The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-03-26
TELEPHONES USED BY TIE NEWSPAPER  They Are Invaluable in Getting
 Up News THE REPORTERS FIRST AID. How Great Daily In New York Keeps In Touch With It's Men and
 "covers" an Import
 ant Story"
THE REPORTERS FIRST AID

New York, March 25.-CSpecial) )-"If anything happens, jump to the nearest telephone" That maxim, if d book of rules for newspaper reporters is ever compiled. will be Rule 1. The newspaper man today wonders how his paper got along before the telephone came into gem eral use.
 On some of the New York evening pa- pers there are reporters of the regular. staff who do not see the office for weeks or even months at time. Their salaries are sent them by messengers. They re- ceive their assignments by telephone and after getting their stories they telephone the facts to the office. If the story is particular rush" affair the reporter dic- tates into the receiver to the man in the office who raps it off on a typewriter. Such a reporters telephone tolls may mount as high forty or fifty calls day. Some of the papers have a rule that every reporter must call up the office once every half hour, whether there is any news to be given or not. Thus Icity editor may keep constantly in touch with fifteen or twenty men lon assign ments," and is able to take a man from a comparatively unimportant assignment and send him lon the jump to the scene of "big story"
 For instance, that pleasant spring morning last year when the excursion steamboat General Slocum burned down in New York harbor and a thousand lives were lost, was rather a busy one in New York evening newspaper offices, even be- fore the disaster. There were a score of small stories that had to be covered and there were few reporters idle in the office when the first tip arrived via pos lice headquarters that a horrible catas- trophe was occurring above Hell Gate. So that when a reporter would call up on the telephone to report on his story, a hur- ried colloquy like the following would occur:
 City Editor-"Hellol who's this?''
 Reporter-"This Is Smithers. I've got something on that fake banking story and"
 We don't want it. Forget that story and slide right up to the foot of East One Hundred and Thirty-eighth street The General Slocum Is burning down off North Brother island and we hear that women and children are jumping into the water"
 East 1SSth street? All right"
 Wait a second. Have you any money? Yes; good. Hire tug if necessary. Tele- phone right off. Goodbye"
 Reporters First Instinct.
 The reporters first instinct on reaching the water front and realizing the ex- tent of the disaster was to jump on phone, as the newspaper vernacular has it. But the neighborhood was composed of foundries and factories, there were no public telephones, and the manufacturers were for the most part averse to permit ting strangers to use their instruments. For time the lack of telephones held up the story while city editors in the news paper offices eight miles away gnashed their teeth and tore their hair. But one business man proved himself to be pos sessed both of rare kindness and commer- cial acumen. He had opened a new stone cutting plant rear the river with big office building attached, and in the build ing six telephone wires had just been in- stalled. He gave his telephones to the use of the reporters without charge. And they were not ungrateful. For the mention his plant received in the evening papers was worth far more as advertising than the charge for extra telephone tolls.
 The telephone Is furthermore invaluable in a newspaper office in obtaining long distance news in a hurry. It often beats the telegraph as 1t did in many cases last November when the long distance lines of the Bell system were used for sending news of the Presidential election over the country. Managers of the com panies made elaborate arrangements to quickly transmit the news both to the papers and other telephone users New York city was the receiving headquarters, with Chicago a middle west station. Then Headquarters were maintained in each Ifcfri lot. sent to these state centers and they were later sent to New York. From New York they were scattered over the country, con suming about seven minutes in transmits sion. As the Bell lines reach nearly 30,000 communities in the United States. this telephone election service brought immed- fate news from places which otherwise would not have been heard from until the next day, and perhaps not then. It gave to--sdtors the comforting assur- ance that in close districts it would not be necessary to wait for weary hours until the back towns were heard from, and besides that it kept the village weeklies posted as well as the metropolitan dailies.
 In the early morning hours, when the tension in the newspaper office Is at it's greatest, the telephone is often called upon to annihilate distance. For instance, a railroad smash-up on one of the big lines that connect New York with the west breaks loose" half an hour before an edition Is due to go to press. The tip will probably come to the office from the Jersey City man." who telephones in that he hears of wreck at Squantum Junc- tion on the c. & x. Several persons hurt" The city editor has one of his assistants call up the railroad company's offices in Jersey City for confirmation of the report, and then hunts up Squantum Junction in the railway guide. It Is little crossing about fifty miles from New York. It is not in the telephone book.
 Hello, long distance" calls the city ed- tor. taking the telephone receiver from the hands of nervous reporter. Give me the nearest central to Squantum Junc- tion, N. J."
 Central on the Wire.
 In a minute the required central Is on the wire. Perhaps Central herself can give information of the wreck; at any rate she knows enough of the neighbor- hood to connect him with someone of intelligence near the scene-possibly in inc railroad station ftself-and in a very