- iseum in the afternoon. Practically every event that
can be anticipated is provided for in advance by the city editor, and to that extent is easier to handle than the unexpected ones.
When Big News "Breaks." Important events that occur unexpectedly are the real test of the editor's ability to organize his staff quickly and effectively. What is involved in arranging to get all phases of a big news story is shown by the manner in which such an event as the attempted assassination of Mayor Gaynor of New York on August 9, 1910, was handled by the New York papers. The following summary of an account given by one of the city editors illustrates the methods employed.[1]
The first news of the attempt to assassinate the mayor came at 9:30 A.M. in the form of a news association bulletin which read:
Mayor Gaynor was shot this morning while on the deck of
the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse in Hoboken. It is rumored
he is dead.
The city editor on a morning paper at once got in
touch with as many of his reporters as he could reach
on the telephone. The first three reporters that he telephoned
to were told the substance of the bulletin and
were sent to Hoboken to get the details.
The second bulletin from the news association, received a few minutes after the first, was as follows:
The mayor was taken to St. Mary's Hospital, Hoboken.
As soon as another reporter was available, the city
editor told him to go to St. Mary's Hospital to see the
doctors and to report the result at once. The fifth reporter
was sent to find Mrs. Gaynor at her city home
- ↑ "What the City Editor does when a Gaynor is shot," by Alex. McD Stoddart; The Independent, August 25, 1910.
