News article

“ What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on its editorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy, accuracy, accuracy! ”

“ People learned most of the news of the day from distant places, whether it pertained to politics, society, or gossip, through faithful correspondents.
Imagine a busy merchant in one of our great cities writing a business letter, but giving most of the space to the results of the last election, or the doings of the state legislature. ”

“ It is the imperative demand for news, embracing every movement of human life in every class and every country, that sets in action the wondrous organization that produces a daily newspaper. Its ministers of communication are almost ubiquitous. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An editorial, giving some of the plain facts about civilization—simple stuff to teach the people what industry means, what their work means, what they ought to be doing. Then news—news about all movements toward freedom—labor, strikes, reform, new laws, schools—news of all the forces working for betterment—a concrete statement of where the world stands to-day and what it is doing. ”

“ The controlling desire of a great modern newspaper is to give its readers the news, and the news therefore may show progressive action, the breaking of precedents, the activities of great organizations formed to uphold righteousness and peace. ”

“ Out of the day’s news it gives prominence to that which fits into its scheme of treatment, and there is so much news that it can fill its columns with interesting materials, yet leave untouched a myriad of events. ”

“ Hence he should never write short paragraphs upon unimportant topics—his style is too ponderous. The News, as a political sheet, is well managed, barring some desire, occasionally manifested, to pull, for personal ends, the strings of its influence ”

“ Elopements, clandestine marriages, unusual engagements, freakish parties, and similar extraordinary social and personal news do not come within the sphere of the society editor, but take regular, and usually prominent, places in the news columns. ”

“ The company of bright minds, certain to be sanguine and optimistic, the excitement produced by unexpected news, the rush to prepare it most attractively and against time, the thousand unpublishable conceits and views and arguments that leap to the mind and are discussed in council, the freaks and blunders of the reporters and contributors—all these elements are in the cup of joy that a journalist drinks off every day. ”

“ But when, as a reporter, you are looking for a feature to play up in your lead, remember that the feature to be played up is the thing in the story that gives the story news value. And few stories have more than one claim to news value, more than one feature. ”

“ When a busy American glances over his newspaper while he sips his breakfast coffee or while he clings to a strap on the way to his office, he reads only the stories that catch his interest—and he reads down the column in any one story only so long as his interest is maintained. Hence the ideal news story is one which will catch the reader's attention by its beginning and hold his interest to the very end. ”

“ When one considers the difficulties under which news is gathered and the limited time at the newspaper’s command, the wonder is not that errors occasionally creep into the news columns but that the errors are so few. ”

“ In the news columns there is room for only concise announcements of such events as a scientific discovery, an important invention, the destruction of a landmark, the death of an old actor, a new design for coins or postage stamps, an auction of rare books or paintings, a new theory of the origin of life, the results of an investigation of child labor conditions, a report on decreasing soil fertility, or the adoption by a state of a plan for government life insurance. ”

“ Is it to elevate the Standard, distribute the Daily News, act as astronomer-royal to the Morning and Evening Stars, to roll the Globe, or be its Atlas, take the spots from the face of the Sun, blow the great trumpet of the Morning Herald, literary field-marshal in some review, rebuild some damaged or exploded magazine? What can the business be? ”

“ Are there not a hundred little rivulets of news which never flow through the journals, but are passed from mouth to mouth, and seem shallow enough, but which, uniting at last, form a great stream of public opinion, and this, having formed itself imperceptibly, is suddenly found in full flow, and is so obvious that the newspapers forget to mention it? ”

“ Remember, in forming your estimate of the news value of a story, that the newspaper is read by men and women of all classes—by the banker and his stenographer, the day laborer and the college professor. A story is valuable as news in proportion to the number of persons it interests. ”

“ The distinction between local news and general news grows out of the greater degree of interest on the part of the reader in persons and places that he knows and in matters that are closely related to his business and his home. News of significance concerning the community in which he lives is of prime importance to every reader. ”

“ Let us endeavour to supply a rapid sketch of the wonderful organization that is required to produce this great necessary of modern society.
The essential characteristic of a newspaper is news. It may be philosophical, or critical, or imaginative—it may pour forth treasures of learning or eloquence, to live but a few hours and then be too readily forgotten—but no amount of ability will give it currency if it be deficient in news. ”

“ The human interest story has grown out of a number of causes. Up to a very recent time newspapers have been content with printing news in its barest possible form—facts and nothing but facts. Their appeal has been only to the brain. ”

“ Every news story should present the details of the news as accurately as possible and as completely as the significance of the news warrants. The embellishment of news stories with fictitious details to make them more interesting or more entertaining, as well as the distortion and suppression of significant facts of the news in order to accomplish some end, are alike opposed to the fundamental purpose of the newspaper. ”

“ If the newspaper has not the news it may have everything else, yet it will be comparatively unsuccessful; and by news I mean everything that occurs, everything which is of human interest, and which is of sufficient interest to arrest and absorb the attention of the public or of any considerable part of it. ”

“ The great number of, and the imperfect organization of the newspaper establishments, as has already been shown, is a principal reason; necessity, in some degree, compelling a manufacture of "news," when none exists in reality. ”

“ Incidental concerns of both men and women readers, such as organizations to which they belong, general movements with which they are connected, or the social life of which they are a part, give interest for them to news concerning these activities. News values, therefore, are measured by the extent to which news affects directly the lives of readers; the greater the effect and the larger the number of readers affected, the better the news. ”

“ It has come to this, that the newspaper furnishes thought-material for all the world, actually prescribes from day to day the themes the world shall think on and talk about. The occupation of news-gathering becomes, therefore, the most important. ”

“ There is no variation from one day to another in the basic themes of the news, but there is an endless variation in the local color, in the shadings of motive, in all the details that go to make one story different from all others. ”

“ Thus the daily newspaper will be entirely a vehicle for the propagation of news, correctly so called: and very likely it will become almost entirely colourless, politically, because a well-informed public will resent obvious garbling or clearly unfair selection. ”

“ Much more effort should be made by newspapers in this country to show108 the significance of acts of representative public bodies, in relation not only to the home and business interests of the individual reader, but to the welfare of the community, the state, and the nation. Intelligent interest in government on the part of the individual citizen, which is generally recognized as absolutely essential to the success of a democracy, can be more effectively created through the news columns of the daily newspaper than by any other means. ”

“ Editorials have as their purpose the interpretation of news and of current issues and the discussion of matters of general interest, particularly with a view to convincing readers of the truth or the falsity of some proposition and of persuading them to act in accordance with the convictions thus created. ”

“ Our newspapers are overwhelmed with material that is of no importance. The obvious remedy for this would be more intelligent direction in the collection of news, and more careful sifting and supervision of it when gathered. ”

“ The sensational character of the daily press must be considered in this connection. The news value of normal, peaceable developments is very small. It is therefore a godsend to the news- papers when something extraordinary happens, particularly in international affairs. ”

“ Read the newspaper by headlines only,—skipping all the murders, all the fires, all the executions, all the crimes, all the news, except the most important and immediately interesting,—and you will spend perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes upon what would otherwise occupy hours. It is no exaggeration to say that most persons have spent time enough over the newspapers, to have given them a liberal education. ”

“ THE NEWSPAPER AS AN ORGAN OF OPINION While the necessary characteristic of all periodical literature has been the conveyance of news of some sort, sometimes of a general and frequently only of a special character, there has run side by side with this function the conveyance of general information and of instructed comment and incidentally the opportunity of thus moulding public opinion. ”

“ What is news? Where and how is news to be obtained? and, How is news to be presented to the reader? The first question involves the definition of news and the determination of its value, the second concerns the gathering of news, and the third has to do with structure and style in the writing of news.
What is News? Although every good newspaper worker recognizes news at once, and almost instinctively decides upon its value, most of them find it difficult to express in brief form what news is and what determines its value. ”

“ Such histories as these do, in reality, very much resemble a newspaper, which consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. ”

“ The old staid and influential organs of the past, such as the Constitutionnel, the Debats, or the Siecle, which were accepted as oracles by the preceding generation, have disappeared or have become typical modern papers, in which a maximum of news is sandwiched in between light articles, society gossip, and financial puffs. ”

“ Familiar names of great ocean steamships, of large commercial companies, and of important railroad systems, increase the news value of stories in which they appear. Size and prominence, then, of places and things, like importance and prominence of persons, determine news values.
Home and Business Interests. The most vital concerns of both men and women, however, are their business and their home, their prosperity and their happiness. Whatever in the daily round of events affects these interests most directly will get their closest attention. ”

“ Essentials of News Writing.—To write successful news stories, four requisites are necessary: the power to estimate news values properly, the stories to write, the ability to work rapidly, and the power to present facts accurately and interestingly. ”

“ And so with the desire for news came into existence an ardent desire for an education in the so-called ‘three R’s.’ As to the style of the reading matter in the Pioneer Newspapers, it conformed, with notable exceptions, to the conditions, social and political, of the times. As a matter of fact, politics were paramount in pioneer days and up to the triumph of Responsible Government, or to the middle of the 19th Century. ”

“ A book or a sermon or a play may interest people, but in themselves they are not news. The fact, however, that a book has been published or a sermon preached or a play produced, is news, if that fact has an element of public interest. ”

“ From his individual perception of the true philosophy of human interest, more than from any other single source, have come the now general repudiation of the old conventional standards of news importance; the modern newspaper’s appreciation of the news value of the sentiment and humor of the daily life around us;417 the recognition of the principle that a small incident, interesting in itself and well told, may be worth a column’s space, when a large, dull fact is hardly worth a stickful’s ”

“ Practical advice and useful information in special fields, humorous matter, and fiction, as given in the daily newspaper, do not differ materially from similar matter published in other forms and cannot be considered distinctly journalistic types of writing.
How news is gathered. Since the day’s news is the essential part of the daily newspaper, the gathering, writing, and editing of news is naturally the chief concern of journalism. ”