Modern Reporting

The days of jumping on a streetcar and going down to a fire on Elm Street are not passed yet for newspaper reporters, but reporters nowadays have to be equipped for many other jobs as well. Two news stories that "broke" last week show the emergencies with which reporters have to cope.

P: One stormy morning the Shenandoah cruising across southern Ohio was suddenly seized by contending winds, and snapped in two like a straw between their fingers. By noon of that day airplanes carrying reporters and cameramen were speeding towards the scene of the wreck from points hundreds of miles away. There are no records of fatalities in those flights for news, but the hardships and difficulties to be overcome were great. The storm had not completely abated and the planes coming from the East had to cross the Alleghanies against the storm.

When the scene of the disaster was reached, it was found that there was no suitable landing ground for miles around. Yet the reporters must land--and land they did. One pilot who cruised over the region reported that he saw 18 disabled planes, all partially wrecked in landing.

P: By contrast as a feat of news-gathering was the publication of income tax payments by the newspapers. The extreme example of efficiency in this respect was probably attained by The New York Times, At 9.30 one morning income tax collectors turned over to the press, books full of names, addresses, amounts, unarranged, unclassified. At each office in New York City, the Times had a battery of stenographers, each group supervised by a reporter. All New York City tax payments of $500 or more were copied. In addition the telegraph wires brought in all tax payments of more than $10,000 from all over the country. The names and amounts were classified, alphabetized and put in type. Next morning the paper published 11,000 names, and on each of the two succeeding days 18,000 names. The whole list of nearly 50,000 names could have been published in even less time if there had been more space available to print the list.

Speed, daring and labor without end are all parts of modern reporting.