The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-16
IMAGERY OF PRESS.
How Enterprising Correspondents In
vent Good Stories.


and best newspaper men in Washing
ton, giving a tip to a newcomer. 'but
we have some who are very sparing
with the truth. President Roosevelt is
IN the wrong pew about the men who
write for the papers,
Then the old newspaper man went
on to say that it was generally the am
dteur in newspaper work who worked
off the biggest and most unreasonable
lies on his papers. These lies are gem
orally backed up by so many reason
able details that they pass current
with even the elect. Many purely
original and imaginative sensations,
social, political and otherwise, have
originated in Washington. Political
fakes have become so numerous from
Washington that anything of this ma
ture from here is discredited from the
start, but-the correspondent must
earn his money
A White House society item sent out
when your Uncle Grover occupied the
chief executives chair caused a big
sensation and put the hustle makers
out or commission. One night news
was Interestingly slow en- old News
paper Row. Several of the correspon-
dents had gathered in the office of a
writer Tor Kansas City paper, and
were discussing the dearth of news.
Boys, said a correspondent for a
southern paper, Il really have a first
class piece of news-a sensation-but I
hate to give it up; 1 want it exclusive
~. he worried the fellows a while,
and after several visits to Shoomakers'
Where the boys fell over themselves to
set EN- up, the man with the sensation
told them that he had inside inforrna-
ton that Mrs. Cleveland had deter
mined to cease wearing a hustle. and
mad so announced to several Of her
| friends.
Padding a Sensation.
That was sufficient, and straightway
the correspondent FASTENED off ann
! padded the story for all it was worth.
ana more, too. OF course, it was print
| ed under scare heads" and double
loaded. Mrs. Cleveland's discartling
tiiA hustle was the sensational news Of
the papers next day, and throughout
Dustledom the women who had been
deVoteeS TO the hump" followed suit
and left them off. The truth is that
Mrs. Cleveland had not determined to
| so bustleless, but she never denied the
yarn, and week after it was printed
she appeared on the streets without
slidI heretofore seemingly indispensa-
De AIDED that men called her blessed.
1t has only been about six years
since a Washington CORRESPONDENT
sent OUT long story to the effect thar
secretary Wilson of the Agricultural
department was banking heavily on
SKUNK farming as a sure road to for
tune Inc writer went into details
ana the article was the cause of sim
ply flooding, swapping the secretary
WIN letters of inquiry about skunk
farming. 1t was necessary for the
| good-natured secretary to denv
through the press that the article was
True However, after this. skunk farm
ing dld become most profitable in
dustry. III
Edgar Allen Poe. whose fame as a
poet Will never die, had nrinted in a
New York paper the famous story of n
trip across the Atlantic ocean in a
Hylhg machine. The story was be-
ileved until a French scientist whose
name Poe gave, denied the story.
In the same paper, about twenty
years later, was story saying that
Paris, Va, was entirely showed under
ana a man who escaped through a
chimney and went for relief had
brought the news. Citizens denied the
yarn through the press, but ocra sion
ally some paper refers to the time
When Paris, Va, was completely
showed under"
\ virginia Hoax.
During 1878 the Southern Colleeian
the organ of Washington and lee mi
Versity, Lexington, Va. printed a Iurid
account of the burning of the natural
orldge near that village. The hoax
was written by student from Ala
bama named Edmunds. The warn
opened with a statement claimed to
nave been made by a farmer. who had
just come in from the bridge. which
was reported to be in full blaze and
crumDllng into lime. An interview with
Inc professor of chemistry of the uni
Vers1ty backed up the farmers state
ment. The chemist referred to a re-
port he had made when he was state
geoioglst, wherein he stated that the
natural stone composing the arch and
abutments of the bridge was sean,ad
with coal and sulphur, and If water
should be added the chemical action
would result in eonf1agration destruc-
i've 10 that pride of Virginia and one
OF the natural wonders of the world.
The story was telegraphed all over the
country, and a number of papers
hastened special men to write up the
great hre. Thousands of people rushed
to the scene of destruction.
Chester VI. Hull, who bore the hIue
ribbon as the biggest liar on the pa
cine slope, wrote a blood freezing ac-
count in 1878 of the finding of the re-
mains OF a woman all chopped to bits
in the wreck of an schooner in Butcher
bay. Hull worked the story for two
days, but the chopped-to- bits remains
were never found. He also palmed off
on number. of papers a yarn describ-
ing the arrival at San Francisco of
the bones of mammoth animals and
human beings which had been discov-
cred in Alaska. The story caused
scientists all over the country to get
busy, and several actually started to
San Francisco to examine these huge
bones before it became known that the
story was hoax
Bogus Train Robbery.
I dislike facts; they hamper one SO.
was remarked by Ross Raymond of tho
London Daily News. To Raynond's
fertile Imagination while he represent
ed a New York paper, can be credited
some of the most monumental lies ever
perpetrated on reading public. He
printed an account of a robbery of a
passenger train in Union tunnel. say
ing not a passenger escaped with his
valuables, and that $4,000 was taken
altogether. The Pennsylvania Railroad
company had to go to the trouble and