Part 11 (2/2)

house on Ansley Road to an audience of 250 colored

brethren in a neighboring barn, the Rev. Ezekiel

Butler, colored, began in a pouring rain Sunday

night the first service of the annual Holly Springs

open-air meetings.

=201. Featuring Several Details.=--When the speaker, the subject, the occasion, and the place are all important, it may be needful to make a long summarizing lead of several paragraphs, explaining all these features in detail. In such a case a quarter- or a half-column may be required before one can get to the address itself. The following story of President Wilson's first campaign speech for reelection, delivered at Pittsburgh on January 29, 1916, is an ill.u.s.tration:

=WILSON BEGINS CAMPAIGN= _Name first_

President Wilson as ”trustee of the ideals of

America,” to employ his own phrase, has taken his

case to the people.

_Occasion_

He opened here to-day the most momentous

speech-making tour perhaps made by a President

within a generation with an appeal to keep national

preparedness out of partisan politics and to give it

no place as a possible campaign issue.

_Effect on Audience_

The nonpartisans.h.i.+p urged by the President was

reflected in Pittsburg's greeting to the executive.

_Circ.u.mstances and Place_

A Republican ex-Congressman, James Francis Burke,

presided at the meeting under the auspices of the

chamber of commerce in Soldiers' Memorial Hall.

”Preparedness is a matter of patriotism, not of

party,” he said.

_Story backtracks here_

_Audience_

Pittsburg's welcome to the President and Mrs. Wilson

was warm, but not demonstrative. When the

speechmaking began, Memorial Hall was packed with an

audience of 4,500, while on the steps and plaza

outside some 8,000 or 10,000 men and women surged,

unable to get admission, but eager to get a glimpse

of the executive and his bride.

_Reception by Audience_

When the presidential party, Mrs. Wilson in front,

filed on the platform there was a demonstration,

brief but spontaneous, the first lady of the land

drawing as prolonged applause as her husband on his

appearance.

_Att.i.tude of Audience_

The audience was an intent one. Its pose was one of

keen attention to the President's utterances.

_Applause_

Occasionally a particularly facile phrase, such as

when the President spoke of the need of ”spiritual

efficiency” as a basis for military efficiency,

started the hand-clapping and gusts of applause

swept through the hall.

_General Effect of the Visit_

For Pennsylvania, Republican stronghold, which gave

Roosevelt a plurality of 51,000 over Wilson in 1912,

the reception accorded the President is regarded as

quite satisfactory. Downtown in the business

district there was hardly a ripple.

_Inquisitive Crowds_

But in the neighborhood of the Hotel Schenley, out

by the Carnegie Inst.i.tute, a large crowd turned out

a few hours after the President's arrival and kept

their glances on the seventh floor, which was banked

in roses and orchids.

_Beginning of the Speech_

”As your servant and representative, I should come

and report to you on our public affairs,” the

President began. ”It is the duty of every public man

to hold frank counsel with the people he

represents.”[20] ...

[20] Arthur M. Evans in _The Chicago Herald_, January 30, 1916.

=202. Body of the Story.=--In writing the body of the story, the first thing to strive for is proper coherence with the lead. This caution is worth particular heed when the lead contains a single-sentence quotation, an indirect question, or a paragraph of direct statement from somewhere in the body of the speech. Few things are more incongruous in a story than a clever epigrammatic lead and a succession of quoted statements following, none of which exhibits a definite bearing on the lead. Oftentimes this incongruity is produced by the reporter's attempt to follow the precise order adopted by the speaker. Such an order, however, should be manifestly impossible in a news report when the writer has dug out for use in the lead a lone sentence or paragraph from the middle of the speech. Rather, one should continue such a lead with a paragraph or so of development, then follow with paragraphs of direct quotation which originally may or may not have preceded the idea featured in the lead.

=203. Accuracy.=--The second consideration must be the same accuracy and fairness that was emphasized in the discussion of the interview.

Some reporters, for instance, take the liberty of putting within quotation marks, as though quoted directly, whole paragraphs that they know are not given verbatim, their grounds for the liberty being that they know they are reporting the speaker with entire accuracy, and the use of ”quotes” gives the story greater emphasis and intimacy of appeal.

This liberty is to be condemned. When a reporter puts quotation marks about a phrase or clause, he declares to his readers that the other man, not he, is responsible for the statement exactly as printed. And even though a man may think he is reporting a speaker with absolute precision, there is always the possibility that he may have misunderstood. Indeed, it is just these chance misunderstandings that trip reporters and frequently necessitate speakers' denying published accounts of their lectures. Only what one has taken down verbatim should be put within quotation marks. All else should be reported indirectly with an unwavering determination to convey the real spirit of the lecture or sermon, not to play up an isolated or random subtopic that has little bearing on the speech as a whole. Any reporter can find in any lecture statements which, taken without the accompanying qualifications, may be adroitly warped to make the story good and the speaker ridiculous in the eyes of the reading public.

=204. Speech Story as a Whole.=--The story as a whole should be a little speech in itself. Whole topics may be omitted. Others that possibly occupied pages of ma.n.u.script and took several minutes to present may be cut down to a single sentence. Still others may be presented in full.

But the quotation marks and the cohering phrases, such as ”said he,”

”continued the speaker,” ”Mr. Wilson said in part,” etc., should be carefully inserted so as to make it entirely clear to the reader when the statements are a condensation of the speaker's remarks and when they are direct quotations. Such connecting phrases, however, should be placed in unemphatic positions within the paragraph and should have their form so varied as not to attract undue attention. And as in the interview, the report as a whole should be livened up at intervals with phrases and paragraphs calling attention to characteristic gestures, facial expressions, and individual eccentricities of the speaker's person, manner, or dress.

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