Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence / A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of Newspaper Writing

by Grant Milnor Hyde

We might as well have put the what before the where or altered the lead in any other way. But we would always begin with the word "fire" and answer all the questions that the reader might ask—in one short simple sentence. This constitutes our lead. We have told the casual reader what he wants to know about the fire. We give him more details about the fire if he wants to read them, but after we have stated the case clearly in the lead we no longer reckon his time so carefully and allow ourselves some latitude in the telling. After the lead we begin the story from the beginning and tell it in its logical order from start to finish, always bearing in mind that the editor may chop off a paragraph or two at the end.

Hence the second paragraph of the story as it appeared in The Mail begins:

John Smith, a man employed in the stock-room on the sixth floor, saw smoke rolling out of one corner and notified other employees in the building, while Patrolman Hogan turned in an alarm.

We are back at the beginning now and telling things as they came. The next paragraph of the story tells us how they fought the fire, and the third tells us how they finally brought it under control. The last paragraph of the story reads:

There are three such warehouses in the country, one at St. Louis, another at San Francisco, but the one in this city is by far the largest. In it are kept supplies for the Departments of the East, Gulf, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines.

The editor of The Mail had plenty of space that day and saw fit to run this last paragraph, but we should not have lost much had he chopped it off. Perhaps the reporter's copy contained still another paragraph telling about Captain Wolf, but that did not pass the editorial pencil. Even more of the story might have been slashed without depriving us of much of the interesting news.

Judging from the above story a newspaper account is divided into two separate and independent parts: the lead and the detailed account. The lead is written for the casual reader and contains all the necessary facts about the fire; it may stand alone and constitute a story in itself. The detailed account is written for the reader who wants to hear more about the incident, and is written in the logical order of events—with an eye to the danger of the editor's pencil threatening the last paragraphs. In other words, the reporter tells his story briefly in one paragraph and then goes back and tells it all over again in a more detailed way. If the story is of sufficient importance the second telling may not be sufficient and he may go back a third time to the beginning and tell it again with still greater detail—but that is another matter. For the present we shall consider only the lead and the first detailed account.

There are certain other points to be noticed in the report of a featureless fire. Under no condition should it begin with the time. Why? Because, unless the time is of extreme interest, no one cares particularly when the fire occurred. And if the time is of great interest—as, for instance, if a church should burn while the congregation is in it—then the time becomes a feature to be played up and the story is no longer a featureless story. We are now considering stories in which nothing is of greater interest than the mere fact that there was a fire.

The same is true of the location. Who cares what street the fire was on until he knows more about the fire? If the location were of such significant importance as to be played up, the story would no longer be a featureless story.

The paragraphing is also important. Since the lead is in itself a separate part of the story it should always be paragraphed separately. Do not let the beginning of the detailed account lap over into the lead, and do not introduce into the first paragraph any facts which are not absolutely a part of the lead—that is, facts that are absolutely essential to a general knowledge of the fire. When once you begin to tell the story in detail tell it logically and paragraph it logically. Do not tell us that John Smith discovered the fire and that the loss is $500 in the same paragraph. Take up each point separately and treat it fully before you leave it—then begin a new paragraph for the next item.