The First M. E. Church of Chelsea, familiarly known as the Cary avenue church, was damaged last night to the amount of $7,000 by fire.—Boston Herald.
(b) The Amount of Property Destroyed.—The answer to What burned? is not necessarily a building, for the building itself may not be worth featuring. The contents of the building may be more interesting, especially if the amount of property destroyed can be put in striking terms, such as $2,000,000 worth of property, or two thousand chickens, or fifty-three automobiles, or 7,000 gallons of whisky. These figures printed at the beginning of the first paragraph catch the reader's eye, thus:
Five automobiles, valued at $5,800, and property amounting to $6,200 were destroyed last evening when fire broke in the repair shop of the G. W. Browne Motor company, 228-232 Wisconsin street, near the North-Western station.—Milwaukee Sentinel.
5. How.—Very rarely the manner in which a fire burns is quite unique and deserves featuring. It is inconceivable that John Jones's house could burn in any very unusual way—"with many explosions," "with a glare of flames that aroused the whole city," "with vast clouds of oily smoke"—but some fires do burn in some such a way and are interesting only for the way they burned. The following story begins with the answer to How? although the manner might be described more explicitly:
Stubborn fires have been fought in the past, but one of the hardest blazes to conquer that the local department ever contended with gutted the plant of N. Drucker & Co., manufacturers of trunks and valises, at the northwest corner of Ninth and Broadway, last night.—Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.
6. Who.—Just as it would be foolish to begin with "the residence of John Jones," since the building is not well known, it would not be advisable to begin with John Jones's name, no matter what part he played. John Jones is not well known and so to the newspaper he is just a man and is treated impersonally regardless of what he does or what happens to him. Our interest in him is entirely impersonal, and all we want to know about him is what he has done or what has happened to him. Therefore few reporters would begin a story with John Jones's name. However, let some man who is well known do or suffer the slightest thing and his name immediately lends interest to the story—and therefore commands first place in the introduction. If John D. Rockefeller should even witness a fire, or if President Taft should be in the slightest way connected with a fire, the mere fire story would shrink into significance behind the name. And so, very often it is advisable to begin a fire story with a name, if the name is of sufficient prominence. It is not necessary that the well-known man's property be destroyed or even endangered for his name to have the first place in the first sentence of the lead; if the well-known man has anything whatever to do with the fire his name should be featured because to the average reader the interest in his name overshadows any interest in the fire. In this example, the name overshadows a striking loss of property and the story begins with the answer to Who?
NEW YORK, Nov. 6.—While Clendenin J. Ryan, son of Thomas F. Ryan, the traction magnate, and a band of volunteer fire fighters—many of them millionaires—fought a blaze which started in the garage of young Ryan's country estate near Suffern, N. Y., early in the morning, three valuable automobiles, seven thoroughbred horses and several outbuildings were totally destroyed.—Milwaukee Sentinel.
It will be seen that in each of the above feature fire stories some incident in the fire, or connected with the fire, overshadows the mere fact that there was a fire and makes it advisable to begin the story of the fire with the fact or incident of unusual interest. Furthermore, in each of these stories the unusual feature in the story is a direct answer to one of the reader's questions—when? where? how? what? why? who? In other words, the reporter in answering these questions, as he must in the lead of every story, finds the answer to one question so much more interesting than the answer to any of the other questions that he puts it first. In every fire story, however, the feature is not so easily discovered.
B. FEATURES IN UNEXPECTED ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES
There are other things in the day's fire stories, besides the answers to the reader's questions, that may overshadow the rest of the story and deserve to be featured. Very often there are unexpected attendant circumstances occurring simultaneously with the fire or resulting from the fire to command our interest. Perhaps a number of people are killed or injured; then we want to know about them first, and the reporter neglects to answer our questions for the moment while he tells us the startling attendant circumstances that we had not expected. Even so, while giving first place to the feature, he does not forget our questions but answers them in the same sentence. Hence the introduction of a fire story with significant attendant circumstances begins with the startling fact resulting from the fire and then goes on to answer the reader's questions—in the same sentence.