |
| |
|But she didn't. On the recall (that's the proper |
|word in this day of equal suffrage), she was not at |
|home. Mrs. Bomarie was, and said: |
| |
|"Please just say that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Elliott |
|Bomarie announce the marriage of their daughter, |
|Grace Elliott, to Mr. Albert Wingate." |

=116. Verse Lead.=--The lead beginning with a bit of verse is more difficult than the question lead because of the uncertainty with which most persons write metrical lines. The following may serve as a fairly successful attempt:

=U. S. JACKIES WANT MAIL=

[14] _Milwaukee Sentinel_, August 7, 1914.

=117. Extraordinary Statement in Lead.=--An extraordinary statement made by a person in a speech, an interview, or a trial scene is often used in the informal lead. If, however, the quoted statement is so long or of such a nature that it summarizes the whole story, it places the lead, of course, not in the informal class, but in the normal summarizing group. The following illustrates well the extraordinary statement:

=FRIEND WIFE WENT TOO FAR=

=118. Suspense Lead.=--The most difficult to handle of all the informal leads is the suspense lead, where the writer purposely begins with unimportant but enticing details and lures the reader on from paragraph to paragraph, always holding out a half-promise of something worth while if one will continue a bit further. In this way the reader is tempted to the middle or end of the story before he is told the real point of the article. A difficult type of lead, this, but forceful when well handled.

|Pierre L. Corbin, 60 years old, of Eatontown, who |
|runs a dairy and drives his own milk wagon, matched |
|the speed of his horse against that of a New Jersey |
|Central train yesterday morning at 7 o'clock in a |
|race to the crossing at Eatontown. It was a tie. |
|Both got there at the same time.[15] |

[15] _New York Times_, August 27, 1915.

|There are two ways of patching a pair of |
|trousers,--neatly and bluey; and probably no tailor |
|in Manhattan is as certain of it to-day as Sigmund |
|Steinbern. So he stated to the police yesterday when|
|a customer sat him down on his lighted gas stove, |
|and so he insisted last night when friends called to|
|see him at the Washington Heights Hospital. |
|Furthermore, to say nothing of moreover, he is a |
|tailor of standing, or will be for the next couple |
|of weeks, and he knows his place. It is not, he |
|feels, upon a gas stove. |
| |
|To friends who called at the hospital to ask Mr. |
|Steinbern exactly what had happened to him, he said,|
|by way of changing the subject, that he has a sign |
|in his store upon which the following appears: |
| |
|EVERYTHING DONE IN A HURRY |
| |
|There, he contends, lies the seed of the trouble. |
|Regarding the seat of the trouble, more anon....[16]|

[16] _New York Herald_, December 21, 1915.

=119. Tone.=--No matter which of the two types of lead one uses, whether the summarizing or the informal, one point further needs attention in the writing,--the value of constructing such a lead as will suggest the tone of the story. Half the leads that one reads in the daily papers do not possess this touchstone of superiority, but all the leads to the big stories have it. If the article is to be pathetic, tragic, humorous, mildly satirical, the lead should suggest it; and the reporter will find that in proportion as he is able to imbue his lead with the story-tone he aims at in his writing, so will be the success of his story. This topic is discussed further in the next chapter, but the reader may consider at this point the two following leads, in which one plainly promises a story of pathos and tragedy; the other, half-serious humor:

|The cause of the high cost of living has been |
|discovered. It's pie,--plain pie. Teeny Terss, who |
|runs a Greek restaurant on Hodel Street, made the |
|announcement to-day. |

=120. Conclusion.=--Of the two types of lead, the beginner is advised to attempt at first only the summary lead, relying on the excellence of the news to carry the story. This kind of lead is definite. A reporter always can know when his lead answers the questions _who_, _what_, _when_, _where_, _why_, and _how_. And if he has presented his facts clearly in the lead, he may feel a certain degree of assurance that he has been successful. In writing the informal lead, on the contrary, one can never be positive of anything or of any effect. (And it is a particular effect for which the reporter always must strive in the informal lead.) Climax and suspense are such elusive spirits that if a writer but give evidence he is seeking them, he immediately loses them. The only safe plan for the novice, therefore, is to confine himself at first exclusively to the summarizing lead. Then as his hand becomes sure, he may take ventures with the elusive, informal, or suspense, lead.

X. THE BODY OF THE STORY

=121. Inaccuracy and Dullness.=--If the reporter has written a strong lead for his story, he need have small worry about what shall follow, which usually is little more than a simple narration of events in chronological order, with interspersions of explanation or description. If a wise choice and arrangement has been made in the organization of details, the part of the story following the lead will all but tell itself. The reporter's care now must be to maintain the interest he has developed in the lead and to regard the accuracy of succeeding statements. There are just two crimes of which a newspaper man may be guilty,--inaccuracy and dullness. And the greater of these is inaccuracy.

=122. Accuracy.=--When a reporter is publishing a choice bit of scandal or a remarkable instance of disregarded duty, it is an easy thing, for the sake of making the story a good one, or for lack of complete information, to draw on the imagination or to jump too readily at conclusions, and so present as facts not only what may be untrue, but what often later proves entirely false. The ease of the thing is argued by the frequency with which it is done. Such a reporter does a threefold harm: he compels his paper to humiliate itself later by publishing the truth; he causes the public to lose confidence in his journal; and he does irreparable injury to unknown, innocent persons. The day following the _Eastland_ disaster in 1915, one Chicago paper ran the list of dead up to eighteen hundred. A week later the same paper was forced to put the number at less than nine hundred. A rival publication in the same city kept its estimate consistently in the neighborhood of nine hundred, with the resultant effect to-day of increased public confidence in its statements. In another city of the Middle West judgment for $10,000 has recently been granted a complainant because one of the city staff made a rash statement about the plaintiff's "illicit love." The reporter was discharged, of course, but that did not repair the damage or reimburse the paper.

=123. Law of Libel.=--Every newspaper man, as a matter of business, should know the law of libel. It varies somewhat in different states, but the following brief summary may be taken as a working basis until the reporter can gain an opportunity to study it in his own state. In the first place, the law holds responsible not only the owners of the journal, but the publisher, the editor, the writer of the offending article, and even any persons selling the paper, provided it can be proved that they were aware of the matter contained in the publication. What constitutes libel is equally far-reaching. It is any published matter that tends to disgrace or degrade a person generally, or to subject him to public distrust, ridicule, or contempt. Any written article that implies or may be generally understood to imply reproach, dishonesty, scandal, or ridicule of or against a person, or which tends to subject such a person to social disgrace, public distrust, hatred, ridicule, or contempt, is libelous. Even the use in an article of ironical or sarcastic terms indicating scorn or contempt is libelous, because such expressions are calculated to injure the persons of whom they are spoken. And if an article contains several expressions, each of which is libelous, each may be a separate cause for legal action. Nor is it a defense to prove that such rumors were current, that such statements were previously published, or even that the writer did not intend the remarks to do injury. If it can be proved that the article has done injury, the writer and his paper are guilty of libel and must pay damages in accordance with the enormity of the offense.

=124. Avoidance of Libel.=--When it becomes necessary to make a statement about a person that may be unpleasing to him, the writer should give the name of the one making the charge or assertion, or else avoid making a specific charge by inserting _it is alleged_, _it is rumored_, _it is charged,_ or some such limiting phrase. Note the following story of the arrest of two shop-girls and how skilfully the reporter avoids charging them with theft:

Whenever possible, it is well to avoid _it is said_, _it is rumored_. A story reads more convincingly when the reporter's authority is given. And the statement of the authority places the responsibility where it belongs.

=125. Exaggeration.=--One word further about the _Eastland_ disaster and loss of public confidence resulting from exaggerated stories. Upon the news article itself there is a very definite effect of such exaggeration,--that mere extravagance of statement often defeats its own end. It is of first importance in writing that one's statements command the confidence of the reader. If a reporter writes that the wreck he has just visited was the greatest in the history of railroading, or the bride the most beautiful ever joined in the bonds of holy wedlock before a hymeneal altar, or the flames the most lurid that ever lit a midnight sky, the reader merely snickers and turns to a story he can believe. The value of understatement cannot be overestimated. Probably the majority of the people of the United States are suspicious anyway of the truth of what they read in the newspapers. Hence, if one must sin on the side of accurate valuation of news, let him err in favor of understatement rather than exaggeration. Then when he is forced by actual facts to resort to huge figures, his readers will believe him. Such a policy, consistently adhered to, will always win favor for a paper and a reporter. And that the best papers have learned this is proved by the fact that they no longer tolerate inaccuracy of statement or unverified information in their columns.

=126. "Editorializing."=--One other caution must be given in the cause of accuracy, that of the necessity of presenting news from an unbiased standpoint, of eliminating as far as possible the personal equation,--in other words, of avoiding "editorializing." The news columns are the place for the colorless presentation of news. No attempt is, or should be, made there to influence public opinion. That function is reserved for the editorial columns, and the reporter must be careful not to let his personal views color the articles he writes. The following story was written for a small Wisconsin paper by a rabid political reporter:

| =THOMAS MORRIS IN TOWN= |
| |
|Thomas Morris, lieutenant governor of this state and|
|candidate for the United States senate, was in |
|Appleton this morning and spent the day in Outagamie|
|county shaking hands with those who would. But few |
|would shake. He wanted to speak while here, but the |
|enlightened citizens of this city were right in not |
|letting him. Peter Tubits was his chief pilot |
|through the county. |

Needless to say, this story was not printed.

=127. Newspaper Policies.=--Even though it may seem--and in a measure is--in contradiction to what has just been said about accuracy and editorializing, it is nevertheless necessary before passing the subject to comment on the necessity of a reporter's observing a paper's editorial policies,--to say, in other words, that all news is not unbiased. For instance, if a newspaper is undertaking a crusade against midwives or pawnshops or certain political leaders, it gives those institutions or those persons little or no credit for the good they accomplish, nor does it feature impartially in its news articles their good and bad acts. Yet such institutions or persons must have accomplished much good to arrive at the rank or position they now hold, and must continue to be of service to retain their standing. The following story, which appeared in a paper crusading against pawnshops and pistol carrying, is an illustration of what is meant by biased news:

| =JILTED, ENDS LIFE WITH A GUN= |
| |
|Israel Weilman was in love. Three months ago the |
|girl told him she would not marry him. Last night |
|Weilman left his quarters at 875 Banker Street and |
|went to the home of Rebecca Schussman, 904 South |
|Pueblo Avenue, where his room-mate and cousin, David|
|Isaacs, was calling. |
| |
|"Here are the keys to the room," he told his cousin,|
|"I will not be home to-night." |
| |
|Then Weilman departed. A few minutes later a shot |
|was heard in the alley back of the Schussman home. |
|They found Weilman dead with a bullet wound through |
|his heart. Beside him was a new "American bulldog" |
|revolver, retailing for $1.50. In his pocket was a |
|ticket of sale from the Angsgewitz pawnshop. The |
|profit on this style of weapon is about 25 cents. |

Illustrations of prejudiced political news may be found daily in any newspaper.

=128. Observing a Paper's Policies.=--It is necessary, therefore, to modify the preceding statements about unbiased news. Those assertions express the millennial dream, colorless news, that American journalism is always approaching as an ideal, but has not yet reached. From the same Associated Press dispatch a Georgia and a Pennsylvania daily can produce stories respectively of success and dissension in the Democratic party. From the same cable bulletin a Milwaukee and a New York paper can obtain German victory and English repulse of repeated Teutonic attacks. Not only _can_, but _do_. It is only fair to the would-be reporter, therefore, to tell him that at times in his journalistic career he may be permitted to see snow only through a motorist's yellow goggles. The modern newspaper is a business organization run for the profit or power of the owners, with the additional motive in the background of possible social uplift,--social uplift as the owners see it. They determine a paper's policies, and a reporter must learn and observe those policies if he expects to succeed.

=129. Following Commands.=--Observance of this injunction is particularly valuable in stories relating to political and civic measures. If one is on a paper with Republican affiliations, one may be forced to hear and report a G. O. P. governor's speech with an elephant's ears and trumpet,--or with a moose's ears and voice if the journal is Progressive. It makes no difference what the reporter's personal feeling or party preferences may be. On such papers he must follow precisely the commands of the managing editor or the city editor and must feature sympathetically or severely what they request. Usually an intelligent sympathy with the general policy of the paper is sufficient for a reporter, no matter how conscientious. It is only rarely that he is trammeled with being forced to write contrary to his convictions. But at those times when such commands are given, he must see and write as requested or seek another position.

=130. Consistency of Policy.=--On the other hand, suppose in policies affecting the official standing of a newspaper every reporter saw and presented events from his own distorted angle. How consistent would a modern newspaper be? And how long could it hold the respect or patronage of its readers?

=131. Clearness.=--Next in importance to accuracy comes interest. A story must be interesting to be read. Every paragraph must be clear. Its relation to every other paragraph must be evident, and the story as a whole must be presented so that it may be understood and enjoyed by the reader with as small expenditure of mental effort as possible. Ideas that are connected in thought, either by virtue of their sequence in time or for other reasons, must be kept together, and ideas that are separated in thought must be kept apart. If the story is one covering considerable length of time, care must be taken to keep the different incidents separated in point of time so that the reader may understand readily the relation of the different events to each other. The tenses of the verbs, too, must be kept consistent, logical. One cannot shift at will from past time to the present, and vice versa. If the story is a follow-up of an event that occurred before to-day and has been written up before, the body of the story should contain a sufficient summary of the preceding events to make the details readily clear to all readers,--even though the lead may already have included a connecting link. The summary of events in the lead must necessarily have been brief; the review in the body of the story may be presented at greater length.

=132. Coherence.=--A valuable aid in gaining clearness is a proper regard for coherence, for obtaining which there are four ways within a story: (1) by arrangement of the facts and statements in a natural sequence of ideas; (2) by use of pronouns; (3) by repetition; and (4) by use of relation words, phrases, and clauses. Discussion has already been given, in Chapter VIII, on the organization of material, of the necessity of logical arrangement of the story. If one has made a proper grouping there, one will have taken the first step, and the surest, toward adequate coherence. Of the three remaining methods, probably the greatest newspaper men are strongest in their use of pronouns, such as _these_, _those_, _that_, _them_, etc. They also avail themselves freely of a skillful repetition of words,--the third method, which stands almost, but not quite equal to the use of pronouns in effectiveness and frequency. The following fire story exhibits a happy repetition of words for holding the ideas in easy sequence. Note in it the skillful repetition of _firemen_, _fire_, _whiskey_, _building_, _casks_, _canal_.

| =$750,000 WORTH OF WHISKEY BURNS= |
| |
|Firemen had to fight a canal full of blazing whiskey|
|here to-day when a fire broke out in the building of|
|the Distillery Company, Ltd. Twelve thousand casks |
|of liquor were stored in the building. The |
|conflagration spread rapidly and the explosion of |
|the casks released the whiskey, which made a burning|
|stream of the canal. |
| |
|Firemen pumped water from the bottom of the canal |
|and played it on the blazing surface. The loss is |
|estimated at $750,000. |

=133. Relation Words.=--In other kinds of writing there is a tendency to use relation words, phrases, and clauses freely between sentences and paragraphs. But in news writing the paucity of such expressions for subconnection--_moreover_, _finally_, _on the other hand_, _in the next place_, _now that we have mentioned the cause of the divorce_--is noteworthy. Editors and the news-reading public demand that the ideas follow each other so closely and that the style be so compressed in thought that there shall be small need of connectives between sentences. It is this demand, plus a desire for emphasis, that is responsible for the so-called bing-bing-bing style of writing, of which the following is a fair illustration:

|After killing Mrs. Benton, Wallace, and the Weston |
|boy, Carlton set fire to the Lewis "love bungalow." |
|The wounded were unable to care for themselves. They|
|narrowly escaped death in the burning building. |
|Arrival of rescuing parties attracted by the fire |
|alone saved their lives. |
| |
|A hatchet was the weapon used by Carlton. |
| |
|The slayer escaped after the wholesale murder. He is|
|thought to be headed for Chicago. A posse under |
|command of Sheriff Bauer of Spring Green is hunting |
|the man. |
| |
|The story of the terrible tragedy enacted in the |
|Lewis "love bungalow," where for some years the |
|celebrated sculptor and the former Mrs. Cross had |
|been living in open defiance of the |
|conventionalities, was a gruesome one as it came to |
|light to-day. |
| |
|Carlton is twenty-eight years old. He is married. |
|His wife lived with him at the Lewis home. He had |
|been employed by Lewis for six months. He was |
|formerly employed by John Z. Hobart, proprietor of |
|Hobart's restaurant. He is five feet eight inches |
|tall, of medium build and light in color. |
| |
|What caused the trouble or the fury of Carlton is |
|not known. |
| |
|Who first fell is not known. |
| |
|What is known of the tragedy is this: |
| |
|Shortly after noon to-day villagers in the little |
|village of Spring Valley, where the Lewis bungalow |
|is and always has been something of a mystery as |
|well as a wonder to the residents, saw smoke coming |
|from the "love bungalow" on the hills. Villagers ran|
|to the place. The fire department responded to the |
|alarm. |
| |
|The bungalow was rapidly being consumed. Some one |
|entered the house. It was a shambles. Mrs. Benton |
|was found dead. Wallace was dead. Both had been |
|literally chopped to pieces by the infuriated negro.|
| |
|The bungalow was barricaded before entrance was |
|forced. After the dead had been discovered the |
|wounded were found. They were dragged out. The |
|conscious told disjointed stories of the tragedy and|
|of the awful fury that seemed to possess Carlton, |
|the cook. |
| |
|The latter was not to be found. He was at first |
|thought to have taken to the hills. Later it was |
|thought he might be hiding in the underground root |
|cellar but no search lights were available. |
| |
|Men with guns surrounded the house. |
| |
|The negro will be lynched if he is found, it was |
|thought this afternoon.[17] |

[17] _Chicago American._

=134. Bing-Bing-Bing Style.=--On the whole, this bing-bing-bing style of writing cannot be commended. Its value in rapid narrative, where excitement prevails and the reader's emotions are greatly aroused, is evident. But the style, indulged in too freely, produces a fitful, choppy effect that is not good. The sentences should be longer and more varied in construction. Examination of the preceding illustration shows that it has only three words or phrases used for subconnection, and only four complex sentences.

=135. Emphasis.=--Next to clearness in holding the interest of the reader comes emphasis, which may be had by avoidance of vague literary phrasing, by a due regard for tone in the story, and by condensation of expression. The first two overlap, since the whole tone of a story may easily be destroyed by an affectation of literary phraseology. These two, therefore, may be considered together.

=136. Vague Literary Phrasing.=--Many cub reporters feel, when they begin to write, that they must express themselves in a literary style, and to gain that style they affect sonorous, grandiloquent phrases that sound well but mean little. In nine cases out of ten these phrases are the inventions of others and meant much as used in their original connection. But as adopted now by a novice, they are vague, only hazily expressive, lacking in that sharp precision necessary for forceful presentation of news.

=137. Tone.=--It is this vagueness of expression that as often as not destroys the tone of the story. One may be aiming at portraying the dignity and simplicity of a wedding or the unmarred happiness of the occasion, but if one attempts to equal the joy of the event with the bigness of his words, one will produce upon the reader an effect of revulsion rather than interest. An ignorant, but well-meaning, reporter on an Eastern weekly concluded a wedding story with the following sentences:

|After the union of Miss Petty and Mr. Meydam in the |
|holy bonds of wedlock, the beautiful bride and |
|handsome groom and all the knights and ladies |
|present repaired to the dining-room, where a |
|bounteous supper interspersed with mirth and song |
|awaited them. After which they tripped the light |
|fantastic toe until the wee small hours of the |
|morning, when all repaired to their beds of rest and|
|wrapt themselves in the arms of Morpheus. |

This selection happens to be a conglomeration mainly of worn-out expressions current in literature for the past two or three centuries. But any use of phrases too large or too emotional for the thought to be conveyed will result in an equally dismal failure. All the words, phrases, and ideas in the following are the writer's own, but the effect is practically the same as in the preceding story:

|The scene and the occasion were both inspiring. The |
|music was furnished by the birds, which were at |
|their best on this bridal day. A meadowlark called |
|to his mate across the lake, asking if he might come|
|and join her. A brown thrush in a tree on the hill |
|near by sent forth across the water a carol full of |
|love and melody such as a Beethoven or a Chopin |
|would strive in vain to imitate. The hills were |
|dressed in their prettiest robes of green. The water|
|was quiet. Nature was at her best. And the bride and|
|groom, both in tastiness of dress and in spirits, |
|were in harmony with nature. |

The writer, too, in striving after a definite tone must be equally apprehensive of unintended suggestions caused by an unfortunate closeness of unrelated ideas. This fault was illustrated in a story by an Iowa reporter who wrote that "Lon Stegle took Mrs. Humphrey and a load of hogs to Santo Monday," and of an unwitting Pennsylvania humorist who said, "Audry Richardson, while visiting his sweetheart in Freedonia last Sunday sprained his arm severely and won't be able to use it for ten days or two weeks." If the tone of the story is meant to be dignified, unintended humor may make the presentation absurd.

=138. Varied Sentence Length.=--The story tone is greatly affected also by the length of the sentences. If one's sentences are unnecessarily long, the effect will be heavy and tiresome. If they are markedly short, the result will be a monotonous, choppy, jolting effect, like a flat wheel on a street-car. The bing-bing-bing style just discussed is an illustration of the latter. The writer should aim at a happy medium, with simple constructions and a tendency toward shorter sentences than in other kinds of writing. Twenty words make a good average sentence length. It is necessary to remember that one's stories are read not only by the literati, but by the uneducated as well. One must make one's style, therefore, so fluent, so easy, that a man with a speaking vocabulary of five hundred words can read and enjoy all one writes.

=139. Condensation.=--The value of condensation of expression need not be discussed at length here as it is taken up fully in the next chapter. Suffice it to say now, however, that a diffuse style is never forceful. The reporter must condense his ideas into the smallest space possible. Often that space is designated by the city editor when the reporter, on his return to the office, asks for instructions, and nearly always it is only about half enough. But he must follow directions to the letter. Woe to the novice who presents a thousand words, or even six hundred, when the city editor calls for five hundred. Sometimes, however, he will find that the city editor has allotted him more space than he can easily fill. In such a case, let him give length by introducing additional details. Mere words will not suffice. They do not make a story.

=140. Final Test of a Story.=--The two cares for the reporter, then, in writing the body of the story are accuracy and interest. Accuracy is worth most, and is attained by strict adherence to truth, with plenty of proof for the truth in case it is questioned after publication. Interest may be had by making all statements clear, coherent, forceful. But there is no precise form or method by which accuracy and interest may be obtained. The reporter is given unlimited range in selecting, organizing, and writing his news. He may follow or disregard at will the standard types of other newspaper men's stories, which should be taken as models only, never as laws. For the final test of the goodness of a story is its effect upon the reader. If it attains the desired result without conforming to the patterns given by other writers, it will become a new pattern for itself and for similar stories. Get accuracy and interest, then, no matter what the method.

XI. THE PARAGRAPH

=141. Paragraph a Mark of Punctuation.=--Discussion of the paragraph really belongs under the head of punctuation, since its purpose is to set off the larger divisions of the story in the same way that the period and the comma mark sentences and phrases. The indention of the first line catches the eye of the reader and notifies him silently to stop for a summary of his impressions before starting a somewhat different phase of the story. Its purpose, like that of the other marks of punctuation, is clearness and emphasis. Yet since its very lax laws are much the same as those of the story, it must be noticed independently.

=142. Clearness.=--The first requirement of the paragraph is that it shall be clear. Its relation to the paragraphs preceding and following must be evident at a glance. If transitional phrases and sentences or relation words are necessary for making the relation clear, use them; but as a rule, as stated concerning the story as a whole, reliance for clearness in and between paragraphs is placed mainly on the natural and close sequence of ideas.

=143. Emphasis.=--Next to clearness, the important thing to strive for in the news paragraph is emphasis. Proper emphasis is not a virtue; it is a necessity, because the eye of the rapid reader, as he glances down the columns of the paper, catches only the first words and phrases at each paragraph indention. And according as those words and phrases interest him, so will he take sufficient interest in the paragraph as a whole to read it. For this reason the beginning of each paragraph especially should be emphasized by placing there the most important details. The reporter should guard against putting even dependent clauses and phrases used for subconnection at the beginning of a paragraph, but should envelop them, rather, within the sentence. He should not begin successive paragraphs with the same words or phrases or with the same construction. It is remarkable how unfavorably such small details influence readers. All this does not mean that the paragraph should end lamely. It cannot conclude with the emphasis of the beginning, it is true, but it may be well rounded at the end and its lack of emphasis in details may be compensated with vigor and deftness of expression.

=144. Paragraph Length.=--The length of one's paragraphs should also be a matter of due consideration. They must be not only brief, but brief looking. The modern reader will not brook long ones. Single-sentence paragraphs are frequent, particularly in the lead. Two- or three-sentence paragraphs are common. Half-column paragraphs are unendurable. The average newspaper column permits lines of about seven words each, so that twenty lines, or 140 words, should be the limit of a paragraph. Eight or ten lines is a good average length. Because of this necessary brevity, the newspaper paragraph allows no topics and subtopics within its limited space, but throws every subtopic into an individual paragraph. This the reporter may follow as a safe rule in paragraphing: whenever in doubt about the advisability of a new paragraph, make one.

XII. THE SENTENCE[18]

[18] Teachers having classes sufficiently advanced may find
it advisable to pass hastily over this chapter, or may
omit it entirely.

=145. Requisites.=--The same laws of accuracy and interest hold for the sentence as for the story as a whole. But in the sentence they are more rigid,--due in the main to the fact that the sentence is briefer and more readily analyzable. And while one sympathizes with the overworked reporter who served notice upon critical college professors that "when the hands of the clock are near on to press time, and I have a million things to write in a few minutes, I don't give a whoop if I do end a few sentences with prepositions," and concluded by saying, "If I had as much time as the average college professor has, I probably could write good grammar, too";--while one sympathizes with the time-driven newspaper man who never has sufficient leisure to polish a story as he would like, the fact still remains that the reader cannot tell from looking at a story, nor should he be allowed to tell, how much rushed the reporter was. The only thing the reader is interested in is the story, whether it is good or not; and if he does not regard it as worth while, if the sentences are faulty, ungrammatical, weak, he will read another story or another paper.

=146. Grammar.=--The first point to regard in seeking accuracy in the sentence is good grammar. This may seem a trivial injunction to offer a coming star reporter on a great metropolitan daily; but the city editor's assistants have to correct more grammatical errors in cub copy than any other kind of mistake except spelling and punctuation. The main violations of grammar may be classified conveniently under four heads: faulty reference, incorrect verb forms, failures in cooerdinating and subordinating different parts of a sentence, and poor ellipsis.

=147. Pronouns Referring to Ideas.=--Probably the most prolific cause of bad grammar and of obscurity of meaning in news writing may be found in the use of unclear pronouns. One or more instances may be found in almost every paper a reader examines. A reporter should assure himself that every pronoun he uses refers to a particular word in the sentence and that it agrees with that word in gender and number. The use of a pronoun to refer to a general idea not expressed in a particular word is one of the commonest causes of ambiguity and obscurity in newspaper work. In the following sentence note what a ludicrous turn is given the sentence by the use of _which_ referring to an idea:

|A card from C. A. Laird, son of Harry Laird, informs|
|the _Democrat_ that his father is slightly improved |
|and that they now have hopes of his recovery, |
|although he suffers much pain from his fractured |
|jaw, which will be good news to his many Lock Haven |
|friends. |

=148. Agreement of Pronouns in Number.=--A second prime cause of incorrect reference is found in a writer's failure to make a reference word agree in number with the noun to which it refers. Such faulty reference occurs most frequently after collective nouns, such as _mob_, _crowd_, _council_, _jury_, _assembly_; after distributive pronouns, such as _everyone_, _anybody_, _nobody_; and after two or more singular and plural nouns, where the reporter forgets momentarily to which he is referring. In the following sentences note that each of the italicized pronouns violates one or more of these principles, thereby polluting the clearness of the meaning:

|The mob was already surrounding the attorney's home,|
|but _they_ moved so slowly that we got in ahead. |

|We have heard more than one express _themselves_ |
|that next year Merrillan should have the biggest |
|celebration of the century. |

|Everyone who had any interest in the boat was |
|inquiring about _their_ friends and relatives. |

|A peculiar thing about each one was that _they_ |
|chose a husband with a given name that rhymed much |
|the same with _their_ own. Mrs. Baker was Josephine |
|Ramp and secured Joe as her husband; Arnie Hallauer |
|and Annie Ramp, Gust Lumblad and Gusta Ramp, and |
|Eugene Carver and Ella Ramp. The _latter_ is a |
|widow. The given name of each one commences with the|
|same letter in each instance. |

=149. Ambiguous Antecedents.=--Then there is a use of the pronoun with an unclear antecedent buried somewhere in the sentence, so that the pronoun seems to refer to an intervening word. Such a misuse really is a matter of clearness rather than of grammar, and should come under the next section of this chapter, but it will be discussed here for the sake of including all misuses of the pronoun at once. The ambiguous use of pronouns is the most common error of faulty reference. The following are typical illustrations:

|The Rev. Mr. Tomlinson states that he wants a |
|steady, religious young man to look after his garden|
|and care for his cow who has a good voice and is |
|accustomed to singing in the choir. |

|Atkinson telephoned that he was at Zeibski's corners|
|in his machine and had his wife with him. She had |
|died on him and he wanted the garage company to come|
|out and pull her in. |

=150. Split Infinitive.=--Next to faulty reference in frequency comes the use of incorrect verb forms. Of these probably the most common error among cub reporters is the employment of the split infinitive,--_to quickly run_ instead of _to run quickly_. The split infinitive is not necessarily an error. There are times when one's precise meaning can be expressed only by the use of an adverb between _to_ and its infinitive. But as a rule one should avoid the construction. Certainly there was no excuse for the following in a Chicago paper:

=151. Infinitive and Participle with Verbs.=--The use of the infinitive and the participle with the past tense of verbs is also a cause of frequent error. Our English rule regarding these parts of the verb is mainly a matter of usage, accuracy in which may be attained only by habits of correct speech. But if the reporter will bear in mind that the infinitive and the participle have no finite tense of their own, that they always express time relative to the time of the main verb, he will have taken a real precaution toward preventing confusion. For example, the newspaper man who wrote,

|Detective McGuire had intended to have arrested him |
|when he began blowing the safe, |

did not say what he meant, because the past infinitive here makes the writer say that Detective McGuire had intended to have the yeggman already under arrest when he began blowing the safe. What the writer meant to say was:

|Detective McGuire had intended to arrest him when he|
|began blowing the safe. |

Likewise the reporter was inaccurate who wrote:

|Going into the basement, they found the cocaine |
|stored beneath a heap of rags. |

He was not accurate, unless he meant that they found the cocaine while on the way to the basement. The cause of his inaccuracy lies in the fact that the time expressed by the participle _going_ varies from that of the main verb. What he should have said was,

Having gone into the basement, ...

or better,

|After going into the basement, they found the |
|cocaine stored beneath a heap of rags. |

=152. Dangling Participles.=--Another detail for careful attention in the use of the participle is the necessity of having a definite noun or pronoun in the sentence for the participle to modify. It is wrong to write,

|Having arrived at the county jail, the door was |
|forced open, |

because the sentence seems to say that the door did the arriving. The sentence should be written,

|Having arrived at the county jail, the mob forced |
|open the door. |

=153. Agreement of Verbs.=--One should watch one's verbs carefully, too, to see that they agree in number with their subjects. One is sometimes tempted to make the verb agree with the predicate, as in the following:

|The weakest section of the course are the ninth, |
|tenth, and eleventh holes. |

But English usage requires agreement of the verb with the subject. If the subject is a collective noun, one may regard it as either singular or plural. But when the writer has made his choice, he must maintain a consistent point of view. One may say,

|The mob were now gathering in the northeast corner |
|of the yard and yelling themselves hoarse, |

|The mob was now gathering in the northeast corner of|
|the yard and yelling itself hoarse. |

But the two points of view may not be mixed in the same sentence or the same paragraph. That the following sentence is wrong should be evident at a glance:

|The Kellog-Haines Singing Party has been on the |
|lyceum and chautauqua platform for eight years and |
|have toured together the entire United States. |

Confusion is often caused also by qualifying phrases intervening between subjects and their verbs. Thus:

|The number of the strikers and of the members of the |
|employment associations do not agree with the report |
|made by the commission. |

And sometimes one finds a plural verb wrongly used after the correlative terms _either ... or_ and _neither ... nor_, as in the following:

|Neither the mother of the children nor the aunt were|
|held responsible for the accident. |

Finally, one often finds reporters consistently using a singular verb after the expletive _there_. In fifty per cent of the cases the writers are wrong. Thus:

Here _was_ should be _were_.

=154. Cooerdination and Subordination.=--The third error in grammatical construction, failure to cooerdinate or subordinate sentences and parts of sentences properly, cannot be treated with so much sureness as the two preceding faults; yet certain definite instruction may be given. _And_, _but_, _for_, _or_, and _nor_ are called cooerdinating conjunctions; that is, they are used to connect words, phrases, and clauses of equal rank. If one uses _and_ to connect a noun with a verb, or a past participle with a present participle, or a verb in the indicative mood with one in the subjunctive, he perverts the conjunction and produces a consequent effect of awkwardness or lack of clearness in the sentence. Look at the following:

In this sentence _and_ is used to connect the participle _residing_ with the pronoun _who_, and the consequent awkwardness results. This is the much condemned _and who_ construction. Likewise, in the next sentence:

_And_ is here used to connect the past participle _washed_ with the present participle _drowning_, and the sentence is thereby rendered clumsy.

=155. Clauses Unequal in Thought.=--An equally great inaccuracy is the attempt to connect with a cooerdinate conjunction clauses equivalent in grammatical construction, but unequal in thought value. Other things being equal, the ideas of greatest value should be put into independent clauses, the ideas of least value into dependent clauses or phrases. _Other things being equal_, be it understood, for by a too strict observance of this rule one may easily make the sentence ludicrous. Take the following as an illustration:

|We were to raid the hall precisely at midnight, and |
|we set our watches to the second. |

Here the thought-value of the two clauses is not equal, no matter how the writer may attempt to make it seem so by expressing the ideas in clauses grammatically equal. The second clause contains the main idea; so the first should be subservient. Thus:

|As we were to raid the hall precisely at midnight, |
|we set our watches to the second. |

In the corrected form the sentence is given greater force by having the reader's attention directed specifically to the thought of prime importance, the setting of the watches. And so with the following sentences. Note that the second in each case is made more forceful by centering the attention on what is most important in thought.

* * * * *

|He fell from the sixth story and was able to walk |
|away without assistance. |

|Though he fell from the sixth story, he was able to |
|walk away without assistance. |

=156. Ellipsis.=--Ellipsis is the omission of a word or phrase necessary to the meaning of a sentence. An ellipsis is poor when the words omitted cannot readily be understood from the context. Pope's line,

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

is an illustration of good ellipsis because the word _is_ can readily be substituted from the context. The following ellipses, however, are not good:

|Louis Flanagan is helping his brother Silas cut wood|
|and numerous other things. |

|He shadowed Laux longer than O'Rourke. |

|Standing on each side of the door, a fat and tall |
|man looked suspiciously at them. |

Ellipsis is often desirable for the sake of brevity, but one must be sure never to omit a word or phrase unless precisely that word or phrase may be readily supplied from the context.

=157. Clearness in the Sentence.=--After correct grammar, the next points to seek in writing the sentence are clearness and force, which together give a sentence its interest. Of the two, clearness is the more important. A reporter should never write a sentence that must be read twice to be understood. As has been said once or twice already, but may be repeated for emphasis, news stories to-day are read rapidly, and rapid reading is possible only when sentences yield their ideas with small effort on the part of the reader. Consider the following:

|The Assembly on Thursday refused to pass the Grell |
|Bill, permitting the sale of intoxicating liquors, |
|after the close of the polls on election days, over |
|the governor's veto. |

This sentence is clear if one will stop to read it twice; but there is the trouble: one must read it twice--a task few will perform.

=158. Grammatically Connected Phrases.=--The lack of entire clearness in the sentence just quoted is due to a difficulty over which the best writers often stumble,--failure to keep grammatically connected words, phrases, and clauses as close together as possible. In the sentence quoted, for instance, if the phrase _over the governor's veto_ were placed immediately after _pass_, the whole sentence would be clear at once to the reader. The same fault exists in the following:

|The witness said she had a furnished bedroom for a |
|gentleman 22 feet long by 11 feet wide. |

=159. Correlative Conjunctions.=--The correlative conjunctions, _either ... or_, _neither ... nor_, _whether ... or_, and _not only ... but also_, are also particularly liable to trip a writer. Each should come immediately before the word or phrase it modifies. For example:

|Either the prisoner will be hanged or sentenced to |
|life imprisonment. |

This sentence obviously is wrong. _Either_ here should come immediately before _hanged_, making the sentence read:

|The prisoner will be either hanged or sentenced to |
|life imprisonment. |

=160. "Only" and "Alone."=--_Only_ and _alone_ belong in the same class of modifiers that demand close watching. _Only_ comes immediately before the word or phrase it modifies, _alone_ immediately after. One should avoid using _only_ when _alone_ may be used instead, and should not place either of the two words between emphatic words or phrases. The following illustrates an inaccurate placing of _only_:

|The evidence seemed to show that a man could only |
|obtain advancement in the Hall by submitting wholly |
|to the dictates of the leaders. |

_Only_ here should come immediately before the phrase by _submitting_.

=161. Parenthetic Expressions.=--The use of long parenthetic expressions within a sentence is also a frequent cause of lack of clearness. In general, sentences within parentheses should be avoided in news articles. Two short terse sentences are clearer--hence far more effective--than one long one containing a doubtfully clear parenthetic phrase or clause. The prime fault with the following sentence, for instance, is the inclusion of the two parenthetic clauses, necessitating a close reading to get the meaning:

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News writingChapter V: Part II: The News Story (3)

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