Of the duties and functions of any newspaper the first in point of time and of importance is the collection and dissemination of news. The necessity of giving to the news, which is collected, some sort of literary form in its presentation leads at once to the possibility of reinforcing it, of distorting it and sometimes, by suppression of essential points, of even inverting its meaning. The propagation of opinion is thus inseparably allied with the dissemination of news and no effort of organization can entirely separate the two departments. In all daily papers, however, and in most weekly papers, which attempt to give the news, the editorial system is a duplicate one having under the control of the supreme chief two staffs, kept more or less separate, one for giving the news of the day in the briefest form and the other for commenting on such news in accordance with the habits of the paper. The status and quality of every newspaper is chiefly determined by the relative importance allowed by the editor and his proprietors to giving the mere news as compared with the pains taken to elucidate it. The more popular and cheaper papers concentrate their chief energies on giving the largest number of items of ordinary news, which it is their aim to transform as far as possible into matters of exceptional interest, while the old-established organs of social and political weight are content to state their news impartially, if not boldly, and rely on their powers of interesting the reader by able discussions on political, artistic or literary topics, as they present new features day by day. Every one can call to mind two or three instances in either the United Kingdom or America of papers, which show these opposite tendencies in extreme form.

Taking the two branches of Anglo-Saxon journalism together as one whole, there is a very distinct tendency in America to attach greater prominence to the news-collecting side of journalism. Comment, criticism, propagandism are not excluded from American papers but the papers themselves live and flourish or die quickly according to the value which their public attaches to their news columns. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, and especially in London, the purveying of news is accurately and competently done, but more or less in a perfunctory manner, while the energies, which competition calls forth, are devoted to the writing of special articles, the expert criticism of the arts or the drama or else in the creation of what are generally called the “features of a paper,” that is to say, news, of which the presentation is individual, while the matter is more or less common to every one. It must not be supposed, however, that on this side of the water, including London, there is no keen competition in some quarters in the procuring and even in the manufacture of news. Certain papers strongly specialize in that direction and in many respects have imported American methods. But the predominant type of newspaper in the two countries is very different. British and Irish newspapers are content to share much more news in common than is the case in America, which inclines the Transatlantic reader to consider them extremely slow and unenterprising. On the other hand the purely editorial columns in an American newspaper are often curtailed to minute dimensions, while the standard of indulgence generally extended to carelessness and ignorance in matters relating to culture would not pass muster in British papers, even of the second rank.

This comparison is made with obvious reluctance for a certain definite purpose, because the distinction between the two types, is a sure guide to the relative superiority of each system in its own way, the one aiming chiefly at efficiency in collecting news and the other at the perfection of editorial presentation. The American system of collecting news is necessarily superior to that of most English newspapers, because in America news is the all-important thing and nothing else counts in promoting the prosperity of a newspaper. It follows also that not only do individual American newspapers employ larger staffs and spend greater sums for news than is the case with us, but also, in spite of the competition and partly because of it, the whole business of newsgetting is professionalized to an extent, which no English journalist would be led to imagine from his own experience. The divisions between one grade and another within the ranks of editors and reporters are more finely distinguished; there is a much freer circulation of able men from one paper to another and much more prompt dismissal of incompetents from the whole group than our slower habits would tolerate. With us there is a certain amateurishness permitted in all ranks of a newspaper because when the system is too perfect the individual is cramped in his free play and the results aimed at in British journalism are less mechanical than the first-class newspaper “story,” which it is the aim of the “star” reporter in New York and Chicago to turn out. In America so great is the keenness of competition on one straight set of rails that individualism is practically stamped out by the ruthless perfection of the professional machine. Recent changes in their habits point all in this direction. The individual “I” has been long suppressed; the editorial “we” is considered to date back to the time of the war; what is more, every word tending to introduce an element of personal opinion is struck out of any ordinary description of an event. An American reporter is not allowed to say that a meeting was successful or that the statesman was eloquent or that the confusion around the railway wreck baffled description. His professional duties require that he should report only, what the statesman said and what his audience thought of him, and if his powers of description are to be baffled by a railway accident he will soon be out of a job. The present tendency on this side of the Atlantic is all the other way. The public seems to wish to know what great cricketers think about cricket, golfers about golf, statesmen about politics. A British editor’s task is largely a matter of keeping up communications with a large circle of experts on hundreds of subjects, who can be appealed to from day to day about any event or topic of immediate importance. The shortest way of putting it is to say that the ordinary American paper from cover to cover is almost wholly written by professionals, while perhaps one-third of our papers is the product of an outside sporadic ring of contributors, who are practically half-employed amateurs, and the remainder, which is the more perfunctory but sometimes the least sensational portion of the paper, is the work of the home staff.

I am sorry to labour, what seems to be perhaps an invidious critical comparison, but it is necessary to explain that any one who attempts to present the best side of two national journalisms, between whom I may say parenthetically the want of sympathetic comprehension is rather marked, can only do so by recognizing and making clear the difference in the strong points of each. Of an admirable system of news collection the American paper unquestionably offers the best example; it is, however, a difficult one, especially for a foreigner, to describe. But as an organ of opinion, the newspaper is on the whole much more comprehensively and effectively organized in the United Kingdom than in any other country; its standard of general culture is higher than that of the press of any other country except perhaps that of France and even in the case of this latter comparison it may be considered decisively superior, when the breadth of its scope and range is taken into account.

Let us examine in detail the organization of the most expert newsgathering machine in the world—an American daily paper with perhaps an evening paper attached to it.[2] Of this double system the former part is of the greater importance, because the morning paper has greater wealth and a wider geographical distribution but the latter presents some points of superiority owing to the more difficult task and the continued strain of producing edition after edition. To understand a news-collecting system is to be able to answer the five following questions: What is news?—From what sources is it drawn?—Who gets it?—Who writes it?—Who determines what and how much is to be published? The answers to these questions largely overlap one another, but together they cover the whole subject. The first two questions are mainly a concern of the public; what they are interested in collectively and what personal and public incidents they and their affairs will supply, which will be of interest to others. The last three are the concern of the organization of a newspaper.

What is news? Americans give a more comprehensive answer to that question than any other people. In that country small things overshadow the great. Perhaps it would be truer to say that the important things to them are matters of detail. Foreign politics are to them outlandish matters. Their public life is itself a matter of small things; detailed changes in the tariff; detailed changes in the personnel of federal, state and city governments; details about railway concessions or amalgamations or prosecutions, which affect stocks and shares. As a consequence an importance is attached to the details of personal life, private happiness, social standing, success and failure of individuals, which in Europe is quite beyond comprehension. Everything is news; almost anything may become big news, if it can be shown to be in any way connected with the interests of the vast, curious, highly intelligent but not deeply cultivated public.

Take the case of the suicide of a poor man. To a trained reporter this may be just a paragraph of three lines, or it may cover material for a week’s agitation and a national movement, so that his experience prompts him to examine its details untiringly for some underlying fact which will lift it out of the common run. Suppose the paragraph runs:—Early this morning (Monday) John A. Smith hanged himself at 31, W. 249th Street. He leaves no family and no light can be thrown on his motive. His habits were reported to be irregular.—Such a suicide, especially on Monday morning, would be unfortunately so common an occurrence after a possible Sunday’s intemperance, that not much beyond a few enquiries would be prosecuted. Let us put the paragraph in another way:—In an unoccupied room on the fifth floor of the tenement house at 31, W. 249th Street the body of an emaciated man was found hanging early this morning. He had apparently been dead some time. Enquiry elicits the fact that he was called John Alexis Smith, who lived with a wife and four children at 917, Ninth Avenue where he had no difficulty in finding work, but very little chance of keeping it long. His former employers describe him, as semi-imbecile, with various degenerate traits. Apparently he had been in the country only seven months. How he passed the negligent inspection officers at Ellis Island is a matter, which demands rigid scrutiny!—and so we go on to the Immigration Laws, Corrupt Federal Administration, Pauper Labour of Europe, etc.

Take John A. Smith another way and suppose him to have been in good work up to a few months ago and to have lost his savings through wild speculation in United States Steel Common; then will follow Wall Street and the Harpy Brokers, who stoop to take the Earnings of the Poor. Or, again, Smith may have lost his savings in one of the recent Trust Company failures and then we have a criticism of the Unstable Foundations of Credit. Or, he may have been sick and gone mad with the heat, which will yield an attack on High Prices and the Wickedness of the Ice Trust. Or, his family and he may have been starving, owing to the increased prices of food and the Machinations of the Beef Trust. All these are openings for news, where the further investigation of facts may elicit, it is not to be assumed that they will, confirmatory items of superior importance. On all serious questions the American public can be appealed to ten times more strongly through emotional sympathy than by reasoned discussion, and that is a reason, usually forgotten, why we should be slow in condemning a sensational tendency in their journalism.

The next question arises: What are the sources, whence the news, which interests the public, is drawn? These may be classified into three: official news, business items and general matter. What we may call official news covers all public announcements, government and municipal publications, police bulletins and matters of record from public registers. This class of news comes into the newspaper office automatically or very nearly so; sometimes a messenger has to call to fetch books and papers or a reporter is ordered to run his eye down the public registers; but very little trouble is necessary to collect this material, because everywhere all kinds of authorities and semi-authorities are accustomed to consult their own interests by keeping newspapers informed of official transactions. When anything unusual occurs in this field there will always be some one at the police office or in the city hall to telephone to the chief papers and warn them not to miss an opportunity.

Business items of serious importance are of all news the most valuable that a paper can get. But except for an occasional accident there is almost no way of getting any, save by way of favour. Anything interesting of this kind has always a value for some one so long as it can be kept secret and the only way in which a newspaper can counteract this tendency is to keep in touch or be introduced to other parties, who may be interested in disclosure. The ordinary published items of business news, failures, amalgamations, flotations, etc., are on the same footing as official news and come into the newspaper office of themselves.

General news sometimes comes in by routine methods, such as reports of trials, political speeches and all items of literary, artistic or dramatic material, which offer themselves generally only too profusely and eagerly for publication. The most interesting and most valuable matter under this head is the unexpected; accidents, crimes, disasters and mere freakish occurrences having a humorous aspect. All these must be collected by the professional organizations because, curiously enough, the public, who is the ultimate judge of what is interesting after it is printed, is not a good judge of it at first hand. A crowd is immensely affected by a small accident but may equally probably be unobservant of or callous to a great one. In criminal matters the police court is fuller than the final court of appeal. Those items of news which are brought in by private individuals, and a good deal of this is done by amateurs, are generally valueless or improperly observed. The observation, description and sifting has to be the systematic work of trained men. The American system is to assume that every small accident, catastrophe, crime or intrigue is potentially a great one. As a matter of professional competition this method is forced upon them. No newspaper can allow another to gain an important start on a question, which may become the sensation of the hour. Consequently the wearisome task of turning over every sordid detail of misfortune, weakness, disaster and corruption has to be undertaken simultaneously by the members of every staff in competition with every other paper. Except in the case of co-operative news agencies, to be described later, it is very rare that news investigation is undertaken in combination, and, when that happens in New York or any big city, it is generally done by private understanding between the reporters themselves, when the ground to be covered is extensive and there seems to be little opportunity for exceptional features to be developed.

We come then to our last three questions: Who gets the news? Who writes it? and Who determines what and how much is to be published? and we may well answer them together for this is tantamount to describing the organization for collecting news on any great paper. It is in this department, that the American newspaper has carried sureness of grasp and differentiation of function further than the press in any other country and we may take their system as our model. If any important news “story” slips through the meshes of their net for news more than once or twice a year on any individual paper, probably the shutters will have to be put up in that office and certainly all the editors and reporters will have been sent flying to other cities to look for jobs. The struggle for mere existence in this crucial respect is pushed to the extreme. The aim and object of this struggle in the American press is the presentation of a “story,” that is to say all the facts about and as many aspects as possible of some event, disastrous, humorous, pathetic or merely arresting, in such a way that the “story” should have more features or more human interest than the description of the same fact or event, which may appear in another paper. Almost everything in an American paper amounts to that in one way or another and very brilliant talents and quite astounding energy and resourcefulness are brought to bear to realize an ideal, which at first sight does not seem very impressive. It is, however, much more difficult to realize than appears on the surface and above all it is what their public wants.

The material for the ordinary newspaper “story” is more often than not taken from the unfortunate or shady side of life, because in that class of facts the masses of the public take an unfailing and untiring interest. It is not a question about which it is worth while moralizing, because, now that the supply of such matter has been made available from one or two sources, all others have to follow. The history of journalism has only one continuous lesson for editors and proprietors. It is not possible to dictate to your public and the only choice open to any one who is obstinate on questions of taste is to appeal to a narrow public of a better class against the more common preferences of the multitude. In America the papers, which have found such a better-class public to maintain them in moderate prosperity, may be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The regular sources of sensational news, which are watched as a matter of course by the professional corps of reporters, comprise some fifty localities in a big city. Mr. Given mentions some ten, where there is a constant attendance, such as the stock exchange, the City Hall and its courts and offices, police headquarters, the police courts and higher courts. Others, such as the police stations, municipal courts, fire stations, the jails, hospitals, the morgue and administrative offices of various kinds are patrolled at frequent intervals, while some twenty more places are visited every day. This duty falls on a special class of men called “watchers,” who are far from being ordinary reporters, as very often they have not been promoted to the dignity of writing a line, but they must know what news is and their function is to telephone to the head office any bulletins, which are promising, or any definite items, which need to be investigated and worked up, and in fact to be the eyes and ears of the newspaper. But they are eyes and ears which have to be open all the time. If they stopped to follow up any news item for themselves, they might miss a much more important one the next minute. This is the kind of news in brief which they send to headquarters.

9th Precinct 7 a.m. March 15.

6.30 a.m. Jessie Hawkins, 87, Cortlandt Street, attic above warehouse, badly burnt, feared dead; age 7 years, flannelette; no one present; sent St. A. hospital.—P.B.

6th Precinct 10.30 a.m.

10.10 a.m. Fire, 916, Franklin Street; tenement house; occupants mostly gone to work; 3 children crushed on stairs; Leczinski, laundryman, recent immigrant; damage $700, owner Belmont.—L.A.

2nd Precinct 8.15 a.m.

7.20 a.m. Body unknown man found off Pier 1, East River; about 40 years, 5 feet 10 inches; light complexion, lace shoes, blue shirt, black coat and trousers; some valuable papers in pocket but no money.—J.W.

To solve these problems another group of men is needed, the reporters proper, called, when they are on this service, “general workers.” As the original brief messages come in to the city editor, he details one or another of his young men to the spot, who sets to work to ransack every fragment of fact or probability, which throws light on the case. If a general worker has to think only of a morning newspaper and the matter is important, he will try to treat it exhaustively and not return to the office, until he has his story complete and ready for the press. But more often he has no time for this. He may very likely have one job treading on the heels of another, especially if he has evening paper editions coming out successively behind him. It is therefore more usual for the general worker to treat his work in fragments, either telephoning his account through to the office or, if he has time to be more careful, sending his notes by hand or taking them back himself. He will then continue to study the same story for more facts or pass on to some other task.

In any case the matter passes into a third stage and comes into the hands of the “rewriters” or “telephone rewriters.” These two groups of people handle this half-prepared matter and give it more or less literary form. It has now become a “story,” complete for the moment but liable to be changed, supplemented, or suppressed according to later information. But for the present it passes on its road to the press into the hands of a fourth body, the “copy-readers,” whose duties in America correspond partially to part of the work fulfilled in this country by “sub-editors,” who do not enjoy however so much positive responsibility, as we should allow them here. The functions of a copy-reader are unpleasantly negative. The real power of judging the news and criticizing it lies above with the city-editor and the managing editor, officials only dimly shadowed in England. The copy-reader’s duty is to suppress hopelessly incompetent stuff, to revise the results of carelessness, to add headlines and to correct all blunders. In addition he is the policeman of the office, cutting out the list of forbidden words, correcting spelling and removing contradictions and obvious absurdities. There are no thanks coming to him either from above or below and endless possibilities of reproof and disaster.

We have now the “newspaper story” complete in its final form for a morning paper and subject to addition and revision in the evening paper. It has to run the danger of fading away under the eye of the city-editor and may even, if it be very important, attract the unfavourable notice of the managing editor or the editor-in-chief. But, as these great men belong essentially to the central framework of the staff, we must invert our investigations for a moment and look at our American newspaper from the upper side downwards. The first difference between the two countries that strikes one here is the rather larger number of men and the much larger number of titles, as compared with the staff on an English paper. As the net output of most American dailies is not much larger than some of our own, we are led to suppose that what is once done in England, is done two or three times over in America, because over there the pace of output is tremendous. And that I believe to be the explanation of the difference between the two systems. While in England we have usually a single editor, or man in charge for the night, with but three grades of workers under him, the literary staff, the sub-editors and reporters, supplemented by outside men on special subjects; in America the situation is more complicated. To begin with, the proprietor very often takes a hand in it himself, eclipsing the great editor and laying down his views, often criticizing the “make-up” of the paper, while it is still in the press. But usually we have the editor-in-chief with a dual organization under him for pure news and for what one might call fancy news, such as the plays, art, finance, etc., of the day. In fact he has three separable organizations under him and every member of any one of them is called an editor. There is the staff for fancy news, including the editors of finance, sport, society, fashions, real estate, art, drama, music, literature and others. Then he has the routine staff for dealing with outside news, the foreign editor, the telegraph editor, who handles provincial news, and the exchange editor, who follows all the other papers and tries to get free “copy” from them if he can. Lastly he has the news organization proper, consisting of the managing editor, who usually has an assistant, the city editor, who looks after news up to six p.m. and the night city editor, who takes over this duty after that hour. Beneath these are all the reporters or general workers and others.

The duties of managing editor and city editor cover much the same ground; that is to say, it is the duty of the managing editor to revise and do over again the work of the city editor, while at the same time he has a certain control over the decorative news, except as a rule finance, and in this respect he rather trenches on the sphere of the editor-in-chief without however having any right to influence what may be the policy of the paper in politics or social matters. The distinctively American system centres on the city editors, who have the primary responsibility for the news and the newspaper “stories.”

The city editor on duty for the time being combines in himself functions, which in England are usually divided between the head reporter and one of the sub-editors, whose duty it is to revise home news. For instance he has to make the assignments for the early morning to his corps of reporters; but whereas the English head reporter, having distributed tasks, would probably himself take the most important engagement, work beside his own staff and leave the “copy,” as it comes in, to pass to the sub-editors’ room, this is not the case with the American city editor. He remains at the desk all day with the telephone at his ear, waiting for messages from the scattered “watchers,” ready to make fresh assignments for anything unexpected that may turn up. That is his pre-occupation and imminent anxiety. With all his men already out, something startling and of infinite importance may arise at any minute and he may have no one to deal with it. For that reason it is the custom for all “general workers,” except those engaged on some prolonged investigation to report themselves at regular intervals to headquarters. Suppose news came of an explosion or fatal accident to one of the huge ferry-boats plying from Manhattan Island to Jersey City or Hoboken. All ordinary “stories” would be dropped at once. Even “murders” would be postponed. Every available man, as he reported himself, would be hurried to the quays to get tales from officials or survivors and to try to build up a theory about the disaster.

On the return of these “stories” to the office the second half of a city editor’s duty begins. The stories have been to some extent prepared for him by the “copy-readers,” but he has to judge of each individual “story” by itself and to exercise a certain choice between them. Having declared certain preferences he issues fresh orders to the reporters for fresh facts to lengthen them, while at the same time he curtails or drops entirely the “stories” of lesser interest. In the end he sends up to his superior, the managing editor, a mass of digested and to some extent coordinated “copy,” enough to occupy from a fifth to a sixth as much space over and above what the paper will hold. Such a margin of superabundance of “copy” leaves some room for the superior magnate to exercise a choice of his own in going over all the mass a second time. But here it is not a question of amending or extending; rejection at this last stage is the only resource. If the managing editor has fault to find about preparation or selection, he gives his views to the city editor next day with more or less vehemence, as the occasion requires. For the moment the whole body of news has to go to press, more or less as it stands.

There is another higher function remaining to the managing editor. He has to keep the balance between the predominating bulk of home news coming from the city editor and reporters and the body of less important news coming from the foreign, telegraph and exchange editors; to estimate the quantity of financial news, which is generally inelastic and practically outside of his control; and to allow space as well for the decorative parts of the paper drawn from art, literature, the drama and society. This is not the end of his responsibilities. A certain quantity of editorial matter descends to him from above, coming from the pen of his chief and the special political writers, always at the last moment. The amount of this and its habitual fluctuations are merely a question of judgment or guessing, because it cannot be altered and everything else has to give way to it. The managing editor’s only resource is to mark certain of the other items sent to the composing-room, as optional matter, liable to rejection at the last moment, even after it has been set up in type.[3]The English system has the same complicated problem to face but the pressure of mere time and space is relaxed by our easier habits. A larger part of the paper is habitually filled with regular services and with, what I have called above, the decorative items. All this comes in early and can be judged more coolly and definitely fixed in quantity. What is incomparably the most difficult part of a newspaper’s task, the adjustment, arrangement and choice between various items of news, is relegated to an allotment of space on less imperative terms and is more governed by mere routine. The simple explanation of this material consolation to editors and sub-editors lies in the fact that competition about mere news is not, speaking relatively in respect of American practice, tuned up to the same pitch of keenness. As we shall see in the next chapter, the English papers are content to have a comparatively large amount of their mere news provided from common sources.

The effect of this on the usual arrangement of the staffs of English papers is that the type of organization is more primitive, the working of it less vehement and more elastic and variation from one settled type more common. No two English newspapers have their staffs organized in exactly the same way. Yet there is practically very little departure from the grand traditional tripartite division of functions, including the editor with his personal staff of leader-writers or budding editors, the room of sub-editors, and the corps of reporters. This system is so flexible that it need not be materially altered in form to meet the most varying needs. Even the most progressive, sensational and restless innovators, who have half adopted the latest American impetuosities, can fit them tolerably well into the English framework. The editor and his staff share the responsibilities of power and round them they have an extensive group of half-employed satellites, differentiating into all shades of expertism and virtuosity. The sub-editors are not, as a layman often imagines them from their name to be, assistant editors, but those whose business it is to exercise the art of “sub-editing”; that is to say, of correcting, revising, arranging, selecting and passing judgment on news and “copy” of all kinds, except strictly “editorial” matter. In their quiet room filled with news clippings, flimsies and MSS. lies the core of an English newspaper, just as in America the critical work is done over the city editor’s telephone. The “sub-editors” have one great advantage over the American “copy-readers” in that they have a real and often final control of and power over copy and much of the responsibility of deciding what is to be considered “optional” at the last moment rests with them. The reporters are dwindling both in number and function owing to the inroads of two outside institutions; firstly, the purely reporting or shorthand work is now almost completely taken over by the great newsagencies, and secondly the semi-amateur outside specialist is coming to fill up more and more space both in the daily and evening papers. For instance there are people, who make a comfortable income by writing signed and unsigned articles on gardening on half a dozen papers; others specialize as reporters on naval and military matters, photography, golf, cycling, motor-cars, aviation, the weather, health, comic paragraphs, etc.; celebrated professors resign government posts and earn increased incomes by writing on science; dons at college write regularly on their special subjects. So that the sphere of the regular reporter narrows every day and his work is tending more and more to be confined to selecting incidents of an unusual kind and dressing them up in a way, which amounts to very much the same thing, as the American “newspaper story,” although the style of doing it is rather different.

The conscious aim of all news-collectors and reporters on all Anglo-Saxon newspapers is to score a “scoop” or a “beat,” which is the technical press name for an exclusive item of sensational interest. In America this achievement is still but very rarely within the powers of an individual reporter. A striking instance of a success of this kind in amateur detective work was made by a reporter on the New York World at the time when an attempt was made on the life of Russell Sage in December, 1891. The point of the sensation was that no apparent clue remained of the identity of the man, who threw the dynamite bomb, as his own body was almost completely destroyed. He had penetrated into Sage’s office in Broadway but mismanaged his throw, so that he himself was blown up without leaving any more traces than a few scraps of cloth and a button or two. This was the reporter’s opportunity. He secured one of the buttons and an adhering fragment of cloth. On the button was the name of a well-known Boston tailor. So with this clue in his possession, which had escaped the attention of the police, he took the next train to Boston. Interviewing the tailor and showing the cloth he found that a suit of this cloth had lately been made for a young Boston broker, named Henry Norcross. Further enquiry about Norcross’s antecedents and a visit to his home elicited the facts that Norcross had lately been in financial trouble and had been missing for several days. Putting two and two together the reporter risked the conclusion that Norcross and the potential murderer were one and the same man, and, inducing his paper to adopt his view, he obtained one of the greatest newspaper successes in New York. For the matter had been the sole topic of conversation in town for days and the subsequent verification of the facts fully confirmed his brilliant and daring hypothesis.

Those individual “beats” are rare and are becoming rarer. Their most frequent opportunity used to occur in war correspondence but nowadays in war all news is served out by the censor in common to a group of correspondents and the only task left to the latter is to arrange to wire the news according to the dimensions of the parental purse at home. Outside war a modern “scoop” is obtained only by elaborate and organized expenditure, undertaken a long time beforehand for some special purpose with the risk that the whole scheme may fall through and the money be wasted. A classic instance of a successful “beat” of this kind was the expedition organized by Stanley at the expense of the New York Herald and the Daily Telegraph to find Livingstone in Africa. A comparative failure of the same kind was the Jackson-Harmsworth exploration towards the North Pole. The Daily Mail achieved an inverted “scoop,” when it announced the massacre of the legations at Pekin.

The Daily Chronicle of London in the beginning of 1912 successfully brought off a sensational “beat,” no doubt by previous arrangement and at great expense, in being the only paper to receive an authentic telegram from Captain Amundsen, on his returning from the discovery of the South Pole. This “beat” was respected by all the London papers of the day and was only quoted by permission next day to a limited extent. In New York a different situation arose. The New York Times had purchased the American copyright of this telegram from the London Chronicle and expected to have it as exclusive news; since however New York time is five hours later than English time, there was time for Hearst’s paper, the New York American, to have the whole article telegraphed from Europe and to publish it simultaneously with the New York Times. The quarrel developed into a law-suit, turning on the question, whether there is copyright in news in the United States or whether there may be copyright in the literary form of news, a question long vexed in Europe and not yet entirely decided.

Another extensive “scoop” hardly known, but quite unequalled, in London was obtained by the Manchester Guardian, who had prepared for it long beforehand. The death of Queen Victoria took place at 6.30 on a Monday evening and on the following Tuesday morning there appeared in the ordinary way, incorporated in the daily paper, some twenty full pages of biography by several distinguished writers with a large number of illustrations, at a time when illustrations hardly ever appeared in the daily press. The success of this unexpected tribute to the late Queen was prodigious. Editions of many thousands were absorbed at once and single copies were sold in Lancashire towns by private speculators for five shillings each. The sale continued for five days and after a million copies of the issue had been sold, the publication was closed down out of mere weariness and in order to allow the ordinary work of the office to be carried on.

An amusing instance of a “beat,” which “fell down,” dates back to the time when the Oxford and Cambridge boat race was a matter of more absorbing interest to the general public than it is nowadays. A provincial evening paper with small circulation endeavoured to force itself to the front by engineering a sensational success. It prepared, some little time before the result was to be announced, two complete editions, one printed in dark blue ink announcing an Oxford victory, the other printed in a lighter blue colour announcing Cambridge as the winner. That year there was a dead heat.

A more important if not so disastrous a failure is recorded by Sir William Russell, who was sent on a special mission for the Times to Dublin to report the trial of O’Connell in 1844. He came back in a specially chartered steamboat well ahead of any one else and as he was entering the Times office among a group of shirt-sleeved men, whom he took to be compositors of his own paper, one came up touched his hat and said, “We are glad to hear, sir, they have found O’Connell guilty at last.” “Oh yes!” replied Russell innocently, “all guilty but on different counts.” This individual turned out to be an emissary of the Morning Herald, who stole Russell’s secret from him in the very jaws of the rival office.

If the ambition of the newspaper man is to achieve a “scoop” or “beat,” his ever present fear, and one much more imminently near to him than the corresponding hope, is an inadvertent libel. The great libel actions of the past, which have become historic, such as the Parnell letters and Pigott case, were generally the result of deliberate intention of the newspaper to run the risk in question, but only a newspaper editor knows how often accidental libels have been avoided by mere luck and at other times unfortunately not avoided at all. Libels lurk in single words misplaced, in head lines, in queer coincidences, in accidental resemblances of name or description. Many instances have come within my personal recollection, of which the following are a few. There was the celebrated Artemus Jones case, where an occasional contributor writing for a northern paper was giving a character sketch of people on their holidays at a French watering place. He mentioned as a purely supposititious character, a certain Artemus Jones, who apparently misbehaved himself or conducted himself in a reprehensible manner. Now there happened to be living in the neighbourhood a real Artemus Jones, a fairly well-known man, who was also even a frequent contributor to the same paper. The real man brought evidence of damage to his reputation and was awarded a considerable sum in compensation.

An even more curious coincidence occurred in the case of a disreputable weekly paper, now I am glad to say, long dead. This paper throve on scandal and one week it produced a circumstantial story, which the printers for fear of being held liable for damages refused to print; the story was then elaborately altered, fresh names and places being substituted. When the story appeared in print, it proved to be substantially true of another incident, which had happened elsewhere under circumstances sufficiently similar to justify action being taken. The matter had to be settled out of court.

One peculiarly unlucky case, I remember, which turned out the other way in the end, arose out of a mistake in the advertisements. A Liverpool firm of solicitors had sent for insertion a notice of winding-up proceedings to be taken against a firm of shaky credit. A daily paper in a neighbouring town received this order and had the advertisement set up in type for Saturday morning’s paper. On Friday night very late came a telegram from the solicitors, withdrawing the advertisement, as their own claims had been satisfied. Unfortunately the compositor in charge that night made an innocent but fatal mistake; he withdrew the wrong advertisement and next morning the incriminating advertisement appeared without any authorization. The newspaper had no defence and the damages threatened to be very serious. However, finally the firm in question had been so fatally shaken in their credit by this wholly accidental revelation of the true state of their affairs, that they went into liquidation and had no money to bring an action against the newspaper. But the manager of the newspaper had an unhappy time.

A reporter’s mistake, although quickly corrected, once had far-reaching consequences. A man concerned in a petty police court case was reported as convicted, when he was really acquitted. The true version came in three minutes later but meanwhile the evening paper had gone to press. A hurried rush was made by the editor and staff to the machine room to stop the edition and to the publishing room to recover all the guilty copies. Seventeen had been sold and of these fourteen were immediately recovered from the newsboys. The remaining three did not at the time seem to constitute much danger but unfortunately one of these papers fell into the hands of the agent of an evening paper in another town, whose business it was to get news for his paper cheap by wiring all news items from early issues of his rival. This agent had already wired through the fatal paragraph, which cost his paper £500. The original mistake cost the first evening paper only £200, because they were held to have caused less damage than the other.

Besides editorial matter, which includes both political, social and decorative items, and besides the news “stories,” the ordinary newspaper has to include correspondence from the provinces, from abroad and special correspondence, of which by far the most important and sensational kind is war correspondence. But before passing on to consider correspondence in general we must note one form of newspaper enterprise, the invention of American ingenuity and now universally employed everywhere, the interview, which does not exactly fall under any of the above categories. Interviewing has acquired a bad name, first because undoubtedly, when maliciously or stupidly done, it may be an annoyance or a serious nuisance to the individual interviewed; secondly, however, because human vanity, desperately afraid of detection, often proclaims the institution a bore, when in reality it is of the greatest value to the person concerned by enabling him to give forth his views on important occasions without being under the necessity of seeking publicity or being compromised, as he would be by a considered written statement. There is a great deal of interview matter now formally disclaimed under circumstances not entirely justifiable, as the mistake really lies with the person, who has changed his views, and the discredit would fall on the interviewer, if newspaper authorities were not fully aware of the weaknesses of public and semi-public characters.

There is hardly any need for describing what interviewing is, as it is a conspicuous feature of the press, but there may be some interest to the public in realizing what an extremely difficult art it is. The interviewer has to bring all his experience and art to bear to correct the errors or deceptions of his subject; he must be prepared to conquer his reticences and check his exuberances; to remember beforehand what he himself wishes to know and to render faithfully afterwards what information he has acquired. An experienced American journalist lays down the following rules, for what is perhaps the most difficult branch of all newspaper work. “Interviewing is hard work. Finding your man sometimes is the worst part of the task, but more often it is still harder to get him to talk. People to be interviewed are of three kinds; those who talk too much, those who talk too little and those who will not talk at all. And after you do get your man to talking it takes the concentration of all your mental powers to do your part of the work. You must pay the closest attention to what he is saying, grasp and remember the points he makes, take notes on the statistics he may quote, jot down some of his striking sentences, keep up your end of the conversation and at the same time bear in mind all the other questions, which you still must ask, for it will avail nothing to think of a neglected point afterwards. Before approaching your man be sure you have outlined clearly in your mind just what questions you wish to ask him. Impress each thought upon your mind when it is uttered and when you return to your desk you will be surprised to see how much of your conversation you can reproduce from memory. An important trick in interviewing is to be on the look-out for any pet phrase, which the speaker is in the habit of using and to work this into the article once or twice. It gives a lifelike touch to the story. As you proceed with the body of the article, take care not to be too rigidly verbatim. Wherever there is any part of the talk that is dull and wordy, give the pith of the matter in your own words and then drop into direct quotation again. A well-written interview with a prominent man on an important subject is a thing of which any reporter may be proud.” One may add to this that the most delicate tasks in interviewing have often to be done without shorthand notes or pencil and paper, lest the subject should be liable to nervousness and be checked in the current of his (or her) conversation.

The correspondence of a paper from outlying districts, from the provinces and largely also from abroad has been almost completely taken from the shoulders of individual papers both in America and in the United Kingdom by the great newsagencies, which we shall consider in the next chapter. So also has the recital of ordinary incidents in the streets of the capital town, those for instance, which do not merit special attention from the home corps of reporters. This has been especially the case in London, where twenty years ago the man, who made his living by selling short “pars” to a dozen papers, flourished greatly under the name of “penny-a-liner.” He has almost completely disappeared. The paragraphist of to-day is a much more elegant person, well educated and with some expert knowledge, of which he can make a monopoly. He flourishes chiefly on the needs of the metropolitan evening papers and on the well established institutions, known as the London letters of the leading provincial papers. By a man of this class and education the calling is not followed as a career in itself but as an aid to literature or the professions or sometimes, in between jobs, by the trained journalist. On the other hand the London press does not reciprocate the compliment; there are no provincial paragraphists and little provincial news in any London paper, except perfunctory paragraphs at the bottom of a column. I was told the other day on good authority that the Times for twenty years had no important article on the Manchester Ship Canal, one of the most extensive engineering enterprises of twenty-five years ago.

There is probably no respect, in which individual newspapers in this country differ so much as in the copiousness, merit and character of their foreign correspondence. This arises from the fact that the mere news is covered almost entirely by the wealthy foreign telegraphic agencies. In the case of America this is only partially true, because there is a peculiar circumstance, which renders telegraphic competition between daily newspapers for foreign news almost unnecessary over there. Owing to the difference in time between European cities and especially between London and New York, American newspapers can present to their readers at the cost only of Atlantic “press rates” all the news of the world from the London papers. London is thus the capital of the world in the matter of international news. She has an hour’s advantage or a little more from Berlin and Vienna; with Paris she is in constant touch by telephone; so that all that New York or Chicago has to do is to keep a bright newspaper man in London to run through the early editions at 4 a.m., and send the pick of it through to his paper. The only competition in foreign news within the reach of American correspondents in London is either for exclusive political news, which seldom comes their way and is not much wanted by the American public in any case, or else the manufacture from European sources of some ordinary newspaper “story.”

On the other hand the London papers and one or two provincial British papers find the question of foreign news a great problem. The public services of foreign news are now so comprehensive that to supplement them effectively requires great and permanent resources. A newspaper can easily spend £10,000 or £15,000 a year in this direction without adding appreciably to its attractiveness and a more important consideration appears in this sphere, that any open rivalry attempted can seldom be begun and afterwards dropped, without serious loss of prestige. It follows therefore that the majority of daily papers in the United Kingdom have almost completely withdrawn from avowed competition in foreign news. Their practice is to rely on agency news altogether in ordinary times and on occasions of special excitement to supplement these services either by sending an expert in foreign politics to the centre of disturbance or by forming a combined news service with other papers or by both. These resources are habitually used during war by most of the provincial press and by the weaker London papers.

The richer London papers still avowedly keep their salaried correspondents in the capitals of Europe and America and arrange for occasional letters and telegrams from locally appointed correspondents in the East and in the British colonies and dependencies. In this respect the London Times occupies a unique position in the world. It has correspondents regularly appointed everywhere and is probably the only newspaper independent of Reuter, except the New York Sun, which for special reasons has to be. It never prints less than a full page of foreign news, much of it special to itself and most of it telegraphed. It is the only paper, which has continuously scored important “beats” on news of first-class international importance. Of these probably the most vitally influential on the course of foreign politics was the secret information obtained by De Blowitz of the intended military pressure by Germany on France in 1875, which perceptibly affected the mutual relations of various powers, and the most sensational was his carrying off a copy of the draft Treaty of Berlin from the Conference in his hat. De Blowitz had arranged to meet his informant in the diplomatic corps every day at a club or restaurant and without recognition or salutation to exchange hats with him in the corridor every day as a regular habit. The hats thus offered a secret and sure method of communication of documents without the dangers of open intercourse.

The other London papers do not aim so high as the Times. The Morning Post has a corps of serious students of affairs abroad, whose news is sent on a consistent plan to enable the paper to maintain an independent attitude on foreign politics. The Daily Telegraph spends vast sums on the regular transmission of paragraphs from Paris and Berlin on lines similar to the London letter of a provincial paper. This regular fare is varied by sensational telegraphed descriptions, when occasion arises. But it can hardly be said to aim at any consistent scheme of policy with regard to foreign affairs. The succeeding changes in the editorial control of the Standard have rendered its policy in this respect somewhat erratic but its reputation abroad still stands very high. The foreign correspondence of the halfpenny London papers is spasmodic and liable to very considerable variations in extent. In the case of the Daily Chronicle not very much special foreign matter is given, but the paper has organized a syndicated service of some independent value in connection with one or two provincial papers. The Daily News maintains its traditional special consideration of foreign affairs, treated however in a manner closely adapted to the views and policy of the paper. The Daily Mail and Daily Express practically treat their foreign news, as American papers treat all their news, that is, according to its sensational value, but the former on special occasions will lavish expenditure quite on the most magnificent scale and will make almost any sacrifice in order to get a “beat.”

War correspondence falls into the same category as a foreign news service and is treated in much the same fashion everywhere. The public is so infatuated with the early stages of a war and so bored and incapable of serious interest in it after a few weeks, that the proper treatment of war news is the most serious problem, which a newspaper manager has to face. For an editor, the situation is confined to a simple issue even if his task of arranging for news requires great brilliancy in planning and judgment in selecting his men. For him it is a question of spending what is allowed him by the manager and proprietor and he cuts his clothes according to his cloth. But for those, who have to supply the sinews of war correspondence in [4]thousands of pounds the task is most unpleasant. The manager sees his advertising revenue curtailed and his expenses of distribution increased, while he obtains in return only a slight increase of revenue from greatly increased but useless circulation. The popular impression that newspapers and their owners like wars is fundamentally false. The only kind of war that a newspaper manager would really welcome is one that would last only three weeks, of which he had exclusive information; he might then be repaid all that it would cost him. The most dangerous feature of war from the point of view of newspaper finance is that a vast expenditure must be kept up long after the general public has ceased to take serious interest in it. A little can be saved in telegraphing at this stage and a correspondent or two may be cautiously withdrawn, but for the most part, wherever the men are first placed, there they must stay, even if they send nothing. The unfortunate manager lies awake at night thinking of a thin line of men, servants, donkey-boys, despatch-bearers, horses, ponies, camels, and mules all eating their heads off uselessly at the front day after day with little revenue coming in wherewith to feed them.

[4] Probably the maximum figure reached in extravagant war-costs was in the case of a New York paper during the Cuban war, which estimated its special monthly expenditure at $300,000, or at the rate of £720,000 a year. This rate was maintained, however, only for a short period during the height of the war.