Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of Newspaper Writing

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    NEWSPAPER REPORTING
    AND CORRESPONDENCE

    A MANUAL FOR REPORTERS,
    CORRESPONDENTS, AND STUDENTS
    OF NEWSPAPER WRITING

    BY

    GRANT MILNOR HYDE, M.A.

    INSTRUCTOR IN JOURNALISM IN THE
    UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.


    NEW YORK AND LONDON
    D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
    1912


    COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
    D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

    Printed in the United States of America


    TO
    MY MOTHER




INTRODUCTION


The purpose of this book is to instruct the prospective newspaper
reporter in the way to write those stories which his future paper will
call upon him to write, and to help the young cub reporter and the
struggling correspondent past the perils of the copyreader's pencil by
telling them how to write clean copy that requires a minimum of editing.
It is not concerned with the _why_ of the newspaper business--the editor
may attend to that--but with the _how_ of the reporter's work. And an
ability to write is believed to be the reporter's chief asset. There is
no space in this book to dilate upon newspaper organization, the work of
the business office, the writing of advertisements, the principles of
editorial writing, or the how and why of newspaper policy and practice,
as it is. These things do not concern the reporter during the first few
months of his work, and he will learn them from experience when he needs
them. Until then, his usefulness depends solely upon his ability to get
news and to write it.

There are two phases of the work which every reporter must learn: how 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 offers this book as the result of personal newspaper
experience and of his work as instructor in classes in newspaper writing
at the University of Wisconsin. Every item that is offered is the result
of an attempt to correct the mistakes that have appeared most often in
the papers of students who are trying to do newspaper writing in the
classroom. The seemingly disproportionate emphasis upon certain branches
of the subject and the constant repetition of certain simple principles
are to be excused by the purpose of the book--to be a text-book in the
course of study worked out in this school of journalism. The use of the
fire story as typical of all newspaper stories and as a model for all
newspaper writing is characteristic of this method of instruction.