It is poor taste to attempt facetiousness in reporting a death. Never call a body a “stiff.” Puns on the names of persons, unless they are peculiarly apt or are justified by special circumstances, are to be avoided. The same rule applies to exaggerated dialect put in an offensive manner and to nicknames of the races. These instances further illustrate the need of fairness and sanity in the writer’s viewpoint. Common sense is an excellent guide in many of the delicate little problems of this kind that crop up daily in every newspaper office.
ORIGINALITY
Originality is the quality that gives a news story distinction. Rules may aid, but the power to make a story original must come largely from the writer himself. Many writers can put facts together into a coherent whole. The highest rewards are reserved for those who can tell old facts in a new way.
The main secret of original news writing lies in keeping the impression fresh. Everything interests the new reporter. As he gains familiarity with the work, there is danger that his viewpoint will become jaded. Especially if he is covering the same run of news day after day must he fight against this tendency to fall into a rut. The newspaper has no use for the man in a rut. The reporter who becomes cynical loses the news writer’s best asset, the power to feel the pathos or the injustice or the humor of the thing he is writing about. If he himself cannot feel his story he is not likely to impress the reader with it.
The newspaper workshop, unlike any other, must create something different every day, although human nature, from which it gets its raw materials, remains the same through the ages. 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. Take the story of death in a tenement house fire. There is the outline, the basic fact, of stories without number; yet each story, told with its wealth of human, moving detail, has the power to affect the reader as if the theme itself were absolutely new. A dozen houses in the same block look alike from the outside; yet the life that each conceals is different from the life in all the others.
Here, then, is need for originality in the writing of news. If the reporter’s outlook is cynical he is likely to overlook the human side of the story for the lifeless skeleton of commonplace facts. His story may be mechanically correct, but it has no power of appeal. Without distorting a single fact, in plain, everyday words, the news writer may tell a story of human suffering that will rouse his readers to generous response. This he may do, not by editorial comment, but by putting the facts in the most effective, which is usually the simplest, manner. Editorial comment in such a story would weaken the effect. The facts, properly told, are enough.
One word of caution perhaps should be given: In looking for the feature do not descend to the trivial. To return to an illustration just used, don’t write the lead of your fire story on the rescue of the family cat and overlook the fact that human lives were lost. Originality does not consist in straining after a feature at the expense of the vital things in a story. Triviality comes with cynicism. The power to be truly original, to put life into a story based on a commonplace theme, comes with the broad, human sympathy that results from keeping the impression ever fresh.
SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME OR CLASS-ROOM STUDY
I.—The following story, adapted from a newspaper, violates practically every rule that can be laid down for the writing of news. Apart from its errors of style, it is written with prejudice and in bad taste. Rewrite the facts in half the present space, remembering (1) to be fair; (2) to leave yourself out of the story; (3) to omit revolting details; (4) to avoid “fine writing” and cheap slang.
Tom Jones, one of Smithton’s worthless citizens, tried to shuffle off this mortal coil last Friday afternoon by cutting his throat with a pocket knife.
It seems Jones had filed complaint against John Smith and Susie Williams for stealing. They were brought up in Justice Wagner’s court on Friday afternoon for trial, Jones being the prosecuting witness. When he was put upon the witness stand he flatly contradicted himself in statements made in his complaint to the Prosecuting Attorney. When he did this Mr. Brown at once dismissed the case against John Smith and Susie Williams and filed complaint against Jones for perjury, and put him under arrest. Constable Walker at once took him in charge and was preparing commitment papers, when Jones expressed a wish to go into the hall for a drink of water, which permission was given him by the constable. Soon after he had left the room an unusual noise was heard like the rushing of water and on investigation the man was found lying on the floor with his throat cut and the blood spurting like water from a fountain. He stuck the blade of an ordinary pocket knife into his throat and severed some of the arteries, and would probably have bled to death, except for the unfortunate arrival of a physician who stopped the blood, and he is now in a fair way to recover and may yet go over the road.