e who do not know him or know of him, and
therefore they are not interested in him. Every correspondent must watch
for the stories that have something more than a local interest, some
element of news in them that will carry them over the obstacle of
distance and make them interesting to any reader.

It would be impossible to analyze news values to the extent of telling
every conceivable element of interest that will overcome the obstacle of
distance. Yet there are certain elements that always make a newspaper
story interesting to any one.

=4. Loss of life.=--One of these is the loss of human life. For some
strange reason every human being is interested in the thought of death.
Just as soon as a story mentions death it is worth printing, and if it
has a number of deaths to tell about it is worth printing anywhere. Any
fire, any railroad wreck, or any other disaster in which a number of
persons are killed or injured makes a story that is worth sending
anywhere. There seems to be a joy for the reader in the mere number of
fatalities. A story that can begin with "Ten people were killed," or
"Seven men met their death," attracts a reader's interest at once. As a
very natural result, and justly, too, newspapers have been broadly
accused of exaggeration for the sake of a large number. But at present
many papers are inclined to underestimate rather than overestimate,
perhaps to avoid this accusation. In a number of instances in the past
year, among them the Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York, the first
figures were smaller than the official count printed later. That does
not mean, however, that newspapers do not want stories involving loss of
life. Any story which involves a large number of fatalities will carry a
long distance, if for no other reason.

=5. Big Names.=--Another element of news values is the interest in
prominent people. The mere mention of a man or a woman who is known
widely attracts attention. Although Colonel Smith of Smith's Corners has
to do something very unusual to get his name in any paper outside his
county, the slightest thing that President Taft does is printed in every
paper in the country. It is simply because of our interest in the man
himself. Some names give a story news value because the names are widely
known politically or financially, some names because they are simply
notorious. But any name that is recognized at once, for any reason,
gives a story news value.

=6. Property Loss