spaper reader the
various patterns of stories seem all but limitless. To the experienced
newspaper man, however, they reduce themselves to seven or eight, and
even this number may be further limited. The popular impression comes
from the fact that the average reader places an automobile collision and
a fire under different heads. Yet for the newspaper's purposes both may
be classed under the head of accidents. For the sake of convenience in
this study, therefore, we may group under four heads all the news
stories that a beginner need be acquainted with in the first year or so
of his work: interviews; accidents, society, and sports, to which may be
added for separate treatment, rewrites, feature stories, and
correspondence stories.

=179. The Interview Type.=--In the present chapter will be discussed the
interview type of story, in which are included not only personal
interviews, but speeches, sermons, toasts, courts, trials, meetings,
conventions, banquets, official reports, and stories about current
magazine articles and books. These are all grouped under one head
because they derive their interest to the public from the fact that in
them men and women present their opinions concerning topics of current
interest, and that for newspaper purposes the method of handling
interviews is much the same as for the other ten.

=180. Lead to an Interview.=--The lead to a news story of a personal
interview may feature any one of the following: (1) the name of the
person interviewed, (2) a direct statement from him, (3) an indirect
statement, (4) the general topic of the interview, (5) the occasion, or
even (6) the time. Probably it is the name of the man or a direct
statement that is played up most often. If the former is featured, the
lead should begin with the speaker's name and should locate the
conversation in time and place. Such a lead may well include also either
a direct or an indirect statement, or a general summary of the
interview. Thus:

|Professor George Trumbull Ladd of Yale, in an |
|interview for The Herald to-day, declared there |
|never had been a time in the history of the world |
|when there was a greater need for the enforcement of|
|international law, nor one when international law |
|was so much in the making as at present. |

If a significant statement is of most importance in the interview, the
lead should begin with the statement, directly or indirectl