M. Lyle Spencer

“ Yet clearness, force, brevity all demand little words,—simplicity. And the simplest words are those of everyday speech,—Anglo-Saxon words generally,—such as home rather than residence, begin rather than commence, coffin rather than casket. The reporter who uses ornate, technical, or little-known words does so at his own peril and to the injury of his story; for the average newspaper reader, without the benefits of a college education and having a limited vocabulary of one to two thousand words, does not know and has no time to look up the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. ”

“ But when they meet that problem a second or a third time, they solve it automatically. A man learning to drive a car has presented to him a new problem about which he must think keenly. The steering wheel, the foot-brake, the accelerator, the brake and speed levers, the possibility of touching the wrong pedal,—all demand his undivided attention and keep him thinking every moment of the time. But having learned, having solved his problem, he can run his car without conscious thought, and meanwhile can devote his mind to problems of business or pleasure. ”

“ He must never forget that he is a gentleman, no matter what the other person may be. He cannot afford to permit himself even to become angry. Anger does not pay, for two reasons. In the first place, when a reporter loses his temper, he immediately loses his head. He becomes so absorbed in his own emotions that he cannot question shrewdly or remember clearly what is said by the man from whom he would extract information. In the second place, anger creates hostility, and a hostile man or woman not only does not willingly give information, but will be an enemy of the paper forever afterward. ”

“ Accuracy.—The reason for emphasizing so particularly the need of accuracy in news requires little discussion. Accuracy First is the slogan of the modern newspaper. If a piece of news, no matter how thrilling, is untrue, it is worthless in the columns of a reputable journal. It is worse than worthless, because it makes the public lose confidence in the paper. ”

“ Even timeliness is not a prerequisite. If it were learned to-day that a member of the United States Senate had killed a man in 1912, the occurrence would be news and would be carried on the front page of every paper in America, even though the deed were committed years ago. And if it should transpire that Csolgosz was bribed by an American millionaire to assassinate President McKinley in 1901, the story would be good for a column in any paper. Freshness, enormity, departure from the normal, all are good and add to the value of news, but they are not essential. ”

“ When the newspapers of the United States make the President's wedding the big story of the day, it is not that they think their patrons have never seen a wedding, but that a wedding under just such circumstances has never been presented before. And every published story of murder or divorce or struggle for victory offers new thought-provoking problems to newspaper readers. Men are continually searching for new situations that will present new problems. And any story that will provoke a reader's thought will be enjoyed as news. ”

“ The caterers are engaged weeks in advance. The florists provide the decorations. And the hair-dressing parlors are hotbeds of gossip. By visiting or calling regularly at these places one generally can keep abreast of all the society news in town. But always when getting news from such sources—or from any other for that matter—one must be sure of the absolute accuracy of all addresses, names, and initials. If one is not careful,—well, only one who has seen an irate mother talk to the city editor before the ink on the home edition is dry can appreciate the trouble that will probably result. ”

“ Fortunate, indeed, are the golfers of Elgin and vicinity, in having for their very own such a lovely and delightful spot as the Wing Park Golf course, where soft, sweet winds are blended with the greens below and the blue above—where the sturdy oak reaches out cool, shadowy arms to caress the tired golfer—where the last rays of the setting sun love to linger on the golf balls—where in fact all nature appears to unite into one grand combination to give the golfer a good time. ”

“ It is that intuition in a star man which forbids his beginning the same kind of story day after day with a fixed, hackneyed type of sentence, which makes him avoid triteness of expression. It is that something in him which compels him to avoid affectation, to love beauty and grace, born of simplicity, unadornedness. ”

“ If the reporter wishes to make good, let him love the law of the city editor. He is the man to whom all the reporters and some of the copy readers are responsible, and who in turn is responsible to the managing editor for the gathering and preparation of city news. He must know where news can be found, direct the getting of news, and see that it is put into the paper properly. When news is abundant, he must decide which stories shall be discarded, and on those [Pg 7] rarer occasions when all the world—the good and the bad—seems to have gone to sleep, he must know how to make news. ”

“ What the Feature Story Is.—The feature, or human interest, story is the newspaper man's invention for making stories of little news value interesting. The prime difference between the feature story and the normal information story we have been studying is that its news is a little less excellent and must be made good by the writer's ingenuity. The exciting informational story on the first page claims the reader's attention by reason of the very dynamic power of its tidings, but the news of the feature story must have a touch of literary rouge on its face to make it attractive. ”

“ For some reason news about the great, no matter how trivial, is always of interest, and varies in direct proportion to the prominence of the person. If the President of the United States drives a golf ball into a robin's nest, if the oil king in the Middle West prefers a wig to baldness, if the millionaire automobile manufacturer never pays more than five cents for his cigars, the reading public is greatly interested in learning the fact. ”

“ Away, away on the pinions of the wind flew the car, the speed being dexterously regulated according to the grade and curvature of the road. Many birds, traveling at their best speed, were easily overtaken and left far in the rear; horse conveyances going at a gallop appeared to be standing still; farm houses looked like hen-coops, and Eholt resembled a chicken ranch. For speed, Mazeppa's ride was far outclassed. It was a memorable trip to those in the car, but everyone had implicit confidence in the chauffeur and there were no white feathers visible. ”

“ These two existences, which had heretofore traveled the pathway of life, each moving on in an independent course, passing through the various experiences of life and never once dreaming of what the end would really be, had emerged upon the common but ever blessed pathway of life to blend together into a single union the thought and intents of each other's hearts, wills, and affections, and thence plunge into the great land of utility. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gathering News.—The prospective reporter who supposes that newspaper men wander aimlessly up and down the streets of a city, watching and hoping for automobiles to collide and for men to shoot their enemies, will have his eyes opened soon after entering a news office. He will learn that a reporter never leaves the city room without a definite idea of where he is going. If newspapers had to police the streets with watchers for news as the city government assigns officers of the law, the cost of gathering news would be prohibitive. ”

“ A man with a broad, square, massive forehead is a good business man; he can plan ahead, has good business judgment. If the crown of his head is high and round he is absolutely conscientious, too; and if the back of his head is well rounded out he will love his home, his wife, and his children and show them consideration above everything else in the world. The man whose head is flat on top, flat and almost even with his ears in the back and narrow and foreshortened on the front; whose lips are thin, whose eyes are cold, will not make a good husband in any sense of the word, says Kibby. ”

“ And he never thinks about the order and choice of words again, unless they give rise to some new, unforeseen perplexity; as, for instance, they might, were he suddenly afflicted with stammering or stage fright. This is no scandal, it is a great convenience. Thanks to it, men are able to concern themselves with fresh enterprises and hence to progress. Indeed, civilization is a titanic monument to thoughtlessness, no less than to thought. The supreme triumph of mind is to dispense with itself. ”

“ In the stores, along the street, on the cars, at the club, the alert reporter gathers many an important news item. The merchant, the cabman, the preacher, the barkeeper, the patrolman, the thug, the club-man, the porter, all make valuable acquaintances, as they are able often to give one stories or clues to the solution of problems that are all but invaluable to the paper. And such facts as they present are given solely because of their interest in the reporter. One should guard zealously, however, against betraying the confidence of such friends. ”

“ Sometimes on the largest dailies there are both a market and a financial editor, but usually the work is combined under a single man whose duties are to keep in close touch with markets, banks, manufactories, and large mercantile companies, and to write up simply and accurately from day to day the financial condition of the city and the country. The duty of the literary editor is often little more than book reviewing. Frequently he does not have an office in the building, and on small papers his only remuneration is the gift of the book he reviews. ”

“ Indeed, it is in the "follow-up" that the reporter has one of his greatest opportunities to prove himself a constructive journalist. There is every reason, too, for believing it will be in the "follow-up" that the big newspaper of the future will find its greatest development. At present, stories often are dropped too quickly, so quickly that the really constructive news is lost. A great epidemic sweeps a city, taking an unprecedented toll of life and entailing expenditures of hundreds of thousands of dollars. ”

“ Marshall gave their annual dinner to the President and his wife, and had a senatorial company to meet them.
The debutantes are in the full splendor of their glory, and the next three weeks will give them a supreme test of endurance, for luncheons, teas, dinners and dances not only follow one another closely, but pile up, with several in a day and not one to be neglected. There are no diplomatic buds, no cabinet buds, and few army, navy and congressional buds. But it is a strong residential year, with a number of debutantes in the smartest and most exclusive of the substantial old families. ”