Part 13 (1/2)

Paris, August 12.--Pol Plancon, the opera singer, died to-day. He had been ill since June. ------- Pol Plancon was a ba.s.s singer and made his Paris debut in the part of Mephistopheles in 1883. He came to the Metropolitan Opera house in New York in 1893, where he sang with Melba, Calve, Eames, Nordica and Jean and Edouard de Reszke. Plancon sang for many years at Covent Garden, London....

In this case it is too obvious that the first two sentences const.i.tute the bare cable bulletin and that the second paragraph is the beginning of the morgue story.

=227. Crime Lead.=--In the lead to a crime story, one may feature either the names of the persons involved, the number of lives lost or endangered, the motive of the criminal, the nature of the crime, clues leading to the identification and arrest of the criminal, possible effects of the crime, or even public sentiment resulting from the deed.

Of the possible leads, probably the names of the persons involved, either of the criminal or of those whose rights were infringed, are most often played up. Thus:

Leo M. Frank was lynched two miles outside of Marietta, the home of Mary Phagan, at an early hour this morning.

Mrs. Allie Detmann, 1409 Broad St., was shot and killed yesterday by Stanley Mouldan, 1516 Philadelphia Ave. The man then shot himself in the right temple, dying an hour later in St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

The other features, however, may be found at random in any paper.

Ill.u.s.trations are:

_Number of Lives Lost_

Two women are dead at the Good Shepherd's Rest because Pat Nicke kept the back door of his saloon open on election day.

_Motive_

To get money to pay for his grandmother's funeral, Robert Hollyburd, 24, 1917 Monaco St., yesterday robbed the cash register of the Lengerke Brothers, sporting goods dealers, at 1654 Bradley St.

_Nature of the Crime_

The most brutal murder ever committed in Calloway county was discovered at an early hour this morning when the body of Dr. Otis Bennett, literally hacked to pieces, was found in the bas.e.m.e.nt of his home.

_Clues_

The Davenport police have in their possession a large bone-handled knife which has been identified as the property of Hugo O'Neal, colored, of Cushman. The knife was found under Col. Andrew Alton's bedroom window after an attempted robbery of his home at an early hour this morning. O'Neal has not been seen since yesterday.

_Results_

Tim Atkins is probably dying at his shanty on Davis Street as a result of a difficulty between him and Isom Werner over a woman they met on their way home from the circus last night.

=228. Body of the Crime Story.=--The body of the crime story, like that of the accident, follows the lead in a simple chronological narration of events. Interest may be added by quoting direct statements from persons immediately connected with the crime,--how it feels to be held up, how the robber gained entrance to the building, how the bandits escaped. In stories of burglaries and robberies the value of the stolen goods and any ingenious devices for gaining entrance to the house, stopping the train, or halting the robbed party should always be given. It may be added that, unless the purpose is entirely obvious, as in robberies and burglaries, due emphasis should be given to the motive for the crime.

One should be on one's guard, however, against accepting readily any motive a.s.signed. The star reporter never takes anybody at his word--the police, the detectives, or even the victims--in any statement where crime is involved. He investigates for himself and draws his own conclusions.

=229. Caution against Libel.=--An additional caution should be added here against libel, because of the strong temptation always to make an accused person guilty before he has been adjudged so. According to American law, a person suspected of or charged with crime is innocent until he has been proved guilty. In writing crime stories, therefore, the reporter must be doubly careful to have a supposed criminal merely ”suspected” of misappropriating funds, or ”alleged” to have made the a.s.sault, or ”said by the police” to have entered the house. And in order to present an unbiased story, the side of the supposed malefactor should be given. In the intense excitement resulting from a newly committed crime, or in the squalid surroundings of a prison cell, an accused person does not appear to his best advantage, and it is easy for the reporter to let prejudice sway him, perhaps causing irreparable injury to innocent persons. The race riot in Atlanta, in 1905, in which numbers of innocent negroes were murdered, was a direct result of exaggerated and sensational stories of crime printed by yellow newspapers. And the whole long trial and verdict against Leo M. Frank were directly affected by the same papers. If the opinion of readers is to be appealed to, the reporter should leave such appeals to the editorial writers, whose duty it is to interpret the news and sway the public whenever they will or can. The reporter's duty, as far as possible, is to present mere facts.

XVI. SPORTS

=230. Slang.=--In writing stories of athletic meets and games the reporter will find that in matters of language he has almost complete freedom. For this there are two reasons: the fact that it is necessary half the time to get final results of contests into print within a few seconds or minutes after the outcome has been decided, and the fact that athletic devotees--”fans” in American slang--are not naturally critical.

Time is the all-important element with them. The results of a baseball game are wanted within a few seconds after the last man has been put out in the final inning. Whether the writer says the Red Sox defeated the Tigers, or nosed them out in the ninth, or handed them a lemon, means little to the followers of the game provided the information is specifically conveyed that Boston beat Detroit. Slang is freely used,--so much so that the uninitiated frequently cannot understand an account of a game. The ”fans” can, however, and they const.i.tute the public for whom reporters on the sporting pages maintain they are writing. If, then, one can brighten up his sporting stories--make them sparkling, electric, galvanic--by using slang, he will find them acceptable to any editor. The only caution to the beginner is that he must be sure every detail is clear to the ”fans.” Slang can easily be overdone,--much more easily than one would suppose,--with the result that an otherwise good story is choked with near humorous, foggy jargon.

Better no slang than a story cloyed with it.[25]

[25] It is the belief of the author that the sporting page has not yet reached its highest level of language and that the younger of us will live to see as pure English used on the sporting page as in the other news columns. The purpose of this volume, however, is not to present the work of the reporter as it ought to be, but as it is--a fact which accounts for the above paragraph and its recommendation of the use of slang in sporting news stories.

=231. Four Kinds.=--An examination of sporting news stories shows four kinds: (1) those dealing with athletic events before their occurrence; (2) those reporting the events; (3) those a.n.a.lyzing and explaining the events and their results; and (4) those dealing with the sport in general. The second of these, the story reporting an athletic event, is not unlike the types of news stories examined in the two preceding chapters and may be discussed first, reserving for later a.n.a.lysis the other three because of their divergence from the normal type of news article.