In trying to give your story freshness and originality do not go to the extreme of flippancy, especially in writing of a serious subject. Flippancy is not cleverness, though it often passes for such in the writer’s own estimation. You will not err in this direction if you make your story fair. Dialect should be used sparingly, if at all, and it should never be used when there is a chance that it will offend a large group of readers.
Remember the injunction to keep yourself out of the story. The experiences of a reporter in getting a story are seldom of any interest outside of the circle of his fellow workers. Let the story speak for itself. Now and then an occasion may arise that would justify the reporter in recounting his adventures, but in any such event he should first consult the city editor.
Unless you are pressed for time, read over your story before you hand it to the city editor and make sure that you have let no errors creep in. Read it, too, after it appears in print and note what changes, if any, have been made. Everyone makes mistakes—but the news writer can’t afford to make the same mistake twice.
SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME OR CLASS-ROOM STUDY
I. The following account of a disastrous fire illustrates the standard newspaper method of handling a big story. Observe that the climax—the death of twenty-five girls in a fire-trap—comes first. That is the vital fact, beside which all other features are of minor importance. The paragraphs are numbered for reference:
1. NEWARK, N. J., Nov. 26.—Twenty-five girls were burned alive or crushed to death on the pavement in ten minutes this morning in leaping from the windows and fire escapes of the four-story brick factory occupied by paper-box companies at 216 High street, corner of Orange. The fire caught from a blaze which started in some gasoline used in cleaning an electric lamp.
2. Nearly all the victims were young women employés. The latest count to-night showed that sixteen bodies recovered have been identified and that six girls are still missing. They may be among the unidentified dead or they may be in the ruins. The collapse of a wall late to-night interrupted further search. Forty-nine were taken to hospitals, and two of them may die.
(List of the dead and fatally injured follows, this account having been published in a newspaper in a nearby city.)
3. Among the injured is Joseph E. Sloane, deputy fire chief, who was overtaken by the falling wall and buried in bricks and rubbish. He is badly hurt, but may recover.
4. The ambulance from the City Hospital and the patrol wagons from all the precincts were dispatched to the scene. An immense crowd kept the police busy.
5. One of the spectators said that at least fifteen girls had jumped from the fourth floor of the burning structure. With the exception of two girls employed by the Ætna company, all the employés on the first and second floors of the building escaped, either by means of the exits or the one fire escape. The two girls suffered burns about the head and face.
6. Twenty of the injured were taken to St. Michael’s Hospital in the ambulance. The salvage automobile took four more. Of these two died after reaching the hospital.
7. Life nets were put into use immediately after the arrival of the firemen. Perhaps thirty lives were saved in this way. One girl, Hattie Delapey, was badly hurt by striking the edge of the net and falling to the pavement. Another girl suffered a broken ankle. Eugene McHugh, a foreman in the employ of the Ætna company, guided several scores of girls in his employ to safety down a fire escape. Nearly all escaped injury.
8. Less than twenty minutes after the arrival of the firemen the interior of the building was flame-swept. The floors of the upper part of the building fell shortly afterward. It is believed that a search of the building will reveal other bodies.
9. Among those who were early at the scene was the Reverend E. F. Quirk, assistant rector of St. Joseph’s Church. He gave last rites of the church to seven of the victims. Mr. Quirk said he counted twenty-three prostrate forms on the sidewalk. All were young women who had leaped from the upper windows of the factory.
10. The rush of the flames was so swift and threw such unreasoning terror into the huddled working girls on the top story, that the body of one was found still seated on a charred stool beside the machine at which she had been busy when the first cry of “Fire!” petrified her with fright.
11. Horrible as must have been what went on in the smoke of that crowded upper room, what befell outside in the bright sunlight was yet more horrible. The building was furiously inflammable and the first gush of flames had cut off all possibility of escape by the stairways. The elevator made one trip, but took down no passengers and never came back.
12. The only exit was by two narrow fire escapes, the lower platforms of which were twenty-five feet from the street. On to these overcrowded and steep lanes, scorched dancing hot by the jets from lower windows, pressed forward a mob of women, blind with panic, driven by the fire and the others behind them.
13. A net had been spread beneath the windows, and the girls began to jump. “Like rats out of a burning bin,” was the way a fireman described that pell-mell descent. Some of them were dashed off the fire escape to the pavement sixty feet below. Others stood in the windows outlined against the flames and jumped clear; others from the landings; still others from the steps where they stood. The air was full of them and they fell everywhere—into the net, on the firemen, and fifteen of them on the stone slabs.
14. When the awful rain of human bodies ceased there were eight dead in the street. Seven more were so badly crushed that they died in hospitals. Fifty are still under surgeons’ care.
15. Clouds of smoke and showers of burning embers spread over the city. (Further details follow. The foregoing, with the headlines, fills one column.)
(A laboratory guide to the analysis of the story: Paragraph 1.—Note that the essential points are summarized in the opening sentence. There is no attempt to describe the “lurid flames,” no philosophizing, but a plain, terse account of what happened—the result of the fire. A brief statement of the cause follows. Often a story of this kind begins coming into the office just before an edition goes to press. If the story is constructed on the right plan, the lead can be sent to the composing room as a complete story for that edition, while the rest is put into type to be added in succeeding editions.
Paragraph 2.—Further details concerning the loss of life. Observe how the elements of greatest interest, those relating to persons, not things, are kept uppermost. Temporarily the fire itself is ignored; what the reader wants to know about is the effect of the fire on its victims. So, too, the destruction of the factory, under ordinary conditions worthy of being “played up” in the lead because of the heavy property loss, is passed over as of minor consequence. Detailed information about the victims is properly given early in the story, to answer the questions that first come into the minds of their families and friends.
Paragraph 3.—Here the name of the deputy fire chief, who was hurt while on duty, is singled out for special mention.
Paragraph 4.—Detailed story of the fire begins. The facts here told indicate the magnitude of the disaster.