The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-06-26
Newspaper Accuracy.
Difficulties Under Which stenographers
are Obliged to Labor.

great deal is said about newspaper mac
curacy, and most of the complaints are UNI
founded, or are only based on trifing errors,
writes a New York correspondent 1t is an
afiectation in many public men, and silly
one, to discredit wholesale the reports Of
their utterances. On the other hand, the
pretenslons to infalhbility by shorthand wri-
tiers are not borne out by the facts. No
stenograp4r alive can take down verbatim
the utterance of rapid speaker. Take
Beecher for conspicuous test. 1t is an OBJ
ject to him to have the fullest possible re-
ports made of his sermons, for the purpose
of issuing the best OF them in pamphlets and
books. He has during his long pulpit career
tried numerous experts aud there is a no.
ton that Ellingwood, who has for years been
his accredited reporter, is master of the
job. So far is it from being so that two 9th
er rapid men are employed to make each a
separate report, and from the work of the
three copy is written out. But the falli-
6ility Of this system is that ait are likely to
fall simultaneously in the extremely rapid
passages. Like impulsive speakers gener-
ally, Beecher speaks 50 slowly at times that
his words can l~<be taken down in long
hand. But for.fhe next 10 minutes he will
rattle away ata rate that defies stenography.
The other Sunday he was AZ minutes deliy-
ering his morning sermon. One of the
most ompetent shorthand reporters in the
city took every word of it that he could get,
and the total was about 6000 words. And
that Was not absolutely accurate, many SEN
Ie2ces having to be completed by guess
rlr nha In tta \
have made nearly 1000 words more. Beech
er is SO sensible man that he recognizes
the difficulties of reporting, and never grum-
bles at anything which adequately repro
duces his sermons and speeches.
As rule, he says, .sthe reporters make
good hiatus in their notes so well that no
violence is done TO the sentiment Occasion
ally some blunderer has made me ridiculous.
but much oftener, imagine, my language
is improved by the Misrepresentation. l do
not assert positively ON this point, for the
reason that am unable, when see a SER
mon of mine in print, to tell how nearly ac-
curate it is. OF courseI can detect any de-
parture from important meanings, but can't
recall my words to any great extentn
Bev. X. Heber Newton, the Episcopalian
divine who is to be tried on a charge OF here
sy, asserted that some of the reports of the
sermons which got him into trouble were
very unjust, but when his own revision of
them appeared in book form the corrections
were too trifling to make any fuss abou-.
The reporters are now laughing at him. On
delivering an address before the Medico-
Legal Society the other night, he was care
full to furnish them with printed slips. But
if they used these in blind confidence. they
would have published him as saying:
There is need of no sensational touches to
draw In deep enough chair screws the dark
ness Q. deviltry that insanity may inspire"
They took the audacious liberty, however, of
making chair screws read schiaro obscuro.n