year being divided into two semesters; also, that " there was a large attendance at the chapel this morning, " although chapel service is held in the evening ; that “ a reception has been given to a thousand freshmen ," although the entire studentbody numbers only a thousand ; that Miss X . is vice-president of the C . College
Club, although Miss X . has never attended the C . College and there is no C . College Club in the city ; that “ between two and
three hundred students reached here to -day by every train ,” al though seventy -five trains stop in the city every day and the number of college students is limited to one thousand . Exigencies of publication must be the explanation of another
large class of errors. An important item of news comes in just as a paper is going to press and a hurried account is written but the statementsmade can not be verified . The editor takes the chances and publishes accounts that not infrequently are corrected on the following day by his rival editor . A fire alarm may be sounded as the evening paper is going to press, and in startling headlines it announces that a general alarm has been sent out, that a dis
astrous fire is threatening an entire business block , and that the loss will be heavy . - The morning paper, with ample time to ascertain the facts, states that no general alarm was sounded , that
at no time was there danger of a general conflagration, that the total loss did not exceed $ 3,000, and it virtuously rebukes its evening rival as a journal of yellowest dye. Mutatis mutandis,
such accounts are of almost daily occurrence in the papers of the smaller cities all over the country . Still another source of error comes from the habit of turning in copy written by one reporter and leaving the headlines to be written by a member of the office. This often results in wide dis
crepancy between the headlines and the “ story ” that follows,
a discrepancy that sometimes results in absolute contradiction of statements. A leading New York daily of June 27, 1914, had a headline reading “ Yankee Duchess Indorses Militants, " while the interview given below contained the statement, “ I am a suffragist but not a militant."
Two rivalmorning dailies somewhat recently had contradictory headlines announcing the decision of the court on the result of local option, - one headline read " Town of Beekman is to remain
