The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1886-08-21
Modern Journalism.

|
says a writer in the Chicago Inter
Ocean, requires talent of peculiar
and eminent variety. For instance
| If you are to write an account of a
| fire, you must not eonfne yourself to
vulgar facts. You are, of course, ex.
peeted to make use of some facts, but
these must be, not the obvious facts
which would present themselves to the
ordinary mind, but facts collateral, and
therefore likely to be overlooked by
one who knows only enough to follow
his nose and go straight on in an un-
deviating line. In the first place, you
should remember to secure the name
of the individual who turned on the
alarm, for the reading public care
nothing for the location of the fire,
nor for the names of the parties who
suffer by the fire, nor for the amount
of damage inflicted, nor for the ex-
tent of the insurance. 1t is true these
matters may be utilized TO fill up with,
but no one of them is the absorbing
item of interest. All the reading pub
lie really care for is to know who dis
covered the fire, and when they are
told that the fortunate discoverer was
Patrolman McO'Shaughnessy or a boy
named Smith, the reading public feel
more Joy over the impairment than
could ever have been experienced by
the shepherd of the parable when he
found the sheep which had strayed in
to the wilderness. Having stated this
important piece of information, it mat
ters little what further you write, SO
that you write much. All that is nec-
essary is to pile up words against
words, numbering the Queens English
at every sentence, and making your
language 80 lurid as to put the fire
you are supposed to be describing
quite into the shade.
In writing of a crime that has been
committed, your first duty is to tell,
in half columns space, how smart
you were in collaring the item, and
another half column can be advantage
ously employed in relating your enter
prise In getting it to the Office of your
paper half a neck ahead of all your
contemporaries. You may casually
mention the nature of the crime COM
mitted and, if You wish, the name of
the criminal ; but these matters are
not essential. There is one thing,
however, you must not neglect, to-wit,
a diagram. True, a diagram conveys
no meaning to the eye of the reader,
but a diagram the reading public will
have, and you should never disappoint
the reading public.
When called upon to make aEeport
of public meeting, your first care
will be to tell your readers how many
windows there are in the hall, with
such additional information relative to
curtains and fixtures as may occur to
you. Next, write down the names of
half score of gentlemen who were
present, or who would have been pres
ont had they been there, taking espe
cial pains to give each his wrong ini-
tials and spelling his surname in a
manner original with yourself. Hav-
ing done thus much, all that is left for
you is to garble and mistate whatever
may be said that the speakers can
never, by any possibility, recognize
their speeches.
But it is the special article which
gives you the grand opportunity to
display your accomplishments. 1t
matters not what the subject of the
special article happens to be. If it
have none at ALL 50 much the better.
You have all the greater opportunity
to ventilate your superabounding dii-
Iusiyeness. Start out, then, with
,opious citations from the encyclops-
lia, with occasional discussions into
history, ancient and modern, and side
among the classics and bio
graphical chestnuts, and conclude with
4 peroration collated from whatever
books may happen to be in the office
library. Thus you have the, frame
work of your article. Between the |
.wo parts thus outlined sandwich a few |
sentences remotely bearing upon your
alleged subject, and you have special
,rticle of which any journalist might
1e proud,
1t is unnecessary to instruct You fur
her. These simple rulos, religiously
adhered to, viii suggest the proper
course to be followed in other depart
nents of modern Journalism, 1t only
emains to have your article illustrated,
10 matter how, and your paper will be
oeognized as marvel Of enterprise
md good taste.