The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-11-13
HOW ID WRITE
 ID NEWSPA PIERS Climax Is in the First Lines or
 Paragraph SAYS GOOD AUTHORITY And the Articles Must He Free From All Personal Opinion, and They Must Deal in Concrete
 Facts Only
SAYS GOOD AUTHORITY

paused to notice that a newspaper ar- ticie Is written on a plan just the re- verse of that of a sermon or oration. Comparatively few ministers have an- alyzed the subject sufficiently to notice often account for the reluctance of newspapers to accept matter contributed by them. It is worth the while of every man and woman to know the general plan on which newspaper articles are written, for almost everybody desires at times to announce something through the press. The mere knowledge of the theory will not make a successful writer In this or any other department. but 1t Is tho first step.
 The skillful preacher or orator usually reserves his most important points un- til toward the en dof his discourse. clos ing with climax. The skillful news
 paper reporter puts his climax into his first sentence, and ends with the most non-essential detail. While the novelist
 secures his dramatic effect by keeping
 the secret of his story hidden as long as possible, the reporter attains success by
 revealing his secret as quickly as words will let him. Both are working on prln' | ciples as clearly defined as that on which | sonnet is constructed, but the modern newspaper article is of so much more re-
 cent date that few critics have analysed | 1t, and even many of the best newspaper writers work daily upon the foregoing principle without knowing 1t. No mar can work many days under a metropol- itan city editor without learning 1t. Ii | he does not pick up the knack promptly | he is given a chance to learn some other | business.
 | The reasons for this method of con struction are plain. The object of { newspaper story" is to tell the new. | for its own sake. The majority o,
 readers do not have time to read tn, | whole of an article. What they wan | Is compact statement of the essentia | facts of an accident or a crime or public meeting. The best newspape
 is tho one that gives them the pitt | of the whole matter in the first para graph, following this with the more i'm
 portant details and closing with tn least. important. Tie readers thei
 glance down the column far enough t get the vital facts and does not vast time on the rest He can get fai
 knowledge of the whole worlds new
 for the day by merely reading the head lines and opening paragraphs of thu paper, while perhaps but one articl lis interesting enough to read every line
 There is also another importan cause which has contributed to thi method of presenting the news witt | the cream always on top. As startling events do not. occur in this world witt
 any regularity, though the paper mus always be issued at the same time. i naturally follows that there Is an ever varying pressure on the columns. Th reportrs begin work on a morning pa per at 1 o'clock on the preceding day
 At the time when they do their "after
 noon assignment" there may be spac,
 in abundance. and their articles may b,
 written in considerable detail. Late 1T | the evening there may be a great fir,
 or some important victory on the bat | tlef1eld that will suddenly demand dozen or a score of columns It be-
 comes necessary to "cut" everything oi ordinary importance. By that time the
 earlier "stories" are in type and cannot
 be rewritten. The condensing is done | by dropping off the the latter part o1
 the article, which can be done without | injuring its essential parts If it is con
 structed on the proper plan. Every | large newspaper nightly kills" many
 columns of matter in this way, either
 before 1t is in type or afterward. If the
 vital news were scattered through tho
 article there would be no alternative | but to leave 1t all out
 Here Is where the would-be cores pondent so often meets his Waterloo The young and ambitious editor of
 eount1y weekly gets a commission tt
 represent. his town as telegrap phic cor. l respondent of a large city daily. Per.
 haps there Is bad fire in the village
 and several lives are lost He tele-
 graphs a graphic account of 1t In de
 tail, telling 1t in such way that one l must read 1000 words to discover how
 mahy persons were killed or injured
 and what is the total value of the prop.
 erty destroyed. The story" reaches the | telegraph editor at a time when he Is working under high pressure to cut down all news ito the marrow" in order to make room for some event oi
 worldwide import. The country cor respondents matter Is useless unless printed entire or rewritten. There Is | neither the space for the one nor the I time for tho other. The result is that the article goes into the waste basket and the aspiring correspondent receives | notice that his, services are no longer
 desired.
 Nearly every reporter learns this les | son by hard experience and much wasted labor. Every editor has had his patience tried to the boiling point by contributions that might be used l if they, did not violate the first com | mandment of the newspaper decalogue tell the news in the first sentence. l should not like to compute how many columns I wrote for the waste bask ct before I discovered this simple rule of journalism, or how many have blue penciled or rewritten for other begin ners since have attained to the dig nifty of desk work" If the public had a better realization of the hard drill on such points that must precede all success in newspaper work there would be less general impression that ans man who has failed in other lines can be an editor impromptu.
 Briefly stated, the chief rules for an ordinary news article are these: Tell tho whole story in your first sentence, or at least in your first paragraph, and the briefer the paragraph the better. Be sure to give in your opening lines the time, place and chief actors con- cerned, along with the scope and nature of the event chronicled. Avoid excla- nations, fine writing, flaming adjectives or editorial comment If It Is a piece of news in which timeliness is an impor- tant element, get it to your paper as quickly as your lucky stars will let you. Tell your story in the fewest words pos- sble without emitting essential details. If you cannot shake off the hallucina- tion that an introduction is needed, put 1t at the end, where the editor can cut it off.
 There are a hundred other details such as writing on but on side of the paper, leaving margins on the sheets. never rolling the copy, writing plainly, putting the name and address at the top of tha m sc,.irat and the like. which