questions as are necessary, and to persist until they get what they want.
The way in which the reporter works in gathering together the various phases of an event before he is ready to write the story is best shown by an example. The city editor, let us say, receives a bulletin to the effect that an unknown, well-dressed man of about sixty years has been seriously injured by falling off the platform in the subway station at 65th Street and Western Avenue, and that he has been removed to St. Mary's Hospital. The city editor sends out one of his reporters to find out what he can about the accident.
The reporter starts at once for the subway station. At the corner near the station he sees a policeman with whom he carries on the following conversation:
Reporter.—Did you send in a report on the old man who
fell on the subway tracks an hour ago?
Policeman.—Yes.
R.—Do you know who he is?
P.—No, I couldn't find out his name.
R.—Was he badly hurt?
P.—I guess he was. His head was cut behind, and he hadn't come to when the ambulance took him to the hospital.
R.—How did it happen?
P.—I don't know. The first I knew a kid came running up to me and told me a man was hurt in the subway. When I got down there, they had him on the platform, and a crowd was standing around him. I saw the old man was hurt pretty bad, so I telephoned for St. Mary's ambulance. We put some water on his face, but he didn't come to. When the ambulance doctor came he said he was alive all right.
R.—How did he fall off the platform?
P.—I don't know; I guess he fainted.
R.—Thanks; I'll go down and see the ticket chopper.
The reporter thereupon goes down into the subway
station. The ticker chopper, he finds, has just come on
