Newspaper clipping

“ The material of the sheet attracts our scorn. It is a fair specimen of rebel manufacture, thick and coarse, like wrapping-paper, all overspread with little knobs; and of such a deep, dingy blue color, that we wipe our spectacles thrice before we can distinguish a letter of the wretched print. Thus, in all points, the newspaper is a type of the times, far more fit for the rough hands of a democratic mob, than for our own delicate, though bony fingers. ”

“ It has absorbed monthly magazines or forced publishers to resort to illustrations—to a sort of picture-book literature for grown-up children. It has driven the lumbering quarterlies into smaller fields and diminished their relative importance. The average citizen craves the news from a journal having the very dew of the morning and of the evening upon it. It must come to him damp and limp, bringing whatever is best at the smallest possible cost. The newspaper is the herald of the new era. ”

“ The daily short story, a chapter of a serial novel, feature articles, humor in verse and prose, and similar forms of entertaining reading matter are a recognized part of every issue of many newspapers in all parts of the country.
The perfecting of photo-engraving processes, by which half-tone illustrations and zinc etchings can be made rapidly at relatively small cost, has added another important feature to the newspaper. Photographs of persons, places, and events that appear in the day’s news are now quickly reproduced by the newspaper half-tone. ”

“ The stage has hardened us to seeing a reporter slinking around the outskirts of every bit of excitement writing excitedly and hurriedly in a large leather notebook. So hardened are we to the sight that some new reporters buy a notebook just as soon as they get a place on a newspaper staff. But real reporters on real newspapers do not use notebooks. A few sheets of folded copy paper hidden carefully in an inside pocket ready for names and addresses and perhaps figures are all that most of them carry. ”

“ Newspapers are trig things in their own right. Their column rules and their precision of type make this an arbitrary condition. There is really nothing finer and cleaner and more pleasing to the human eye than a well-composed newspaper, hot from the press. Ugly advertisements can make an ugly newspaper. They can even spoil the set-up and typography in general of the reading sections.
A newspaper is held responsible if returns from a single advertisement or a campaign are not satisfactory. ”

“ What’s the use of a paper without circulation? And how can you get circulation if you let the fellow around the corner have this ‘scoop’?” So the owner of the paper has to get busy and make a gentleman’s agreement with the other papers to suppress the news; and sometimes it turns out that the other fellow isn’t a gentleman, and there is a row, and the live young “hustlers” get their way for a while, and the public gets a bit of the news.
Various stages of this struggle are exemplified by different newspapers, or by the same newspaper at different times. ”

“ Just recently this barrier has given away, and women are eagerly swarming through the gap to take their places in every phase of newspaper work. We see a woman over the top of the editor’s desk wielding with confidence the pen which her predecessor abandoned for the sword. We find her taking up the duties of the advertising manager, who is now computing the distance from one side of No Man’s Land to the other. Armed with a pair of shears, she slashes the telegraph news, impersonating the man who is now practicing his art on a more deserving foe. ”

“ To formulate a large number of rules for the writing of news stories, the editing of copy, the writing of headlines, and other kinds of newspaper work, is plainly impossible, even if it were desirable. Methods of newspaper making during the last fifty years have undergone so constant and rapid a readjustment to new conditions in the transmission of news, in mechanical production, and in the sources of income, that only a few traditions have remained unchanged. ”

“ The arrangement, or “make-up,” particularly of the front page, plays a very important part in the success of the newspaper. To display the important news of the day in the most effective way is to attract readers. What has been said elsewhere of the advertising value of headlines applies equally to the “make-up.” The best arrangement is that in which the important news stands out prominently, and can therefore be most easily read. A symmetrical balancing of the headlines, half-tones, and cartoons adds greatly to the attractiveness and readableness of the newspaper. ”

“ All the rules that apply to the fire lead apply to the lead of any story.
It would be impossible to classify all the news stories that a newspaper must print. The very zest of reporting comes from the changing variety of the work; no two assignments are ever exactly alike—if they were only one would be worth printing. Newspapers themselves make no attempt to classify the ordinary run of news or to work out a systematic division of labor; a reporter may be called upon to cover a fire, a political meeting, a murder, a business story, all in the same day. ”

“ The mirror of the newspaper reflects in its pages every relationship of life, from the cradle to the grave. No other literature is so rapidly produced, so omnipresent its circulation, or is so potent in its possibilities for good or evil; for comparatively few men read books, but everyone eagerly peruses his newspaper. ”

“ In dull seasons they are too large; in times of brisk advertising, and in the sudden access of important news, they are too small. To enlarge them for the occasion, resort is had to a troublesome fly-sheet, or, if they are doubled, there is more space to be filled than is needed. It seems to me that the inevitable remedy is a newspaper of small pages or forms, indefinite in number, that can at any hour be increased or diminished according to necessity, to be folded, stitched, and cut by machinery. ”

“ Each reporter takes short-hand notes for a space of ten to fifteen minutes time, and is then relieved by his colleague, waiting above him, who steps into his place as the other retires to the Reporter's Room, in the corridor, to write out his notes, and thence to take them to the newspaper office, or else, if he chooses, he may send them by the small boys waiting in the gallery, who are employed by the newspapers at a salary of from eight to twelve British shillings a week to act as messengers. ”

“ In tracing the origin and progress of the pictorial press I have confined my researches to British journalism, but the subject might be widely extended. From the days of the Acta Diurna of the Romans something in the shape of a newspaper appears to have been a necessity of civilised life. Soon after the invention of printing small news-sheets appeared in various towns of Germany and in Venice. ”

“ Gilbert smiled at a thought which came to him.
'The working man's Bible,' he said, 'is his Sunday newspaper.'
'And what does he get out of it? The newspaper is the very voice of all that is worst in our civilisation. If ever there is in one column a pretence of higher teaching, it is made laughable by the base tendency of all the rest. The newspaper has supplanted the book; every gross-minded scribbler who gets a square inch of space in the morning journal has a more respectful hearing than Shakespeare. These writers are tradesmen, and with all their power they cry up the spirit of trade. ”

“ But I am sure that few persons who read the papers realize the great amount of time and thought that goes into turning out a good, up-to-date, artistically illustrated newspaper. The mere mechanical toil required is enormous; and in addition to this labor there is all the bustle, rush, and rivalry attending the securing of the latest news. The editorial office has its set of problems, as you know, if you yourself get out a paper. ”

“ Whatever else may have been his qualifications, the early American printer as a usual thing was persistent in his efforts to enlighten his neighbors through the press, and in his attempts to found papers may be found that distinguishing characteristic of American journalism which knows no such thing as defeat. The fact must not be lost sight of that during the early history of this country newspaper censors were ever present who, clothed by the law with authority, never hesitated to annoy the poor printer whenever he put anything interesting in his paper. ”

“ A detailed record of the development of the mechanical part of the newspaper business during the past thirty years would be almost a synopsis of all progress in science and art. The newspaper printing press of to-day, which prints, cuts, folds, and counts ninety-six thousand papers per hour, with one man to operate it, is the mechanical wonder of the age. It is justly regarded as the greatest piece of machinery that the ingenuity of man has yet devised. ”

“ The day before his uncle's next visit Jimmie set his type to say, "Much interest is felt in the new Hoe press which will be installed in the Record office early next month. It is the first of the kind to be used by any newspaper in the city and will mark a revolution in newspaper printing. This new 'perfecting press' will make it possible to print 24,000 eight-page papers an hour—a thing not dreamed of a few years ago. People are anxious to see this [Pg 101] fast press printing, cutting, folding, and delivering the papers all ready for the newsboys." ”

“ The news columns tell you what you can expect out of the advertising columns. A newspaper always finds the class of readers to which it is edited. When its mental tone is low and its moral tone is careless depend upon it—the readers match the medium.
No gun can hit a target outside of its range. No newspaper can aim its policy in one direction and score in another. No advertiser can find a different class of men and women than the publisher has found for himself. He is judged by the company he keeps. If he lies down with dogs he will arise with fleas. ”

“ The Tribune was the first newspaper to adapt for journalistic purposes the printing of the half-tone photograph. The innovation started the rising flood of news-in-pictures which is so distinctive a feature of the American press of 1923.... Some of the events of the day’s news can be visualized for the reader simply by the printed word. Others need the aid of a picture. Others still find presentation possible in a picture alone.... The universal appeal of pictures can be taken advantage of for sound informative and educational purposes, instead of for scandal and filth. ”

“ If the dispatch is skeletonized intelligently, the editor in the office can easily supply the missing words, but most newspapers consider that any saving effected in this way is more than offset by the loss of time in editing the story. Unless a newspaper specifically states that it wants its news in153 skeleton form, the correspondent should put it on the wire exactly as he would like to see it in print. ”

“ Stories of romance—by mail.
Short human-interest stories, things that will bring smiles or tears to men and women everywhere, are always in demand. It is a perverted notion that all newspapers are eager to get so-called scandal news. The “cleaner” the story, the more likely it is to be printed.
For a newspaper published, say, in Chicago, events involving residents of Chicago have a special value beyond their ordinary worth as news. In such cases street addresses should always be sent. ”

“ To solve these problems another group of men is needed, the reporters proper, called, when they are on this service, “general42 workers.” As the original brief messages come in to the city editor, he details one or another of his young men to the spot, who sets to work to ransack every fragment of fact or probability, which throws light on the case. If a general worker has to think only of a morning newspaper and the matter is important, he will try to treat it exhaustively and not return to the office, until he has his story complete and ready for the press. ”

“ If you want readers, you must meet the competition. Field had to have features, pictures and so on. He struggled to create his own comics and after three years felt he had achieved some readable ones, though by no means as successful as those controlled by the rival press. But news pictures can’t be invented. Without photographs, successful newspaper publication is impossible. Pictures, however, are as tightly controlled as news services. Even the Communist Daily Worker, the outstanding labor daily newspaper in the country, has to buy from the syndicates as they are. ”

“ Rogers, “but the fibre isn’t tough enough to stand the strain of the presses. You know, a newspaper press has to print many thousands of copies an hour; it runs at high speed. The paper is on a huge roll, and it unwinds like a ribbon into the press. It has to be tough enough so that it won’t break as it is being unwound. ”

“ Only at the price of eternal vigilance on the part of reporters and editors can libelous matter be kept out of the newspaper. No item is too small to contain a potential libel suit; indeed it is the small items that most frequently cause trouble. Routine items, especially those from police sources, should be watched carefully. A story of considerable length that appears dangerous is always closely edited, but too often minor stories, because of their very insignificance, are allowed to slip by the copy desk and into print without thought of their mischief-making possibilities. ”