Gathering news
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- July
- 25
Here’s the beginning of a small book on news writing that a reporter in my office came across.
“This is the age of the reporter  the age of news, not views. We are influencing our public through the presentation of facts; and the gathering, the assembling and the presentation of these facts is the work of the reporter. There are two ideals of news. The first is to give the news colorless, the absolute truth. The second is to take the best attitude for the perpetuation of our democracy.”  From an address by Will Irwin at the University of Missouri.
This advice, as you can guess, was delivered in pre-television, pre-Web days  well before blogs or news personalities.
It is called “The Writing of News: A Handbook” and was written by Charles G. Ross.
And it was published in 1911.
No one would describe these days as the age of news, not views.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 4:24 pm by Noreen O'Donnell.
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