III. NEWSPAPER TERMS 28

IV. THE NEWS STORY FORM 34

V. THE SIMPLE FIRE STORY 41

VI. THE FEATURE FIRE STORY 50

VII. FAULTS IN NEWS STORIES 75

VIII. OTHER NEWS STORIES 105

IX. FOLLOW-UP AND REWRITE STORIES 125

X. REPORTS OF SPEECHES 143

XI. INTERVIEWS 169

XII. COURT REPORTING 192

XIII. SOCIAL NEWS AND OBITUARIES 204

XIV. SPORTING NEWS 219

XV. HUMAN INTEREST STORIES 233

XVI. DRAMATIC REPORTING 259

XVII. STYLE BOOK 276

APPENDIX I--SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 294

APPENDIX II--NEWS STORIES TO BE CORRECTED 311

INDEX 339

NEWSPAPER REPORTING AND CORRESPONDENCE

I

GATHERING THE NEWS

Unlike almost any other profession, that of a newspaper reporter
combines two very different activities--the gathering of news and the
writing of news. Part of the work must be done in the office and part of
it outside on the street. At his desk in the office a reporter is
engaged in the literary, or pseudo-literary, occupation of writing news
stories; outside on the street he is a detective gathering news and
hunting for elusive facts to be combined later into stories. Although
the two activities are closely related, each requires a different sort
of ability and a different training. In a newspaper office the two
activities are rarely separated, but a beginner must learn each duty
independent of the other. This book will not attempt to deal with both;
it will confine itself mainly to one phase, the pseudo-literary
activity of writing news stories.

However, introductory to the discussion of the writing of newspaper
stories, we may glance at the other side of the newspaper writer's
work--the gathering of the news. Where the newspaper gets its news and
how it gets its news can be learned only by experience, for it differs
in different cities and with different papers. But an outline of the
background of news-gathering may assist us in writing the news after it
is gathered and ready for u