News story

“ Story.—Any article prepared for a newspaper.2 A three-line item and a three-column account of a convention are both, in the newspaper sense, stories. The term is applied also to the happening with which the story deals. Thus a reporter sent to get the facts about a fire is said to be covering a fire story. A happening of unusual importance makes a big news story. Reporters are assigned or detailed by the city editor to cover certain stories, and the task given each is his assignment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before we go on to the consideration of other kinds of news stories it will be well to consider in greater detail the facts we have learned from writing up fires. Our fire stories should have taught us a number of things about the form of the news story. ”

“ Familiarize yourself with the form of all kinds of news stories. Remember that neither slang nor cheap humor is essential to a good sporting news story. Be fair in your characterization of the playing of each team. Avoid elaborate descriptions in the average society news story. Don’t use hackneyed phrases in reporting society news. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Brief news stories often arouse the reader’s curiosity to know more of the persons and things that they mention. It remains for the feature story to supply causes, motives, results,—the full significance of the bare facts of the news. ”

“ Certain things are true of all news stories; whether the story be the baldest recital of facts or the most sensational featuring of an imaginary thrill in a commonplace happening, certain characteristics are always present. And these characteristics can always be traced to one cause—the effort to catch and hold the reader's interest. ”

“ These forms are often to be found combined in a single story. The reporter, for example, may in one story narrate a series of incidents, describe the persons and places involved, and explain causes, motives, and results.
In the purely informative news story that is narrative in form there is little suspense, because the essential facts are usually summarized in the beginning, or lead. In the narrative feature story, however, the interest is frequently sustained by the same devices that are used in fiction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the details of a news story it is almost always possible to infer the sources from which the news was obtained. Public and private records, reports, officials, eye-witnesses, for example, are often cited as authorities for the facts in the story. These sources should be noted carefully, so that they may be drawn upon by the student in his own reporting. In fact, a list of sources compiled from news stories of various kinds, such as those of crime, accidents, fires, etc., will be found helpful to the beginner. ”

“ News stories present (1) timely events of interest and significance to readers, and (2) timely incidents of little or no news value that are made entertaining by the manner in which they are presented. The first is the common type of news story; the second is usually called the “human interest” or “feature” story. Although it is sometimes said that anything that has ever2 happened is news if it has not been generally known, it is evident that events that have occurred in the past are not worth publishing as news unless they have a timely interest and significance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Proportion for Emphasis.—The emphasis of a sentence in a news story varies in inverse proportion to its length. Emphasis is gained by brevity. A prolix style tires the reader; and newspaper space is valuable. The reporter, therefore, must make his sentences short and pointed. ”

“ With the breaking of the dawn anew paper, filled with news deftly gathered from the four corners of the earth, was ushered into life, teeming with the world’s history of a day, to be discussed by the banker, the politician, and the professional and non-professional classes over the breakfast-table. ”

“ The ordinary man, as the Saturday Evening Post has discovered, thinks in concrete images, anecdotes, pictures, and parables. He finds it difficult and tiresome to read a long article unless it is dramatized and takes the form of what newspapers call a "story." "News story" and "fiction story" are two forms of modern literature that are now so like one another that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them. ”

“ The ‘stories’ of the reporter on a daily paper are written under such trying conditions of hurry and confusion that they seldom have, in the very nature of the case, what is called the ‘literary touch.’ But occasionally a news writer produces a story which has real qualities of vividness, pathos and power. ”

“ What M. E. Stone says to his correspondents on story writing may be read with profit by any newspaper man. The following is clipped from the monthly bulletin issued by the Associated Press to its correspondents:
A plain statement of fact is the best introduction to a news story. A simple, direct style—which does not mean a wooden style—is always desirable. In the opening sentence it is of particular value.
The news which a story contains is the one thing which entitles it to place in the Associated Press report. It is the news, not the manner of telling the news, on which the story must stand. ”

“ The yellow press grew up in an attempt to capture for the newspaper a public whose only literature was the family story paper or the cheap novel. The problem was to write the news in such a way that it would appeal to the fundamental passions. The formula was: love and romance for the women; sport and politics for the men. ”

“ The three notes of modern reporting are clarity, terseness, objectivity. The news writer of to-day aims to tell a story that shall be absolutely intelligible, even to minds below the average—since everybody reads ”

“ Type of story. Although most local events have been included in the various classes of stories discussed in preceding chapters, there remain several forms of city news that require separate consideration. Much interesting, timely information is to be found in schools, public libraries, museums, parks, and various departments of city government. As activities supported by public money, these institutions should be of interest to every citizen. Real estate, building, manufacturing, and business matters also furnish news of considerable interest and importance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In magazine sections of Saturday and Sunday issues such articles are supplied in greater numbers. These feature stories are frequently illustrated. They seldom fill less than a column; more often they are several columns in length.
“Human Interest” Stories. Material for the “human interest” type of feature story is to be found anywhere and everywhere in the reporter’s daily round of news gathering. The many police court cases furnish an abundance of humorous and pathetic incidents. ”

“ The story of an aged miser’s death, for example, may be worth only a paragraph if written for its immediate news value alone. But underlying the surface facts there may be a story of intense human interest—the man’s life story. The field of investigation that opens before the news gatherer is fraught with possibilities. It is for him to clothe the skeleton of the story with the flesh and blood of reality. What of the man’s early life? ”

“ Local Reasons.—These factors and many others give news stories a news value that will carry them a long distance and make them interesting in communities far from their source. Many local reasons may enhance the value of a story for local papers. A paper's policy or some campaign that it is waging may give an otherwise unimportant event a tremendous significance. If an unimportant person is slightly injured while leaving a trolley car the story is hardly worth a line of type. ”

“ Following up a Story.—The first story which the new reporter will have to follow up he will some day find stuck behind the platen of his typewriter. It will have been put there by one of the copy-readers who has read the local papers of the preceding morning or afternoon and has clipped this article as one promising further developments. The first thing to do is to read the whole story carefully. (As a matter of fact, the reporter really should have read and should be familiar with the story already. Familiarity with all the news is expected of newspaper men at all times.) ”

“ The Interview Type.—In the present chapter will be discussed the interview type of story, in which are included not only personal interviews, but speeches, sermons, toasts, courts, trials, meetings, conventions, banquets, official reports, and stories about current magazine articles and books. These are all grouped under one head because they derive their interest to the public from the fact that in them men and women present their opinions concerning topics of current interest, and that for newspaper purposes the method of handling interviews is much the same as for the other ten. ”

“ Avoid newspaper slang. To all but a few of our readers the word story means not an item of news in the paper but a piece of fiction. To speak of a story meaning a piece for the paper is to confuse them. ”

“ It is the correspondent especially who must have the proverbial "nose for news," who must know the difference between information that is nationally and merely locally interesting, who must be able to tell when a column story in a local paper is not worth a stick in a journal a hundred miles away. ”

“ Interest in news may generally be said to vary inversely in proportion to the distance between the place where the news originates and the place where the paper is published. Local interest is given to general news by bringing out those phases, or “local ends,” of telegraph news that are of significance in the community in which the paper circulates.
Every story indicates the evaluation of the news that it presents as made by the reporter or correspondent, and by the editor or the copy-reader. ”

“ Second Essential of News Writing.—As explained in the preceding chapter, the first essential in news writing is a proper appreciation of news and news values. The second essential is the possession of a story to write. ”

“ Interviewing in its broad sense is thus at the basis of nearly all newspaper reporting, because nearly all stories deal with persons—their doings and opinions. Even in covering the story which the reporter is fortunate enough to observe, a certain amount of interviewing may still be necessary to make the story complete. ”

“ Any news item concerning a well-known person or place is likely to attract attention, and any story that touches the home or business interests of the public is sure to command interested readers. All these features are valuable, and any one will contribute much to the worth of a story, but none is essential. The prerequisite is that the news shall be true and shall present a new situation or problem, or a new phase of an old situation or problem. ”

“ A study of the magazine and feature pages of any metropolitan daily paper will show the possibilities of this kind of story. Almost any subject may be made into a feature story if the writer has the gift of originality.
3. Department or classified news. Under this head come stories that are grouped by the newspaper in separate departments, as sporting news, market reports and society notes. The extent to which news is classified varies widely with different newspapers. ”

“ Reference has been made to the advice sometimes given news writers to tell who, what, when, where and why as soon as possible in the story. Investigation shows that if any such rule exists it is not generally adhered to. Facts that come under these heads are often subordinated to make the lead clear or to give the main fact added prominence. Every story must be considered by itself. ”

“ The form in which the facts shall be presented depends on the news writer’s own judgment or the editor’s instructions. He may begin his story in any one of several ways. If the Governor said something of grave importance in a striking manner, the reporter may seize upon that for his lead, throwing it into the form of direct quotation. The story then might begin in this way:
“The police department of this city must clean house. ”