d women. For some reason
news about the great, no matter how trivial, is always of interest, and
varies in direct proportion to the prominence of the person. If the
President of the United States drives a golf ball into a robin's nest,
if the oil king in the Middle West prefers a wig to baldness, if the
millionaire automobile manufacturer never pays more than five cents for
his cigars, the reading public is greatly interested in learning the
fact. Nor is it essential that the reader shall have heard of the
prominent man. It is sufficient that his position socially or
professionally is high.

=48. Well-known Places.=--The same interest attaches to noted or
notorious places. A news item about Reno, Nevada, is worth more than one
about Rome, Georgia, though the cities are of about the same size. A
street traffic regulation in New York City is copied all over the United
States, notwithstanding the fact that the same law may have been passed
by the city council in Winchester, Kentucky, years before and gone
unnoticed. And so with Coney Island or Niagara Falls or Death Valley, or
any one of a hundred other places that might be named. The fashions they
originate, the ideas for which they stand sponsors, the accidents that
happen in their vicinity, all have specific interest by virtue of their
previous note or notoriety. And if the reporter can fix the setting of
his story in such a place, he may be assured of interested readers.

=49. Personal and Financial Interests.=--Finally, if a news story can be
found that will bear directly on the personal or financial interests of
the patrons of the paper, one may be sure of its cordial reception. If
turkeys take the roup six weeks before Thanksgiving, or taxes promise a
drop with the new year, or pork volplanes two or three cents, or an ice
famine is threatened, or styles promise coats a few inches shorter or
socks a few shades greener, the readers are eager to know and will
applaud the vigilance of the editors. For this reason, a reporter can
often pick up an extra story--and reporters are judged by the extra
stories they place on the city editor's desk--by occasionally dropping
in at markets, grocery stores, and similar business houses and inquiring
casually for possible drops or rises in price. For the same reason, too,
new styles as seen in the shop windows are always good for a
half-column. And one cannot think of covering a dressmakers' convention,
an automobile show, a jeweler