rt should be directed toward
clearness. This is particularly true of stories which are in the main
narrations of action. The number of facts that may be included must
depend upon the length of the story; if all of the facts cannot be
included without overburdening the story, cut out some of the details of
lesser importance, but treat those that are included in a clear readable
way. Short sentences are always much better in newspaper writing than
long involved sentences. Pronouns should always be used in such a way
that there can be no doubt in regard to their antecedents. If a
relative clause or participial expression sounds awkward make a separate
sentence of it. In other words, be simple, concise, and clear--that is
better in a newspaper than much fine writing.

IX

FOLLOW-UP AND REWRITE STORIES

The terms "rewrite story" and "follow-up, or follow, story," are names
which newspaper men apply to the rehashed or revised versions of other
news stories. A large newspaper office employs one or more rewrite men
who spend their entire time rewriting stories. To be sure, a part of
their work consists of rewriting, or simply recasting, poorly written
copy prepared by the reporters. But the major part of their work, the
part that interests us, involves something more than that. It involves
the rejuvenation of stories that have been printed in a previous edition
or in another paper, with the purpose of bringing the news up to the
present moment.

News ages very rapidly. What may be news for one edition is no longer
news when another edition goes to press an hour later. A feature that
may be worth playing up in a morning paper would not have the same news
value in an evening paper of the same day. The news grows stale so
quickly because new things are continually happening and new
developments are continually changing the aspect of previous stories.
If a story has been run through two or three editions and new
developments have changed it, the story is turned over to a rewrite man
for consequent alteration. A story in a morning paper is no longer news
for an evening paper of the same date, but a clever rewrite man, with or
without new developments added to the story, can recast it so that it
will appear to contain more recent news than the original story. The
story of an arrest in a morning paper begins with the particulars of the
arrest; but when the evening paper's rewrite man has rearranged it for
his paper it has