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es to keep his own temper sweet. Oftentimes such men, particularly society criminals and others who possess an especial fear of having their wrong-doing known among their friends, try to keep from being written up by saying they are unwilling to make any kind of statement for publication, but that they will do so in court if anything is published about them. The reporter will not let such a threat daunt him. He will get the facts and present them to the city editor with the person's hint of criminal action, then let the city editor determine the problem of publication. =74. Persons Divulging Secrets.=--Frequently a person of the second class may be slyly converted into the group of those who do not know they are divulging secrets, by the reporter deliberately leading away from the topic about which he has come for an interview, then circling round to the hazardous subject when the person interviewed is off his guard. Probably the most ticklish situation in all reporting is here. To make a person tell what he knows without knowing that he is telling is the pinnacle of the art of interviewing. As Mr. Richard Harding Davis has so exactly expressed it: Reporters become star reporters because they observe things that other people miss and because they do not let it appear that they have observed them. When the great man who is being interviewed blurts out that which is indiscreet but most important, the cub reporter says: "That's most interesting, sir. I'll make a note of that." And so warns the great man into silence. But the star reporter receives the indiscreet utterance as though it bored him; and the great man does not know he has blundered until he reads of it the next morning under screaming headlines.[4] [4] _The Red Cross Girl_, p. 7. It is for such reasons that a quick perception of news even in chance remarks is a requisite for interviewing. If one does not grasp instantly the value of a bit of information, the expression of his face or his actions will give him away later when a full realization of the worth of the news comes to him, or else he will not be able to recall precisely the facts given. =75. Retentive Memory.=--It is for the same reason, too, that a retentive memory is necessary. Fifty per cent of those interviewed will be frightened at the sight of a notebook. And all men become cautious when they realize that their statements are being taken down
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