Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-02-10
RUN TO THEIR LARS
Wild Rumors That Fail to De-
veIop Into News.
BLAME PUT ON REPORTER
Why Newspapers Do Not Publish
Yarns Just in Form You Have
Heard Them.

Ever now and then some allwise
carping critic pins a newspaper reporter
against the wall and asks:
For goodness sake. why doesn't a
newspaper publish a thing the way it
happens. and why don't you publish the
real stuff. anyhow
Some DAY one of those fellows is going
TO be violently assaulted by some young
reporter who got his earlier training In
The sporting department. where prize
fighters congregated. This little yarn that
is appended is printed just to show some
Of those carping ones what a newspaper
reporter has to do TO run down a rumor.
and in this case the rumor happens to be
a sample of the real stuff which the
critic complains is not printed. Eighteen
people. seeing a slight accident on a
street car. will have eighteen different
versions. and all of them will kick be-
cause the police version of the affair
does not agree with theirs Oh, yes. re-
porters know all that, and have to
bear il.
Running Down a Rumor.
But here is story that shows YOU
how much sWifter than wireless is a ru-
NOR. and how we'll defined it is. and how
substantial it grows as it passes from one
perfectly truthful citizen to another. Per
hsps the fellow who reads this has heard
the rumor it passed around the city
a few DAYS ago, with as many details as
if 1t had occurred in his presence.
j. I'D Grille whose name appears IN
a modest way in connection with certain
sporting articles, came into the news
room of The Star and said that some one
had told him of an attempted assault on
woman uptown j. I'D mentioned the
mans name. II wasn't Switzer or any
Thing like il. but that name Will do mere
SWitZer's story was that a certain prona-
nent woman-every one knows her name
had answered the doorbe.i "a fiEd col
ured woman bent over and looking ready
10 drop with pain or weakness.
Please. lady, won you let me go rest
in your house minute SO the story
ran.
few minutes. and then. assuring herself
that the figure at the door really was
H. allowed her to enter.
Called in a Policeman.
\ few minutes later. so the story ran as
related by Switzer, the i'll visitor called
out in distressed voice that she needed
a glass of hot water. Here, said the
rumor. the prominent woman grew sus-
picious. She saw a policeman passing on
the opposite side of the street-opposte
side, see how delicate the details were?-
and she called HIM in.
You take ND the water" advised the
policeman: Ill be right behind YOU
And when this plan was followed the
bent and crooked old colored woman was
found 10 be % strdpping negro man i'll
dangerous mood.
Svitzer having told J. Ed Grilo. per-
maps looked all over the paper TO find an
account of this thing. But police report
ers don't write stories like that without
looking into them.
In the first place, the woman being
prominent, il was easy enough TO look her
up, but the fact that she lives in an apart
ment and not in d house. put an end to
the possibility Of her being connected with
this yarn. Meantime pretty keen police
reporter was tracing the thing out. No
police station had heard of it: no one had
been sent down for d mental examination;
no warrants were out: no policeman could
he located In the precinct involved who
knew a thing about ii.
Story Five Years Old.
Meantime reporters traced the rumor to
railroad man here He was out of town,
and in the interim other people were
hearing the story. 1t had for is scene OF
action Flagler place. Wallach place and
the village of Monticello, among others.
Several women We're asked about the ru-
NOR, and one OF them replied that the
only thing out OF the ordinary that had
happened to her in long while was when
she had 10 send the elevator boy up the
dumb waiter shaft to let her in, she hav-
ing left her key at home when she went
out.
The rumor had it that the daughter of
that particular lady of the dumb waiter
had told the wife of a prominent individ-
ual that the colored woman had come to
her door The keen-scented reporter
traced il through this source to several
others. finding in every case that the peo-
pie involved are not In the city. The ru-
NOR had fallen into the hands of the po-
lice about that time and one of the men
at headquarters had To answer questions
a bout il ali day long.
And then the reporter who was trac-
ing IL out began to get a little light In
snort. he developed the facts that this
strange rumor which has upset SO many
people in this city in the last week is
really five years old. and that IL bobbed
pp in 1907 with just about as much tex
tUre TO It's shadow as IL has today
And that's what these reporters that
some folks say can't get d thing right.
are up against.