WHEN THE INTERVIEW IS INCIDENTAL
The city editor’s fourth dimension would make it possible for him to have a reporter present at every happening which the newspaper chronicles. Every story would thus be obtained at first hand. Such a condition being manifestly impossible, the reporter usually is compelled to rely on the information furnished him by others.
Sometimes, of course, a reporter’s assignment is such that he can see the story unfolding before him, as at a fire or a court trial, and he is enabled to write more vividly than if his facts had come to him second-hand. Every reporter dreams of the day when he will have the chance to write a big story that he has seen in the making. It is related that a group of New York newspaper men were discussing the biggest possible story that could “break.” The ideas of all were summed up by the oldest of the group: “Suppose Brooklyn Bridge, at the height of the evening rush homeward, should fall, and I should be there, just at the edge, the only reporter who saw it—that would be the biggest story that could happen!”
On most of his assignments the reporter must trust to others for many, if not all, of his facts. Covering the story of an automobile accident, for example, he must see the story through the eyes of those who were present. These persons he interviews informally. From the information obtained in this way, supplemented by his own observation of the visible results of the accident, the reporter culls the salient facts and writes the story in his own words. What he is sure of he makes his own; other facts he may put in the form of indirect quotation, while occasionally he may quote a person directly.
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. If it is a fire story, he probably questions the owner about the loss and the insurance and plans for rebuilding; he interviews various persons to find out the cause of the fire; he talks, perhaps, to persons who have been rescued and their rescuers. These and other facts can be obtained only by asking questions.
Except when a story is dependent on what a person has said, in a speech or a formal interview, it is nearly always desirable that the reporter, as far as possible, should make the story his own. He should hitch his wagon to the star of absolute certainty and then tell the story, at least the salient facts, in his own words. It is poor policy in news writing, as a rule, to put trivial bits of information in the form of direct quotation. The reporter will find that owing to the common failure to observe accurately the accounts given by witnesses of a given occurrence will vary widely. It is the reporter’s business to learn all that he can of the story; to see, in the limited time at his command, as many as possible of the persons concerned in it, and then to present to the reader an intelligible, lucid account in the third person—the kernel of the story without the husks of inconsistency. It is impossible to do this if the writer slavishly quotes, in the direct form, everybody to whom he talked in getting the story.
Some reporters are inclined to overwork the direct-quotation method because it is usually the easiest way of telling the story, often relieving the writer of the necessity of thinking for himself. Quotation marks may enclose a multitude of rhetorical sins. Rather than go to the trouble of coordinating his facts, such a writer will lazily string together the statements of several persons and let it go at that. This plan is obviously bad. It violates the fundamental rules of news writing, which demand that a story be clear, concise and forceful, and gives the reader a confused image rather than the definite, clear-cut impression left by the story rightly told.
It is absurd to lug into a story the views of persons who have no vital connection with it, simply for the sake of filling space. And yet that is the error committed by some news writers, as in a fire story, for example, where the janitor is quoted as saying, “Yes, I saw the fire; it was a great sight,” or something else equally trivial. When the janitor sees that he immediately gets an exaggerated idea of his own importance. It is conceivable that the next time a reporter asks him for a bit of information, the janitor will throw out his chest with the air of a personage and reply, “I refuse to make a statement for publication,” hoping that the newspaper will quote him to that effect.
The news writer who is prodigal with his direct quotation is encouraging an attitude of mind that will cause trouble for him and other newspaper men in the future. If a person is asked to give information about a story and refuses, it is seldom good policy to state that fact, unless he bears such a close relation to the story that his silence is of interest. If there is no particular reason why the opinion of Smith, the janitor, should be sought, don’t commit the folly of telling several thousand readers—and Smith—that he “refused to talk for publication.”
Another absurdity is illustrated in the sentence: “Smith refused to make a statement, but said ...” This paradoxical introduction may be followed by a long interview with Smith. What the writer probably means is that Smith, when first asked for a statement, said that he wouldn’t talk, but later changed his mind. The reader is not likely to be interested in all this, so the copy reader cuts it down to “Smith said.”