TYPES OF STORIES
XIV. INTERVIEWS, SPEECHES, COURTS
178. Four Types of Stories.—To the casual newspaper reader the various patterns of stories seem all but limitless. To the experienced newspaper man, however, they reduce themselves to seven or eight, and even this number may be further limited. The popular impression comes from the fact that the average reader places an automobile collision and a fire under different heads. Yet for the newspaper's purposes both may be classed under the head of accidents. For the sake of convenience in this study, therefore, we may group under four heads all the news stories that a beginner need be acquainted with in the first year or so of his work: interviews; accidents, society, and sports, to which may be added for separate treatment, rewrites, feature stories, and correspondence stories.
179. The Interview Type.—In the present chapter will be discussed the interview type of story, in which are included not only personal interviews, but speeches, sermons, toasts, courts, trials, meetings, conventions, banquets, official reports, and stories about current magazine articles and books. These are all grouped under one head because they derive their interest to the public from the fact that in them men and women present their opinions concerning topics of current interest, and that for newspaper purposes the method of handling interviews is much the same as for the other ten.
180. Lead to an Interview.—The lead to a news story of a personal interview may feature any one of the following: (1) the name of the person interviewed, (2) a direct statement from him, (3) an indirect statement, (4) the general topic of the interview, (5) the occasion, or even (6) the time. Probably it is the name of the man or a direct statement that is played up most often. If the former is featured, the lead should begin with the speaker's name and should locate the conversation in time and place. Such a lead may well include also either a direct or an indirect statement, or a general summary of the interview. Thus:
Professor George Trumbull Ladd of Yale, in an interview for The Herald to-day, declared there never had been a time in the history of the world when there was a greater need for the enforcement of international law, nor one when international law was so much in the making as at present.
If a significant statement is of most importance in the interview, the lead should begin with the statement, directly or indirectly expressed, and continue with the speaker's name, the time, place, and occasion of the interview. Thus:
"What has happened in Mexico is an appalling international crime," declared Theodore Roosevelt last evening at his home on Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, L.I. He had been out all the afternoon in the woods chopping wood, and was sitting well back from the great log fire in the big hall filled with trophies of his hunting trips, as he talked of the recent massacre of American mining men in Chihuahua.
The most damnable act ever passed by Congress or conceived by a congressman, was the way in which William J. Conners of Buffalo to-day characterized the La Follette seamen's law. Mr. Conners is in New York on business connected with the Magnus Beck Brewing Company, of which he is president.
181. Statements of Local Interest.—Almost always it is well, if possible, to lead the person interviewed to an expression of his opinion about a topic of local interest, then feature that statement,—particularly if the statement agrees with a declared policy of the paper. Usually a problem of civic, state, or national interest may be broached most easily. If the city is interested in commission government or prohibition, if the state is fighting the short ballot or the income tax question, the visitor may be asked for his opinion. If the guest happens to be a national or international personage and the nation is solving the problem of preparedness, or universal military service, or the tariff question, he may be questioned on those subjects and his opinions featured prominently in the lead. Note the following lead to an interview published by a paper opposing the policies of President Wilson: