TYPES OF NEWS WRITING
TYPES OF NEWS WRITING
BY
WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER, Ph.D.
Author of “Newspaper Writing and Editing” and Professor
of Journalism in the University of Wisconsin
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
This book has been prepared with the purpose of furnishing students ofjournalism and young reporters with a large collection of typical newsstories. For college classes it may be used as a textbook. For newspaperworkers it is offered as a handbook to which they may turn, in a particularcase, to find out what news to get, where to get it, and how to present it effectively.Every young writer on a newspaper is called upon to do kinds ofreporting in which he lacks experience. If, with the aid of an index, he canturn readily to several instances where more experienced writers have solvedproblems like his own, he will undertake his new task with a clearer idea ofwhat to do and how to do it.
For systematic instruction in news writing it is desirable that studentshave in convenient form representative stories for study and analysis. Newspapers,it might be thought, would furnish this material, but experience hasshown that it is often difficult to find, in current issues of newspapers, examplesof the particular kind of story under consideration, and it is likewisedifficult to supply every student in a large class with a copy of the issue thathappens to contain the desired example.
The selection of specimens for this book has been determined largely bytwo considerations: first, that the news which the story contains should betypical, rather than extraordinary or “freakish”; and second, that the storyshould present the news effectively. It has been assumed that the studentmust first learn to handle average news well in order to grapple successfullywith extraordinary happenings. A considerable part of the book deals withmore or less routine news, because it is with this type that a large portion ofthe reporter’s work is concerned.
Since newspapers are read rapidly, it has been taken for granted that astory is most effective when its structure and style enable the reader to getthe news with the least effort and the greatest interest. Many pieces of newscan best be treated in a simple, concise style, with the essential facts wellmassed in a summary lead. Such straightforward presentation does not meanthat t