w to
get the news and how to write it. The first he can pick up easily by
actual newspaper experience--if nature has endowed him with "a nose for
news." The writing of the news he can learn only by hard practice--a
year's hard practice on some papers--and it is generally conceded that
practice in writing news stories can be secured at home or in the
classroom as effectively as practice in writing short stories, plays,
business letters, or any other special form of composition. Newspaper
experience may aid the reporter in learning how to write his stories,
but a newspaper apprenticeship is not absolutely necessary. However,
whether he is studying the trade of newspaper writing in his home, in a
classroom, or in the city room of a daily paper, he needs positive
instruction in the English composition of the newspaper office--rather
than haphazard criticism and a deluge of "don'ts." Hence this book is
concerned primarily with the writing of the news.

Successful newspaper reporting requires both an ability to write good
English and an ability to write good English in the conventional
newspaper form. And there is a conventional form for every kind of
newspaper story. Many editors of the present day are trying to break
away from the conventional form and to evolve a looser and more natural
method of writing news stories. The results are often bizarre and
sometimes very effective. Certainly originality in expression adds much
to the interest of newspaper stories, and many a good piece of news is
ruined by a bald, dry recital of facts. Just as the good reporter is
always one who can give his yarns a distinctive flavor, great newspaper
stories are seldom written under the restriction of rules. But no young
reporter can hope to attain success through originality and defiance of
rules until he has first mastered the fundamental principles of
newspaper writing. He can never expect to write "the story of the year"
until he has learned to handle everyday news without burying the gist of
his stories--any more than an artist can hope to paint a living portrait
until he has learned, with the aid of rules, to draw the face of a
plaster block-head. Hence the emphasis upon form and system in this
book. And, whatever the form may be, the embodiment must be clear,
concise, grammatical English; that is the excuse for the many axioms of
simple English grammar that are introduced side by side with the study
of the newspaper form.

The author