e,
whatever other faults your report of a speech may have, let it be
accurate and truthful.

XI

INTERVIEWS

If you compare any interview story with any speech report in any
representative newspaper, you will readily see how a discussion of
interviews easily becomes an explanation of the differences between
interview stories and speech-reports; that is, how the report of an
interview differs from the report of a public utterance of a more formal
kind. There are few differences in the written reports. Each usually
begins with a summary or a striking statement and consists largely of
direct quotation. Were it not for the line or two of explanation at the
end of the introduction, it would be practically impossible to tell the
one from the other, to tell which of the reports sets forth statements
made in a public discourse and which gives statements made in a more
private way to a reporter.

The difference lies behind the report, in the way the reporter obtained
the statements and quotations. And the whole difference depends upon the
attitude of the man who made the statements--whether his words were a
conscious or an unconscious public utterance. When a man speaks from a
platform he utters every sentence and every word with an idea of
possible quotation--he is not only willing to be quoted but he wants to
be quoted. But when he speaks privately to a reporter he usually dreads
quotation. Of course, he expects that you will print a few of his
remarks but he is constantly hoping that you will not remember and print
them all. He speaks more guardedly, too, since he is not sure of the
interpretation that may be given to his words. Hence it is a very
different matter to report what a man says in public and to get
statements for the press from him in private. Any one can report a
speech but great skill is required to get a good interview--especially
if the victim is unwilling to talk.

The first matter that a reporter has to consider is the means of
retaining the statements until he is able to write his story. It is a
simple matter to get quotations from a speech because it is possible to
sit anywhere in the audience and write down the speaker's words in a
notebook as they are uttered. But the notebook must be left behind when
you try to interview. When a man is not used to being interviewed
nothing will make him reticent so quickly as the appearance of a
notebook and pencil; he realizes that his words are to appea