THE
WRITING OF NEWS
THE
WRITING OF NEWS
A HANDBOOK
WITH CHAPTERS ON NEWSPAPER
CORRESPONDENCE AND COPY READING
BY
CHARLES G. ROSS
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF JOURNALISM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1911,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Published November, 1911
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
TO
MY MOTHER
PREFACE
In preparing this volume the author has had in mind the needs not only of students in schools of journalism, but of others who may desire a concise statement of the principles that govern the art of news writing as practiced by the American newspaper. It is hoped the book will prove helpful either as a laboratory guide in the school room or as a text book for home use.
As the title indicates, the book deals with one phase of journalism, the presentation of the news story, more especially with the writing of the story—the reporter’s part in the day’s work. No attempt has been made to go into other aspects of journalism—the writing of editorials, the administrative features of the work, the delicate adjustment that every newspaper must make between its business and news departments—except in so far as they bear directly upon the subject in hand.
The term journalism is broadly used here to mean all branches of newspaper endeavor. In common with other newspaper men, the author admits an aversion to the word as restricted to the working field of the men who get and write the news. They call themselves not journalists, but reporters or newspaper men. It is for newspaper men and women in the making that the book is primarily designed.
The nature of newspaper work makes it impossible to formulate an all-sufficing series of rules by which the news writer shall invariably be guided. But there are certain well-defined principles, largely technical, that set apart the news story as a distinct form of composition, and these the author has tried to put down simply and concisely—after the fashion of the news story itself. Going beyond the common practice, there is wide divergence among newspapers in the details of “office style.” Methods peculiar to the individual paper can readily be acquired by one grounded in the essentials of the craft; hence only the more significant points of departure from the generally accepted practice have been noted.
Practically all the examples in the book are from published news stories, reproduced in most cases exactly as they appeared in print. In some, for obvious reasons, fictitious names and addresses have been substituted for the real. With one or two exceptions the examples illustrating right methods of news presentation have been chosen not for special brilliancy, but as fairly showing the everyday output of the trained news writer.
University of Missouri,
Columbia,
July, 1911.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | Newspaper Copy Terminology—Directions for Preparing Copy | [1] |
| II. | The English of the Newspapers Clearness—Conciseness—Force | [7] |
| III. | The Writer’s Viewpoint Fairness—Impersonality—Good Taste—Originality | [17] |
| IV. | The Importance of Accuracy In Observation—In Names—In Street Addresses—In Spelling | [30] |
| V. | News Values The Reporter—What Is News?—The Newspaper’s Problem—Kinds of Stories | [41] |
| VI. | Writing the Lead What the Lead Is—What the Lead Should Contain—Observance of Style—Leads to Be Avoided—Sentence Structure—Leads That Begin With Names—The General Rule—Study of 100 Typical Stories | [57] |
| VII. | The Story Proper Compression and Expansion—The Mechanics of the Story | [79] |
| VIII. | The Feature Story What the Feature Story Is Not—Stories for Entertainment—The Human-Interest Story—The Editor’s Problem—Sunday Magazine Stories | [98] |
| IX. | The Interview When the Interview Is Incidental—When the Interview Is the Story | [113] |
| X. | Special Types of Stories Stories of Fires—Deaths—Weddings—Crimes—Business—Second-Day Stories—Rewriting | [129] |
| XI. | The Correspondent Writing for the Wire—Some Pitfalls to Be Avoided—What Not to Send—What to Send—Sporting News—How to Send—Handling the Big Story—Sending by Mail—General Instructions—Payment | [150] |
| XII. | Copy Reading Qualifications for the Work—Organization of Copy Readers—Editing the Story—Rules About Libel—The Guide Line—Marks Used in Editing—Additions and Insertions—The Lighter Side—The Copy Reader’s Schedule | [171] |
| XIII. | Writing the Head First Requisites of the Head—Definiteness—The Question of Tense—The Mechanics of the Head—Some Things to Avoid—Symmetry and Sense—Special Kinds of Heads—Capitalization | [193] |
| XIV. | Don’ts for the News Writer | [211] |
| XV. | Newspaper Bromides | [224] |
| Index | [231] |
THE WRITING OF NEWS
... But however great a gift, if news instinct as born were turned loose in any newspaper office in New York without the control of sound judgment bred by considerable experience and training, the results would be much more pleasing to the lawyers than to the editor. One of the chief difficulties in journalism now is to keep the news from running rampant over the restraints of accuracy and conscience. And if a “nose for news” is born in the cradle, does not the instinct, like other great qualities, need development by teaching, by training, by practical object-lessons illustrating the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, the popular and the unpopular, the things that succeed and the things that fail, and above all the things that deserve to succeed, and the things that do not—not the things only that make circulation for to-day, but the things that make character and influence and public confidence?—From an article by Joseph Pulitzer in the North American Review.
THE WRITING OF NEWS
CHAPTER I
NEWSPAPER COPY
This is the age of the reporter—the age of news, not views. We are influencing our public through the presentation of facts; and the gathering, the assembling and the presentation of these facts is the work of the reporter. There are two ideals of news. The first is to give the news colorless, the absolute truth. The second is to take the best attitude for the perpetuation of our democracy. The first would be all right if there were such a thing as absolute truth. When jesting Pilate asked, “What is truth?” he expressed the eternal question of modern journals. The best we can do is to follow the second ideal, which is to point out the truth as seen from the broadest, the most human and the most interesting point of view.—From an address by Will Irwin at the University of Missouri.