The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-08-17
WEIRD IMAGERY OF PRESS.
How Enterprislng correspondents In.
vent Good Stories.

No my son, all newspaper men are
not Anania SEES - said one Of The oIdas+
and hest newspaper men in WasbingS
ton. giving a tip to a newcomer ..hI1t
we have some who are Very snaring
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
ateur in newspaper work who worked
off the biggest and most Unreasonable
lies on his papers. These lies are gen
orally backed up by so many reason
able details that they pass current
with even the elect. Many pure1v
original and imaginative Sensations
social, political and otherwise. have
originated in washington. Political
/ fakes have become so numerous from,
Washington that anything of this na-
| ture from here is discredited from tbe
start. but-the correspondent must
| earn his money.
A White House society item sent ont
| when your Uncle Grover occupied the
/ chief executives chair caused a bip
sensation and put the "bustle" makers
out of commission. One night news
was distressingly slow On old News
paper Row. Several of the correspon-
dents had gathered in the office of a
writer for a Kansas City paper. and
We're discussing the dearth of news
Boys" said a correspondent for =
southern paper, Il really have a first
class piece of news-a sensation-bu+ T
hate to give it up; I want it exclusive
~" He worried the fellows a while
and after several visits to Shoomakers'
where the boys fell over themselves ia
set EN- up, the man with the sensation
told them that he had inside informa
ton that Mrs. Cleveland had deter
mined to cease wearing hustle, and
had so announced to several of her
friends
Padding Sensation.
That was sufficient, and straightwav
the correspondent Mastered off and
padded the story for all it was worth
and moro. too. OF course, it was print
ed under scare heads" and double
loaded. Mrs. Clevelands discarding
Vic hustle was the sensational news of
the papers next day, and Throughout
buStledom the women who had been
deVntees TO the hump" followed suit
and left them off. The truth is thar
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
mat heretofore seemingly indispensa-
Die part of her apparel And it NAV
De AIDED that men called her blessed
1t has only been about six wears
since Washington correspondent
sent out long story to the effect that
Secretary Wilson of the Agricultural
department was banking heavily on
Shulk farming as a sure road to for
tune The writer went into details
ana the article was the cause of sim
ply noodng, swamping the secretary
with letters of inquiry about skunk
farming. 1t was necessary for the
good-natured secretary to deny
through the press that the article was
ue- however. after this, skunk farm
ing did become most profitable in
dustry. III
Edgar Allen Poe. whose fame as =
poet VIII never die, had printed in a
ne" York paper the famous story of a
TRIP across the Atlantic ocean in a
nylng machine. The story was he
neNed until French scientist, whose
name Poe gave. denied the story.
II tne same paper, about twenty
years later. was a story saving mai
Paris. Va. was entirely showed nnder
ana man who escaped through q
chimney and went for relief had
brought the news. Citizens denied the
yarn through the press, but occasion
any some paper refers to the time
When Paris, Va, was cOmpleteIv
showed under"
A Virginia Hoax.
During 1873 the Southern Collegian
the organ of Washington and Lee uni
Verslty, Lexington, Va. printed a lurid
account OF the burning of the natural
bridge near that village. The hoax
was written by a student from Ala
oalna named Edmunds. The yarn
opened with 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
-rumbling into lime. An interview with
Inc professor of chemistry of the uni
'erslty backed up the farmers state
nent. The chemist referred to q re-
port he had made when he was state
wherein he stated that the
natural stone composing the arch and
ibutments of the bridge was scanned
With coal and sulphur, and if water
should be added the chemical action
would result in confiagratiOn destruc-
i've TO that pride of Virginia and one
Of the natural wonders of the world
The story was telegraphed all over the
country, and number of papers
fastened special men to write up the
great fire. Thousands of people rushed
o the scene of destruction.
Chester NJ. Hull who bore the blue
'ibbon as the biggest liar on the Pa
life slope, wrote a blood-freezing ac-
count in 1873 of the finding of the re-
mains of a woman all chopped to bits
n the wreck of an schooner in Butcher
Jay. Hull worked the story for two
lays, but the chopped-to-b remains
we're never found. He also palmed off
IN number of papers a yarn describ- |
ng the arrival at San Francisco of
he bones of mammoth animals and
human beings which had been discov-
red in Alaska. The story caused
chemists all over the country to get
,usv, and several actually started to |
San Francisco to examine these huge
ZONES before it became known that the |
tory was q hoax.
Bogus Train Robbery.
II dislike facts; they hamper one so "
vas remarked by Ross Raymond of tho |
london Daily News. To Raymond's
ertile imagination, while he represent
d a New York paper, can be credited
on a reading public. He
printed an account Of robbery of a |
train in Union tunnel. say
ng not a passenger escaped with his |
.aluables. and that $4,000 was taken
together. The Pennsylvania Railroad |
ompany had to go to the trouble and |