Evening star., 1936-06-20

GIllIlS JOlIlOIIOW dllu lI1S lcoulI
will be the same, for Washington is the
greatest news center in the world.
Once London held that distinction;
later, New York. But the earth turns,
and times change, and now all eyes
are focused on washington.
1t is not merely in quantity of news
that the National Capital leads the
world, but in quality as we'll. In the
vernacular of the news room, Wash
ing is must, page one" everywhere in
the United States and nearly every
where else. Even on days that are
comparatively dull here the Washing
ton date line crowds local news off
the first page all the way from Bos-
ton to Berkeley, Calf.
Why should Washington news hold
so pre-eminent place? For the SIM
pie reason that the substance of it
affects more lives directly ana daily
than any other news in the world
One little room in the Cheasapeake
& Potomac Telephone Co, building on
Thirteenth street serves as conduit
through which this gigantic, endless
hours a day. There one finds the equip
ment of the American Telephone g.
Telegraph Co. which carries the bur-
den of wordage out of Washington, a
traffic which reaches-at its crest
$50 900 words a day.
On top of this, Western Unicn and
Postal Telegraph wires carry thou
sands more words.
THAT little room on Thirteenth
street, could it talk, would have
something to tell the world; for. aside
from the legitimate news. as such, it
hears a lot of gossip, rumor. conJec-
ture. speculation and plain, ordinary
"dope."
Because of the mechanical set-up,
all news sent from the various news
agencies, bureaus and special cor
respondents in Washington must pass
through this little room on Thirteenth
street. Not all, but most of it--for the
wires Of he telegraph companies are
also singing away on the endless Wash
ington story, "a hours around the
clock
You begin to get some idea Of what
Washington means in world affairs,
and national affairs, when you step
beaind the scenes in this enormous
network of wires carrying all the news
that's fit to print out of the National
Capital
Throughout America there are some
2000-odd daily newspapers hungry for
information to pack into their columns
evening papers and morning papers
To supply this need there are five
great press associations in full opera
tion-the Associated Press, the Uni
versal Service, the international News
Service, the United Press and the
United News
Skilled reporters from all these news
agencies are beating tattoos on the
pavementS of Washington day in and
day out. night after night-covering
the White House and the various de-
.partments, the bureaus, commissions
and other governmental agencies.
Aiding and abetting these trained
newspaper men are other newspaper
men, who left the ranks of journalism
TO go into the Government press bu-
reaus-and between the two forces the
City of Washington is picked clean
each day of all the news it is humanity
possible to gather.
Over the wires goes this news.
1t goes out of here in the old
fashioned Morse code and by the
new-fangled method of dissemination
known as the teletype 1t goes by tele-
phone and by letter; but mainly the
new invention carries Washington in
formation to the world-the substitute
for the old hand-operated "bug''-the
teletype.
BECAUSE of the innovation known
as the teletype the sending of
news has been speeded up many, many
times Because of new kinks put into
the wire service the entire days news
out of Washington can be cleared in
the day, whereas under the old method
it might have taken two or three days
to dispatch the same amount of writ
ten material
Just how Washington has grown in
importance as news center may be
Visualized by noting the expansion
of the Associated Press Washington
Bureau.
When Byron Price, who is head of
the Associated Press Bureau, first came
to Washington in 1914, there were
some 10 men engaged in the local
bureau-and some of these were tele-
graph operators.
Today there is not a telegraph op-
orator in the Associated Press Bureau
here, the news all sent out over the
teletype, mechanical-human being.
There are, however, 10 men actually
engaged in combing the city for news
and a total of 109 persons employed
in the Associated Press bureau, in
cluding those who operate the latest
mystery of them all-wirephoto.
Every day, day in and day out
according to Mr.. Price-the ASso-
ciated Press sends out an average of
$4,000 words covering the activities
of Washington.
Those words go out over what is
undoubtedly the greatest trunk-line
system in the world, according to
M. A. Ferrell supervising traffic en-
gineer of the Associated Press-known
as the Western circuit-from WASH
ington to New York. to Kansas City.
On that circuit is every spot where
newspapers are published; for feeder
lines break down the news and send it
along to other places not on the
Western circuit, places as far away
as Frisco and New Orleans.
When it is said that $4,000 words
day go out of one bureau-the AsSo-
ciated PresS-that is really an under
statement, for, taking it by and large,
the report actually amounts to more
than that. One Supreme Court day
the report was 60,240 words in eight
hours. The Associated Press splits
Its reports into two parts. one handfed