THE COLLECTION OF NEWS AND THE PREPARATION OF COPY FOR THE READER

The young man just beginning a newspaper career gets a violent shock almost immediately. He discovers that some one is revising his articles, changing his words, shortening his sentences, omitting entire paragraphs. It gives him much anxiety.

All newspaper copy is revised. Very little news or general matter is printed as written originally. It undergoes “editing” by copy readers, of whom there are twelve to twenty in the big city offices. The editorial articles are revised by the editor in chief. Other copy for the editorial page—letters to the editor, communications, verse, comments from other newspapers, and the like—is prepared by his assistants. “Editing” copy means preparing it for the compositor, putting it in the exact language in which it is to be printed.

Systematic, careful revision of all copy is necessary not alone to correct error of fact, of judgment, of good taste, but also to regulate the volume of matter. The notion that newspapers print articles “just to fill up” is as absurd as the intimation that they “print anything they can get.” Every newspaper of any account receives, daily, double to four times as much news matter as can be crowded into its columns. The news value of each article or paragraph must have quick, alert consideration. If the reporter has written half a column about an event that is worth twenty lines only of newspaper space the report must be reduced to twenty lines. If an unusual rush of news or advertising compels the order to “cut everything rigidly” it is reduced to ten lines. Just what to print and what to omit are burning questions and the quality of judgment exercised in the decision largely measures the copy reader’s ability.

The men who revise news copy for morning editions get to work at about six o’clock. For convenience they group around large tables, those handling telegraph matter at one desk, the readers of city copy at another, the sporting department workers at a third, while at other desks are the cable editors, the financial and commercial and the real estate men. It is of advantage to have as many as possible of these desks in one room.

How to handle the great volume of matter that pours into the office gives the managing editor much concern. It must be done with a minimum of confusion, for confusion surely creates error and disarranges system. The edition must be put to press on the instant and always the news pages are closed at the last moment, under great stress, with all hands in a rush. The work is well systemized, but no system has yet been invented that can anticipate or provide for the unexpected event that so frequently upsets newspaper offices. In normal times the managing editor directs how the articles of considerable importance are to be treated and likewise the city editor instructs his men how and to what length they are to write their articles. The size and the quality of the edition may be planned and carried to conclusion with comparative comfort if nothing unforeseen happens. But not infrequently big news breaks out unexpectedly that upsets all calculations and compels a change of all plans. It is the unexpected that drives the news editors frantic and adds to their labors and creates confusion and chaos in spite of everything. Let us recall the Roosevelt attempted assassination, in illustration.

Things were proceeding peacefully in the newspaper office on that evening in October, 1912, when, about nine o’clock, a telegraph flash came from Milwaukee: “Theodore Roosevelt has been shot and killed by a crazy man.”

Here was the biggest news for many a day. Roosevelt was perhaps the nation’s most spectacular citizen. He had been our President. He was known throughout the world. He was running for the presidency as an independent candidate against Wilson and Taft. He had split the Republican party. The election was only a few days away. The political consequences of his death were stupendous.

It is quite impossible to describe what followed in the newspaper work room. The managing editor began dictating telegraph orders:

To the Milwaukee correspondent he said: “Wire with all haste every word you can get about Roosevelt’s visit, what he has said and done since his arrival, every possible detail of the shooting, full description and history of the assassin, where he has lived, so we can run him down. Send every word he utters. Hire a dozen men to help. You can’t wire too much.”

To the Washington correspondent: “Wire 1500 words Roosevelt’s chief acts as President, 1000 on his personal popularity and social life. Interview everybody effect of his death on the election, get White House comment, wire 1000 general effects of the news. You can’t send too much.”

To the Chicago correspondent: “Hurry to Milwaukee. Take two or three men with you. Find our man in the Sentinel office. Hire a special train if necessary. Hire some one to get all he can out of the Chicago newspaper offices.”

Having wired a dozen or so such telegrams to other parts of the country the managing editor summoned the city editor and said to him: “Get your entire staff here, the men who are off to-day and all the emergency men. Put on three or four more copy readers. Find out where Mrs. Roosevelt is and have a man stay right by her: also the rest of the Colonel’s family. Have four or five columns of his obituary prepared. Have interviews with a lot of prominent New York men and politicians of both parties. Have a column written on the effect on the political campaign and also a column of Roosevelt’s reasons for running as an independent candidate. Send to the hotels and theaters. Don’t forget a big portrait of Roosevelt—better have pictures of the entire Roosevelt family and the Oyster Bay home. Keep everybody here until three o’clock.”

To the night editor he said: “The editorial page is full of campaign stuff. Have some one go through every line of it and cut out everything intended to influence a voter against Roosevelt—everything that could be thought unseemly. You will have to leave out two or three of the articles and some of the letters to the editor. Find another editorial or two that will do, on the standing galleys. Get the full force into the composing room. Tell the stereotype men there will be no end of editions all night long—they will want full force. Tell the press room men too; the circulation will be double. Be sure to look out for any slur on Roosevelt. You must get the mail edition off on time. We can’t afford to miss a mail to-night.”

The foregoing indicates a part—and only a small part—of the preparations made for an edition announcing Colonel Roosevelt’s death by assassination. Within fifteen minutes enough matter had been ordered to fill five or six newspaper pages. The entire news staff jumped into the work.

The machinery for that edition began to move promptly in the lines indicated. But in half an hour came this wire from Milwaukee: “Colonel Roosevelt is not dead but has been shot near the heart. Surgeons are making examination.” And through some unexplained cause not another word came from Milwaukee for an hour and a half. With this second announcement it was necessary to change the plan of the edition to conform to the situation that the Colonel was not dead but possibly was mortally wounded. In the hour and a half of suspense thousands of words came pouring in to the copy readers all written under belief that the attack had resulted in death and all had to be edited to fit the new situation.

Then came word that the Colonel had not been seriously hurt—slightly wounded only—and that he had started for Chicago. It was now nearly midnight and a complete overhauling of the paper was necessary. A new set of instructions had to be sent to everybody. Everything had to be reËdited. What was practically a new edition must be made with very little time in which to make it. As it was, the newspapers printed from three to five pages of matter about the attempted assassination, but they killed many columns relating to the Colonel’s life, the effect of the supposed death on the campaign, appreciations by public men, and so forth. The writers and copy readers were reminded that the Colonel was still a candidate, and that a new issue had been injected into the campaign, that of martyrdom. “Better minimize the martyrdom business,” was the suggestion. The copy readers did a tremendous excess of emergency work that night that went for nothing; so did the correspondents, the reporters, the printers, the telegraph operators, the directing editors—everybody who had to do with getting out the edition.

From reporting to copy reading is a natural step in the progress of the young man in journalism. Copy reading has the advantage of fixed hours, of permanent salary, of a minimum of emergency or extra work and of permitting daily a few hours for recreation or study. It has the disadvantage of being routine work not especially interesting or inspiring, without pecuniary reward of importance (salaries are from forty to sixty-five dollars a week in big newspaper offices and as low as twenty-five dollars in small ones) and of having the attendant danger of getting a man in a rut. Every office has its veteran copy readers who for years have been content to do this work. To perform the service acceptably requires absorbing attention, unceasing vigil, a familiarity with current events, accurate judgment as to the news value of every article and a genius for detecting errors of fact, or grammar, or of any kind.

Colonel John W. Forney said:

No man is competent to edit newspaper manuscript or reprint unless he has been an extensive and analytical reader. He should, moreover, have a quick and keen perception, as well as a retentive memory of notorious facts, of celebrated names and important dates. If he is in doubt he should never fail to consult reliable encyclopedias, technical books, pamphlets and like granaries of information and knowledge.

How does the copy reader exercise his ability? All news copy goes to the readers, telegraph copy to the telegraph desk, the city copy to the city desk and so forth. The head reader glances at each article long enough to absorb a notion of its nature and make a note of its length and passes it to one of the other readers. This man edits it into the form in which it is to appear in the newspaper. If it is too long he reduces it by stripping it of its verbiage and unimportant facts, cutting out entire sentences and even paragraphs. Unconsciously he questions every statement made by the writer, so keen becomes his search for error. If an article on an important subject is inadequate he sends it back to the city editor for amplification or explanation. If the article is unimportant he kills it. Always he has in mind that the sheet is crowded, that there isn’t room for half of what is offered. He acquires the knack of condensation, of making one word express the meaning of half a sentence. He eliminates superfluous statements and obvious explanations and dull conclusions. If he be wise he rereads the article to confirm his own work. Always he seeks to improve the article, to insert a snappy word, to give it life, to smooth the diction or make it more rugged as befits the subject.

When reading news the copy reader must be alert for clews to additional information, for side issues to be added. “The assassin has lived in Canal street, New York” said one of the Milwaukee dispatches—and instantly the copy reader informed the city editor and a reporter was soon on his way to Canal street to learn of the crazy man’s record there. “Mrs. Roosevelt is at the Manhattan Hotel” said another message. A reporter was sent to her.

The copy reader must steel himself against the reporter who tries to be funny and isn’t, against those persons so well known in every newspaper office who seek notoriety by getting their names in print, against the social climbers, against the men who want puffs and free advertising, against the wiles of the press agent and the preposterous stories about the people he is exalting, against the schemers whose success depends on newspaper publicity, the fake charity organizations, the spurious reform agitations, the organizations started merely to give salaries to the people who run them, the multitude of movements created to give some one notoriety, the constant attempts to fool the public—the list is endless.

The copy reader must be familiar with the big events attracting public attention for he may be called to revise their next chapter. Many big cases drag on for months. Above all he should take sympathetic interest in every article he revises and in its writer. His every effort should be to improve the article. My own experience as a copy reader for five years was of utmost usefulness to me. Careful editing of copy fixes the subject matter of the copy in memory almost as securely as though you had written the original.

Surely the copy reader fills an especially important post. It is poor policy to intrust this work to incompetent men. Nevertheless, because of its requirements, it is a post not eagerly sought. It is thought to be a thankless task with little to show for results, with maximum opportunity for error and minimum for praise. The copy reader is unlikely to be sought for promotion. He does not mingle with the outside world as does the reporter. He sees no office visitors as do the editors. His work attracts little favorable attention. If he improves a manuscript the author, not the copy reader, gets the credit. But if you intend to follow the newspaper business, by all means take a turn at copy reading, for it gives valuable experience and information and the practice greatly improves your diction.

As the night advances the avalanche of copy increases, some nights in greater volume than others. It is a curious fact that news volume seems to ebb and flow like the ocean tide, although irregularly, not steadily. For days the news world will be calm, little of interest develops, nothing but routine news offers. And then for days at a time news breaks out from all directions, overwhelming the writing and the revising staffs, upsetting all plans and creating confusion. It is then that the managing editor admonishes: “Gentlemen, the paper is already filled; you must cut everything rigidly”; and the head copy reader, pushing a column manuscript article toward an assistant, commands: “Put it in a quarter of a column”; and the perspiring night editor shouts from the composing room through the telephone: “Can’t take another line except must stuff.” “Must stuff” means matter that simply must be printed. “Stuff” is the common newspaper office vernacular for all copy, whether it be the profound article of the editor in chief or the incident of a crap game on the pavement. The amateur writer’s sensibilities are shocked sometimes when his production is called “stuff.”

But whether the tide of copy is at ebb or flood always there is too much of it and the copy reader’s night ends in the contemplation of a mass of discarded manuscript and a ruin of reportorial reputation.

And on the morrow comes an awful hour of reckoning. The editor in chief misses from his own paper a bit of Washington political news that some other paper had printed. He speaks to the managing editor about it, and the managing editor knowing that the news was in the office and was not printed, damns the copy reader for throwing it away. The city editor who had gone home with visions of two fine fat news features each of an embellished column in length finds in their place two emaciated paragraphs containing naught but cold news facts with no juice in them—he damns the copy readers. The reporters who wrote the column stories, reduced to shreds, surcharge the place with spectacular profanity and damn the copy readers. The men who wrote twelve dollars worth of stuff at space rates and had it cut down to three dollars worth, damn the copy readers. The reporters who wrote reams of routine stuff that did not appear at all, damn the copy readers. Everybody damns the copy readers!

The respectable newspapers of America strive sincerely for accuracy of statement. Reporters are instructed constantly to be accurate. Copy readers and every one else in the place are urged to vigil in the detection of error. The news rush and the consequent confusion in the last half hour before getting to press contribute to the danger of mistake, but for the most part every newspaper article is carefully considered and repeatedly scrutinized.

A news report of importance, for instance, is written by an experienced reporter. Usually it is scanned by the city editor. It is then revised by a copy reader who is supposed to be expert in preparing manuscript. The compositor puts it in type and the proof reader searches it ostensibly for errors in typing, but always must he note any error. He is expected to call to the attention of the night editor any misstatement of fact or violation of newspaper usage or of practice.

Then, too, in almost every office is “the learned proof reader” who bothers himself not with typographical errors but who reads from revised proof sheets in searching quest of anything wrong—misused words, verbal or grammatical slips, misspelled proper names, distortion of any fact—and it is curious what a lot of errors he digs out that have passed everybody else. Likewise in many editorial rooms sits another all-wise man who in a semi-editorial capacity reads proof sheets of all matter in the same search for the undesirable. The managing editor, the night editor, and the night city editor also have proof sheets of all matter which they read devoutly for a dozen reasons. Nevertheless there appeared in one of our especially learned and correct New York newspapers a sentence written by a reporter and passed by the copy reader, the proof reader ordinaire, the learned proof reader, the editorial proof reader de luxe, the managing editor, the night editor and the night city editor—a sentence that read: “He had fractured her skull by hitting it with an empty bottle of beer.”

The same newspaper’s music constituency was moved to emotion one morning on reading that applause followed the singing of “The Soldiers’ Chorus by Faust.” Whether the writer intended to say that Faust sang the chorus, or the chorus was written by Faust, or that it was from the opera of Faust probably never will be known, but the chances are that he inadvertently wrote “by Faust” when he intended to write “from Faust.”

Truth is, that human intelligence has not yet devised a way of keeping error out of printed publications. The public does not understand the painstaking care with which news is presented by well regulated newspapers, nor are the difficulties or the unfavorable conditions under which newspapers are made at all appreciated by people who read. Men of other professions have almost unlimited time for consideration. The lawyer may devote months to the preparation of his case. The clergyman may take seven days to perfect his sermon. The physician at times is called to quick action, but usually he may ponder for hours or days over the condition of his patient.

But quick judgment and quick action are a daily necessity in the newspaper office. The biggest event of the month may explode an hour before time for going to press. The news must be prepared with frantic haste with half the staff tumbling over each other, so to speak, in the rush to be on time. In afternoon sheets all news received after one o’clock and in morning editions after midnight are subject to this acceleration of mind and movement and persons who have not participated in the spasm can little appreciate the opportunity for error.

In these hours a man’s experience, his general knowledge of the business, is of great assistance. It is then that his confidence or his distrust in the source of the information governs. Rumor is the busybody of the business and her moments of greatest activity are just before the time for going to press.

It is true, also, that first accounts of great events are likely to be exaggerated; almost always are greatly exaggerated. The cable flash announcing the blowing up of the Maine in Havana harbor said that not a man remained alive. The first brief telegram telling of the San Francisco earthquake reported that not a building remained standing. With the first report of the assassination of Colonel Roosevelt came the statement that he was dead. First reports of losses of life in great disasters, of losses in big fires, are usually double the actual loss.

It is a vital part of newspaper vigil to question all unusual or extraordinary statements and news editors by habit come to doubt every statement made. This is meant to be said of honest editors; the dishonest ones seek to exaggerate the original exaggeration.

The preparation of newspaper copy in the last hour before going to press gives supreme test to the writer’s powers of concentration, his self-possession, and his agility of mind. It happens frequently that the managing editor says to him, “You have just eight minutes in which to finish that article” and a little later the night editor may cry out: “Close everything for this edition in five minutes.” It is exceedingly disturbing to the young man who is beginning. The experienced men are unmoved. It is common enough for a man to write in an hour after midnight a column or more about a murder, a fire, a calamity, or the obituary of a distinguished person. Men who do this rapid work at the last instant may have been on duty for ten or twelve hours and the climax to the day’s labor calls for greater intensity than anything that has preceded. Physical endurance is involved as well as mental celerity.

The invention of the typewriter has helped vastly to speed up newspaper composition. The reporter may dictate his narrative. In the old days frequently he had to make a long journey to the newspaper office before beginning to work with pen or pencil. Nowadays, if need be, he dictates his report through the telephone to a typewriter in the office. Newspaper correspondents five hundred, and even one thousand, miles away do this kind of emergency telephoning.

Indeed, it may be said that modern invention has revolutionized the process of speeding up newspaper making. When I first went to New York the capacity of the improved newspaper press was eight pages. If a larger paper were wanted the extra pages were printed separately as a supplement many hours before the main eight sheet was put to press. To-day, thanks to the inventor of the multiple printing press, the news editor may decide fifteen minutes before going to press whether to make a twelve page newspaper or a twenty page newspaper or even a thirty-four page newspaper.

The big modern newspaper is made with a speed that is almost bewildering. For, in place of the old laborious journeying to the office, the writing of the news with pen or pencil, the typesetting of the same by hand and the old style stereotyping process requiring half an hour, the printing of sheets limited to eight pages on presses that produced only about fifteen thousand copies an hour—in place of these clumsy processes, news reports are dictated over the telephone, the matter is set by machinery in a fraction of the time formerly required, is stereotyped in six minutes and set going on half a dozen presses with a capacity each of more than thirty thousand copies an hour.

The reporting of big events that may be anticipated, like the inauguration of a president, a great festival in honor of a martial hero or in commemoration of peace, or a popular demonstration of any sort—anything that is scheduled to happen, is carefully arranged for in advance.

It is conceded that the biggest and most important single piece of news handled up to that time in a newspaper office was the story of the loss of the Titanic. The finest steamship that ever had been made struck an iceberg on her first voyage and sank with a loss of fifteen hundred persons, including scores of our well known residents—and that was all we knew of the disaster until the survivors were landed on a New York pier. The wireless had sent a partial list of survivors but not a word of detail about the disaster itself. Public interest was tremendously excited. It was known that the survivors were to land at a given hour in the evening and city editors had plenty of time to arrange for getting the great narrative but limited time for writing it—for newspapers must go to press on the minute in order that mail and express bundles of the edition may catch outgoing trains.

Thirty or forty reporters were sent by each New York newspaper to meet the rescue ship. Each man had a definite thing to do. One man, for instance, was to write a column of just what had been going on in the ship for the twenty-four hours before she sank. Another was to write of the warnings to the Titanic’s officers that ice fields were ahead. Another was to explain just how the ship struck, how she was damaged and how and when she filled and sank. A fourth was to describe in detail how the life boats were manned and launched and who went in them. A fifth was to tell of nothing except what the commander of the ship was doing up to the moment he was lost. Six or eight reporters were instructed to get as many narratives of the experiences of survivors as possible—and so on preparations were made to the completion of every detail that possibly could be anticipated—every man instructed exactly what to do and warned not to attempt anything else.

The preparations for printing this great narrative—and doing it in a hurry—occupied many hours of the time of managing and city editors. The organization of forces was necessary to prevent duplication and confusion, useless running about and tumbling over each other by reporters. As an additional precaution to save time of reporters in going from the pier to the newspaper office, a dozen telephones were set up in a shed on the pier and a dozen of the reporters were instructed to dictate their reports into the transmitters and a dozen typewriters were ready to take them in the newspaper office.

The first sentence of this big story was written at 10:20 in the evening, and copy for the first edition was shut off two hours afterward. The first edition presses were started on time to the minute with four pages of the disaster. A second edition one hour later had seven pages of disaster matter—the narrative complete—about equivalent in amount to the reading matter of the usual edition of the Scribner monthly magazine.

In doing this task neither the writing force nor the mechanical department was extended or distressed or overworked. They could easily perform the same feat every night in the week under the same organization and loyal staff teamwork.

It is the business and the duty of the managing editor to oversee all of these details. He is the executive officer of the newspaper. His first duty is to carry out the policies of the editor in chief or the owner. He is responsible for what goes into the paper. He is supposed to know what is going on in every hemisphere and in every island of the sea and to have it properly presented in the news columns. He must read the other newspapers and periodicals to know what they are printing and what of their contents should be printed in his own next edition. He hires the staff, except the editorial writers, fixes the salaries, obtains and directly supervises the matter for every column except the editorial page. He must, indeed, keep a sharp eye on that page as well, for it happens frequently that after an editorial article is ready for printing, along comes later news that entirely changes the situation and calls for revision of the article.

He decides questions in dispute. His best asset should be good judgment: judgment what not to print as well as what should be printed; judgment as to proper news values, whether to give one, two, or three columns to an unexpected piece of news that explodes in Washington, Dawson City or off Montauk Point; judgment whether to chance a libel suit on one article or the infringement of copyright in another; whether to minimize a social or a political movement or boom it. And when these questions are flashed on this unfortunate man just as the edition is going to press it must be a quick as well as a decisive judgment.

The managing editor has to deal with men of all ages and of all experiences. A big staff includes cranks, and enthusiasts, students and philosophers, men of every race and religion whose illuminated intelligence reflects every phase of eccentricity, every degree of sanity, as well as every perfection of common sense—men of intelligence, earnestness, sensitiveness, filled with ambition and alive with interest and seeking above all to succeed in the business.

The managing editor needs the coÖperation of all these men. A loyal staff is full of suggestions, will go to extremes in support of its leader; an indifferent staff is silent. It depends largely on how the staff is treated by the management, whether it is loyal or indifferent.

Now you cannot manage a newspaper staff as you might a section gang building a railroad. It is not to be expected that intelligent, sensitive writers will spring to their work, will do better work, while smarting under severe reproof or constant nagging. If they do it is because they fear to lose their jobs, rather than from zeal. Not much good newspaper work is done under an uplifted club. Little else than resentment results from angry words.

One reason for Mr. Charles A. Dana’s success may be found in his fine leadership. He inspired the confidence of his helpers by his surpassing knowledge of the business. He encouraged them by his recognition and appreciation of superior work and his absolute justice toward them. He fascinated them by his genial ways. Everybody loved him and would do anything for him. The editor of ability that endears himself to his staff will surely make a great newspaper. The editor whose ability is not respected, who does not recognize good service, who is constantly nagging and complaining and finding fault, and arousing resentment—he will see his circulation slipping away and his influence diminishing. A newspaper staff is made up of delicately constructed, sensitive, self-respecting men and women.

The managing editor hires the staff. And, as the success of the newspaper depends on the writers, it behooves him to be careful in the selection. The staff changes somewhat rapidly, its members drop out to go to better posts on other newspapers or into other businesses and new men are called to their places. Methods of recruiting the staff differ in different offices. Many of the most successful newspapers have a way of hiring young men to join as reporters and gradually advancing them through a continuous process of growth. Thus a man is available always to fill a vacancy and the staff in general is always complete. The real vacancy is at the bottom of the list. Three months’ trial usually tests out a beginner.

The newspaper is overrun with applicants. Every graduating college class includes some men who wish to try the business. The schools of journalism in the United States are turning out about four thousand students yearly who want to go to work immediately. Many broken-down clergymen and discarded school teachers think they can write and they apply along with professional men, clerks, salesmen and others who have failed to make good. A swarm of high school boys come along after graduation. Very many men who have succeeded in country or small city newspapers want to get going in the big cities. Bright newspaper office boys seek to become reporters and go on to success. It is from all of these that the staff is recruited. The managing editor of experience comes to know almost by instinct whether an applicant will make a good newspaper man, and while few of those who come are selected, it is also true that a large proportion of those who are taken make good.

The supervision of the modern newspaper is much more difficult than it was forty years ago for the reason that the staff is four or five times as large. The size of the sheet has been more than quadrupled. The managing editor no longer finds it possible to read every paragraph in proof sheet before its publication; he must trust to his helpers. The increased volume of matter compels increased labor in originating it, increased attention to its consideration and preparation for printing. The managing editor’s work literally is fourfold what it used to be. The tendency of the hour is toward yet larger editions.