Home of A. B. Smith, 600 Converse avenue. Fire discovered at 1 A. M. by neighbors returning from theater. One of them broke in front door with a stick of cord wood and aroused the family, who were asleep on the second floor. Fire had started in the attic from crossed electric wires, and had burned down into the closet in the room occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Opening the closet to get some clothing, Smith was driven back by flames. His wife fainted and he carried her out. His hands and face were slightly burned. Two children, girls, 8 and 5, were carried out by neighbors. The house, two-story frame, burned rapidly. Only a part of the furniture on first floor was saved. Loss about $10,000, covered by insurance. Whole building was ablaze when the firemen arrived. Smith is cashier of the Second National Bank. Man who broke in door, A. L. Jones, a grocer, 604 Converse avenue.
X. Assuming that the death of Senator Clay (see No. IV) was first published in the morning papers, rewrite the story in 150 words for an evening paper.
XI. Condense the story of Wilson’s suicide (see No. VII) into a telegraph dispatch of 150 words.
Too often the complaint against the newspaper is that it is sensation-seeking and has a predilection for scandal and unsavory gossip. Men and women, including some of eminent rank in their own professions, although having only a slight knowledge of the making of a newspaper, have a habit of saying in their ignorance that newspapers give preference to crime, divorce and scandal. It is even added that it is impossible to get wholesome news into a newspaper.
This opinion is wrong. It not only does injustice to most newspapers, but, in a measure, it offers insult to the readers of those newspapers. As a general thing newspapers give preference to only one thing--news. But news is news only when it relates to something of present interest in an interesting way.--From an editorial in the Washington (D. C.) _Times_.
In addition to getting the service of one of the big news gathering organizations, such as the Associated Press, and maintaining correspondents in the leading cities of the country, the metropolitan newspaper receives a vast amount of material from special correspondents in the cities and towns in its immediate territory. By immediate territory is meant those states in which the mail edition of the paper has its greatest circulation. Chicago papers, for example, circulate not only in Illinois, but reach into Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan and parts of Missouri, Ohio and Minnesota. St. Louis and Kansas City papers have a broad field in the Southwest. The newspaper’s function is to give all the important news of the nation and the world, and to give besides the special news of that section of the country which it serves. It is to the end that news within this territory may be covered, or covered more fully than it would be by a national news gathering organization, that the paper maintains a corps of special correspondents.