In preparing this volume the author has had in
mind the needs not only of students in schools of
journalism, but of others who may desire a concise
statement of the principles that govern the art of
news writing as practiced by the American newspaper.
It is hoped the book will prove helpful
either as a laboratory guide in the school room or
as a text book for home use.
As the title indicates, the book deals with one
phase of journalism, the presentation of the news
story, more especially with the writing of the story—the
reporter’s part in the day’s work. No attempt
has been made to go into other aspects of
journalism—the writing of editorials, the administrative
features of the work, the delicate adjustment
that every newspaper must make between its
business and news departments—except in so far
as they bear directly upon the subject in hand.
The term journalism is broadly used here to
mean all branches of newspaper endeavor. In common
with other newspaper men, the author admits
an aversion to the word as restricted to the working
field of the men who get and write the news.
They call themselves not journalists, but reporters
or newspaper men. It is for newspaper men and
women in the making that the book is primarily
designed.
The nature of newspaper work makes it impossible
to formulate an all-sufficing series of rules by
which the news writer shall invariably be guided.
But there are certain well-defined principles, largely
technical, that set apart the news story as a distinct
form of composition, and these the author has tried
to put down simply and concisely—after the
fashion of the news story itself. Going beyond the
common practice, there is wide divergence among
newspapers in the details of “office style.” Methods
peculiar to the individual paper can readily be
acquired by one grounded in the essentials of the
craft; hence only the more significant points of departure
from the generally accepted practice have
been noted.
Practically all the examples in the book are from
published news stories, reproduced in most cases exactly
as they appeared in print. In some, for obvious
reasons, fictitious names and addresses have
been substituted for the real. With one or two exceptions
the examples illustrating right methods of
news presentation have been chosen not for special
brilliancy, but as fairly showing the everyday output
of the trained news writer.
University of Missouri,
Columbia,
July, 1911.
