47. Prominent Persons.—Directly opposed to stories about helpless persons or animals are those of prominent men and women. For some reason news about the great, no matter how trivial, is always of interest, and varies in direct proportion to the prominence of the person. If the President of the United States drives a golf ball into a robin's nest, if the oil king in the Middle West prefers a wig to baldness, if the millionaire automobile manufacturer never pays more than five cents for his cigars, the reading public is greatly interested in learning the fact. Nor is it essential that the reader shall have heard of the prominent man. It is sufficient that his position socially or professionally is high.
48. Well-known Places.—The same interest attaches to noted or notorious places. A news item about Reno, Nevada, is worth more than one about Rome, Georgia, though the cities are of about the same size. A street traffic regulation in New York City is copied all over the United States, notwithstanding the fact that the same law may have been passed by the city council in Winchester, Kentucky, years before and gone unnoticed. And so with Coney Island or Niagara Falls or Death Valley, or any one of a hundred other places that might be named. The fashions they originate, the ideas for which they stand sponsors, the accidents that happen in their vicinity, all have specific interest by virtue of their previous note or notoriety. And if the reporter can fix the setting of his story in such a place, he may be assured of interested readers.
49. Personal and Financial Interests.—Finally, if a news story can be found that will bear directly on the personal or financial interests of the patrons of the paper, one may be sure of its cordial reception. If turkeys take the roup six weeks before Thanksgiving, or taxes promise a drop with the new year, or pork volplanes two or three cents, or an ice famine is threatened, or styles promise coats a few inches shorter or socks a few shades greener, the readers are eager to know and will applaud the vigilance of the editors. For this reason, a reporter can often pick up an extra story—and reporters are judged by the extra stories they place on the city editor's desk—by occasionally dropping in at markets, grocery stores, and similar business houses and inquiring casually for possible drops or rises in price. For the same reason, too, new styles as seen in the shop windows are always good for a half-column. And one cannot think of covering a dressmakers' convention, an automobile show, a jewelers' exhibition, or a similar gathering without playing up prominently the new styles. A clever San Francisco reporter covering a convention of insurance agents once produced a brilliant story on new styles in life insurance policies.
50. Summary.—By way of summary, then, it may be said that the only requirements of an event or an idea to make it good story material are that it be presented accurately and that it possess interest for a goodly number of readers; and any fact or idea which presents a situation or poses a problem differing, even slightly, from preceding situations or problems encountered by the readers of a paper is sure to possess interest. Timeliness is of vital worth, but is not a necessity. The geographical nearness of an event adds to its value, as does the fact that the event or the product or the result is a record breaker or is unique in its class. Contests of all sorts invariably possess interest, and stories of the helplessness of old persons, children, or animals never fail to have an emotional appeal. Any news item concerning a well-known person or place is likely to attract attention, and any story that touches the home or business interests of the public is sure to command interested readers. All these features are valuable, and any one will contribute much to the worth of a story, but none is essential. The prerequisite is that the news shall be true and shall present a new situation or problem, or a new phase of an old situation or problem.
VI. NEWS SOURCES
51. Second Essential of News Writing.—As explained in the preceding chapter, the first essential in news writing is a proper appreciation of news and news values. The second essential is the possession of a story to write. This chapter will discuss news sources, leaving for Chapter III an explanation of the methods of getting stories.
52. Gathering News.—The prospective reporter who supposes that newspaper men wander aimlessly up and down the streets of a city, watching and hoping for automobiles to collide and for men to shoot their enemies, will have his eyes opened soon after entering a news office. He will learn that a reporter never leaves the city room without a definite idea of where he is going. If newspapers had to police the streets with watchers for news as the city government assigns officers of the law, the cost of gathering news would be prohibitive.
53. Police as News Gatherers.—As a matter of fact, a paper has comparatively few paid men on its staff, though it has hundreds of non-paid watchers who are just as faithful. The police are the chief of these. As every reporter knows, a policeman is compelled to make to his captain a full and prompt report of every fire, robbery, murder, accident, or mishap involving loss of, or danger to, life or property occurring on his beat. This report is made to the local precinct or station, whence it is telephoned to police headquarters. At the central station the report is recorded in the daily record book of crime, known familiarly to the public as the "blotter." Not all of the reports recorded on the police blotter are made public, because hasty announcement of information received by the police oftentimes would forestall expected arrests; but such information as the desk sergeant is willing to utter is given out in brief bulletins, sometimes posted behind locked glass doors, sometimes simply written in a large ledger open to public inspection. Whether written in the ledger or displayed on a bulletin board, these bulletins are known always as slips, of which the following are typical examples:
Oct. 4
Suicide Attempt