The Perfectionists

The morning after his kidnapers had released him, Atlanta Constitution Editor Reg Murphy was haggard and tired. Because his wrists had been bound during much of his 49-hour ordeal, one hand was still numb. But he was a newsman with a story. So he sat down and wrote a 4,000-word account of what it had been like in captivity. The Associated Press immediately moved the story on its national wire in time to make Sunday editions round the country.

Though the article was discursive and heavy with detail, many editors happily rushed the story to press. After all, it was a dramatic tale whipped out on deadline. The Philadelphia Inquirer, however, wired Murphy its reservations: "Request urgent rewrite of first-person kidnap account. Suggest lead is in twelfth graf. Suggest perhaps you are too close to story. Suggest step back, take another look. Can you comply?" Constitution Associate Editor Hal Gulliver, who received the message in Murphy's absence, did not know whether to laugh or cry. So he replied: "In the unhappy event that one of your staff is ever kidnaped, which we fervently hope never happens, suggest he write first-person in whatever fashion he chooses." Not at all chastened, the Inquirer editors printed only half of Murphy's prose.

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