WHEN I AS A YOUNGER man I worked for newspapers.
First in backshops (Orlando and Cocoa FL) as a stoneman, later as a reporter and editor (Ely NV, Gillette WY, Harrisburg PA, Peru IN, Red Bluff CA, Titusville FL, Trenton NJ).
In the latter I covered a variety of “beats,” including cops, courts, government, industry (n-power, transportation, banking, etc.), “society,” sports, and more.
I also wrote editorials.
I made every effort to keep my reporting editorial-free. No slants. No bias. As Jack Webb’s Joe Friday used to say, “Just the facts.”
When I worked in Red Bluff CA one of my “beats” was the courthouse.
A guy was arrested for a serious crime and the apprentice editor put the story on Page 1 above the fold under a 60-point headline. (60 points is slightly less than one inch.) The guy went to court and was found innocent. (Good reporters “translated” the courts “not guilty” to “innocent” to avoid the word “not” since that word frequently got “dropped;” failed to be printed/read.)
When the case was dismised, the same apprentice editor wanted to bury the story on an inside page.
Pillory a person above the fold on Page 1 and announce his innocence on page 6 under a 24-point head? Since I wrote both articles, I was satisfied with the accuracy, but I was outraged by the “play.” I complained to the real editor, a gentleman by the name of Lou Walther, and he agreed that the second article should get the same play as the first. And so it was.
I confess that on one occasion I let editorializing creep into a news article. The year was 1968 in Ely NV and I let my feelings about Vietnam get in the way of an otherwise straight news article. My readers let me know in no uncertain terms that I was out of line. They were right and I learned a lesson I remember to this day.
Most of the reporters and editors with whom I worked wrote without bias.
That didn’t mean they did HAVE a personal bias; most of us do. It meant that we controlled ourselves and confined our writing to the news.
There was, at least in Harrisburg PA, pressure from “on high” to treat some special interests with kid gloves. I tried to do a story about the local manager of a national charity. He was highly aggrieved when I asked him about his wages, so aggrieved that he called my boss’ boss and I was disabused of the idea that the readers should know how much the super-boss’ pal pulled out of the donations, The story died before being written.
In all the years I worked in editorial, that is the only time that I am aware of a story of mine being “spiked” before it was written.
When I worked the desk on metro dailies (Harrisburg PA, Trenton NJ) — usually as a copy editor — I remember challenging reporters’ facts and insisting that statements were attributed.
Reporters report the news, they don’t have the luxury of making the news; ergo, everything must have attribution. (If you read other blog entries on this site you will find that I still cite my sources. It is ingrained; a habit I hold dear.
Unless a source is well known, e.g., POTUS or a famous (or infamous) person, the attribution has to include why the person is considered quotable. Jo Smyth, manager of highway maintenance for XYZ county tells readers (now listeners) why Jo Smyth’s comment is worth reading/hearing.
- An aside: When I was about to start my first editorial gig (Peru IN) I asked a very senior reporter/rewrite man Buck Lidel (Cocoa FL) what I needed to know to succeed. “One: Spell a person’s name correctly. Two: Keep the leedcq (paragraph) to 10 words or less.” The 10 words-or-less applied to news copy, not features.
I covered many, many stories; each one was important to someone. Even obits and photo cutlines (captions) have importance to someone. (‘Course you can’t “clip” an obit of photo from tv “news.”)
There were stories I did not want to write, and there were stories that had me steaming at what I considered untruths from the person being interviewed, but — with the one exception in Ely NV — I kept my opinion to myself. MY readers were intelligent people who thought for themselves. Perhaps people who depend on tv “news” lack that ability.
I’m glad I’m out of the newspaper business. Now I can, and sometimes do, share my opinion, but I still try to attribute everything and let both of my readers make their own decisions.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
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