The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1922-01-20
Random Observations.
Local News in Daily Papers To-
day and Yesterday COntrasted-
Early Fire Fighting Methods
The Volunteer Fire Brigades.
BY FRANK NJ. DALLAM, SIR.

The other night there was a fire III
a store room on the ground floor of a
hotel in the lower business section OF
the city occupied by firm doing limo
type work for the trade Your readers
are not interested in the panic that fol-
lowed among hotel guests, who SUI
Tered noilii1is more lh.in N nUInDef
OF instances an exposure TO the winter
atmosphere in scanty raiment. or 9th
er incidents connected with the speed
lily extinguished blaze. The subject is
seized upon as text in which the
present can be compared with the past
in two respects, the publicity given to
the fire by the local press and the
present means in use for confining a
fire to very limited space, that well
could have become a conflagration of
considerable magnitude from its To-
cality.
Now, the loss eptiailed by the fire
was said to have been $4,000. and
that would have been considered some
blaze in smaller town, but In Spo-
kane one paper devoted some twenty
to thirty lines to it mentioning the
occurrence as a casual happening,
while another daily condescended to
report in a dozen lines. This goes to
show that in the larger cities local
news Is of secondary consideration in
the make up of a metropolitan paper,
unless the local happening may be of
an extraordinary nature, or someth-
ing out of the common This can be
understood by those living in a city,
where the next door neighbor is gen.
orally as much of stranger as though
that next door neighbor lived a thous-
and miles away. If the name OF that
netghbor should happen to be men
toned in connection with fire loss,
or an ordinary accident, you would
take no more interest in reading an
account of the same in your daily pa
per than the particulars of a similar
accident that might happen to some
one living in Boston or New Orleans,
for you would not connect the local
0ccurrance with the man next door.
There is the difference in the personal
equation as between the residents of
a small town and those in city, and
hence the lack OF value of local news
in big town daily as compared with
The general news OF the world.
Tirty-five years ago a 100000 fire in
Spokane would have been good for a
column or two. for 1t would have been
necessary to wipe out considerable of
the town to create damages to that
amount, and every sufferer in that fire
would have been a personal friend OF
every other resident of the town. and
those friends would have had a keen
sympathy for those who wouid have
sustained the loss. Then the paucity
of local news in the large dailies can
be easily accounted for from the fact
that there is such an enormous mass
OF local and general news coming into
the offices of the daily press every day
that the problem confronting those pa
pers is condensation. The daily must
confine itself to straight and limited
statement of facts, and the reporter
who would be thoughtless enough to
become flOwery or verbose would soon
find his occupation gone. for the man
at the copy desk with a blue pencil Is
merciless in trimming down and ripp-
ing the bowels out of copy that runs tC
words that have no special bearing
upon the subject matter. oh. Lord, how
the cony we send in to the Gazette
would be emasculated If II should pass
through the hands of less merciful
critic then the Young gentleman who
is using the stuff.
Thus is indifferently covered the