ia |
|fumes, a panic was narrowly averted in |
|the St. Charles Hospital, and fifty |
|frightened horses stampeded in the |
|streets as a result of a fire, etc. |

But see how far from the beginning the fire, the actual cause of it all,
is placed. The fire is buried behind a mass of details and the reader is
confused. The lead is not a happy one. The only thing to do is to break
up the mass of details and put part of them immediately after the lead.
The arrangement is a matter that must be left to the judgment of the
reporter.

This, however, is an extreme case because the various features are so
disconnected and separate. The reporter would have little trouble if the
several features were more alike. For instance, if one of the walls of
the building had fallen and killed three firemen the case would have
been simpler. The death of these men so far overshadows the other
unusual incidents that it drives them out of the lead altogether. For we
do not care about horses and frightened patients when men are crushed
beneath falling walls. All that we are concerned with in our lead now is
the dead and injured--with a feature like this we can trust our readers
to go into the story far enough to pick up the other interesting
features; we would begin in this way:

| Three firemen were killed by falling |
|walls and four others were overcome by |
|ammonia fumes in a fire which destroyed |
|the cold storage, etc. |

The combination of dead and injured makes a good beginning, and it is
always advisable to begin with such an enumeration whenever it is
possible. Where the features are not so significant as death and
injuries the matter of arranging more than one striking detail at the
beginning of the lead becomes a greater problem. It must be left to
one's own judgment and common sense. The lead must not be too long or
complicated, and one must hesitate before burying the really important
facts of the story behind several lines of more or less unusual details.
Just as soon as the lead becomes at all confusing take out the details
and put them into the story later.

VII

FAULTS IN NEWS STORIES

Before we go on to the consideration of other kinds of news stories it
will be well to consider in greater detail the facts we have learned
from writing up fires. Our fire stories s