Wet,” while the other headline read “ Beekman Town will be Dry .” Inasmuch as one of the papers, in addition to the error of theheadline, reversed the figures of the vote on the question, both a careful reading of the decision and a knowledge of local con ditions were required in order to determine the actual situation in Beekman . Other errors may be classified as those coming from taking in
formation at second hand or from the imperfect information gained over the telephone. The reporter is often at the mercy of seekers for publicity and may inadvertently be betrayed by the
telephone into an exaggerated report of insignificant events. Still other errors are to be classed as " tricks of the trade.” Bussey gives many illustrations of the devices used by reporters to manufacture news in a dull time, or to save themselves the trouble of going personally to the scene of an importantmeeting, or to gain entrance to a meeting from which all strangers were supposedly excluded .8 The “ temperament” of a distinguished man must be the
caption under which to classify errors of omission erroneously attributed to the reporter. Errors of a deliberate nature are sometimes made through a desire to connect an unimportant or local incident with some
occurrence of national interest or with some person of national fame. The daily papers of October 6 , 1915 , reported : “ Speaker Champ Clark and his son were in a posse that dispersed a band of twenty men which to -day attempted to lynch Harrison Rose , a negro charged with murdering a farmer. Themob attacked the
jail, broke the outer doors, and were pounding with sledge ham mers on the inner door when the sheriff appeared with the posse."
Often these statements may be strictly correct as regards specific details, yet the account as a whole may give an erroneous em
phasis to unimportant incidents, it may show a wrong perspec tive, it may deduce a conclusion from insufficient data. In any
8 H . F . Bussey , Sixty Years of Journalism , “ Journalists' Tricks,” pp. 254 – 266 .
C . A . Cooper gives many examples of themanufacture of newsby indus
trious though unscrupulous penny-a -liners. - An Editor's Retrospect, pp . 86 -95.
" Infra , p . 380,
