Declaring that the national administration's foreign policy has made him almost ashamed of being an American citizen, Henry B. Joy, of Detroit, Mich., president of the Packard Motor Company, a governor of the Aero Club of America and vice president of the Navy League, said yesterday that our heritage of national honor from the days of Washington, Lincoln, and McKinley is slipping through our fingers.
182. Inquiring about the Feature.—Often the feature to be developed in an interview lead may be had by asking the one interviewed if he has anything he would like brought out or developed. When the interview has been granted freely, such a question is no more than a courtesy due the prominent man. But only under extraordinary circumstances should a reporter agree to submit his copy for criticism before publication. Many a good story has had all the piquancy taken out of it by giving the one interviewed an opportunity to change his mind or to see in cold print just what he said,—a fact that accounts for so many repudiated interviews. In nine cases out of ten the newspaper man has reported the distinguished visitor exactly, but the write-up looks different from what the speaker expected. Then he denies the whole thing, and the reporter is made the scapegoat, because the man quoted is a public personage and the reporter is not.
183. Fairness in the Interview.—The first aim of the interviewer, however, must always be fairness, accuracy, and absence of personal bias. No other journalistic tool can be so greatly abused or made so unfair a weapon as the interview. One should make no attempt to color a man's opinions as expressed in an interview, no matter how much one may disagree, nor should one "editorialize" on those ideas. If the paper cares to discuss their truth or saneness, it will entrust that matter to the editorial writers. This caution does not mean that a writer may not break into the paragraphs of quotation to explain the speaker's meaning or to elaborate upon a possible effect of his position. Such interruptions are regularly made and are entirely legitimate, and it will be noted in the Bryan story on page [131] that most of that article consists of such explanation and elaboration. If, however, the reporter feels that the utterances of the speaker are such that they should not go unchallenged, he should obtain and quote a reply from a local man of prominence.
184. Coherence and Proportion.—Next to accuracy there should be kept in view the intent to make the sequence and proportion of the ideas logical, no matter in what order or at what length they may have been given by the one interviewed. Often in conversation a man will give more time to an idea than is its due, and often the most important part of an interview will not be introduced until the last. Or, again, a person may drift away from the immediate topic and not return to it for some minutes. In all such cases it is the duty of the reporter to regroup and develop the ideas so that they shall follow each other logically in the printed interview and shall present the thought and the real spirit of what the man wanted to say.
185. Identifying the One Interviewed.—Probably the most used and the easiest method of gaining coherence between the lead and the body of the interview is by a paragraph of explanation regarding the person, and how he came to give the interview. It is remarkable how many readers do not remember or have never heard the name of the governor of New York or the senior senator from California or the Secretary of the Navy, and it is therefore necessary to make entirely clear the position or rank of the person and his right to be heard and believed. In the following story, note how the writer dwells on the rank of the Oxford University professor as a lecturer and so inspires the reader with confidence in his statements:
MODERN DRESS CALLED A JOKE
"Look at our modern dress. Both men's and women's costumes are, on the whole, as bad as they can be."
Prof. I. B. Stoughton Holborn of Oxford University is in Chicago to deliver a series of lectures on art for the University of Chicago Lecture Association. In an interview Saturday afternoon he vigorously ridiculed modern dress.
Prof. Holborn is perhaps the most widely known of the Oxford and Cambridge university extension lecturers and has the reputation of being one of the most successful art lecturers in the world. He is the hero of an adventure on the sinking Lusitania. He saved Avis Dolphin, a 12-year-old child who was being sent to England to be educated. The two women in whose charge Mrs. Dolphin had sent her daughters were lost, and Prof. Holborn has adopted the child....
186. Handling Conversation.—It should not be necessary to caution a newspaper man against attempting to report all a man says. "Condense as often as possible" is the interviewer's watchword,—"cut to the bone," as the reporters express it. Much of what a man says in conversation is prolix. In that part of the interview that is dull or wordy, give the pith of what is said in one or two brief sentences, then fall into direct quotation again when his words become interesting. As a rule, however, it is well as far as possible to quote his exact language all through the interview, since the interest of an interview frequently rests not only in what a man says, but in the way he says it. This does not mean a cut-and-dried story consisting of a series of questions and answers, but a succession of sparkling, personal paragraphs containing the direct statements of the speaker.