ments may deny or may ridicule the revelations made.12 On the
continent there has been more or less supervision of what is written and the correspondent inevitably adopts a " read-between
the-lines-style .” Bismarck was said “ to keep the foreign press in order” because the special correspondentwas at his mercy, — if his
letters displeased the Chancellor , he was refused all information .13 But even with absolute authoritativeness as to source of news and with no restrictions on communicating the news received , errors may arise for which neither press nor correspondent can
justly be held responsible, as when they are due to the necessary expansion of skeleton messages.14 The errors may be deliberate on the part of the press, as when a correspondent sends a dispatch , -
to find that only the place-and-date line has been kept,while the dispatch that followshas been written from the New York office,15 or dispatches may be credited to non -existent staff correspon dents ,16 or the correspondent assigned to a certain side may be
told , “ Don't be too hard on them if they are unlucky.” 17 The correspondent himself may be responsible for at least
false impressions, as when a journalist told W . H . Russell, soon after his arrival in America, that he had himself created the
office of Washington correspondent to the New York papers. “ At first,” the journalist said , “ I merely wrote news, and no one cared much ; then I spiced it up, squibbed a little , and let off
stories ofmyown. Congressmen contradicted me— issued cards said they were not facts. The public attention was attracted, and I was told to go on ; and so the Washington correspondence be came a feature in all the New York papers by degrees.” 18
12 W . Beatty-Kingston , “ Foreign Correspondents," Fortnightly Review , March , 1886 , n . s . 39 : 371- 387.
13 “ The Change of Government in Germany," Fortnightly Review , August, 1890, n . S. 48 : 282 – 304.
14 W . J. Chamberlin , Ordered to China, 231- 232. H . Leach, Fleet Street from Within , chap . IX , “ Occasional Fallibilities."
16 Isaac Russell, “ Hearst-Made War News,” Horper's Weekly, July 25, 1914 , 592 : 76 – 78.
16 H . D . Wheeler, " At the Front with Willie Hearst,” Harper's Weekly, October 9 , 1915 , 61 : 340 - 343.
17 J. A . O 'Shea, Leaves from the Life of a Special Correspondent, II, 235 236 . — The author says this is the only hint he ever received during his whole career as a special correspondent that could be construed into instructions.
18 W . H . Russell, My Diary North and South , pp. 24-25. An account of the new form of Washington correspondence is given by C . G . Miller, Donn Piatt His Work and Ways, pp. 215 -223.
