129 YEARS OF “SCOOPS”

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 January 1941, Page 3

129 YEARS OF “SCOOPS”

ROMANCE OF NEWS AGENCY —— f Which newspaper correspondent first gave a telegraph office the Bible to transmit with the object of delay-, ing rival messages? j The answer is, Daniel Craig, Hali- ( fax, Nova Scotia,, correspondent of the Associated Press, according to | “A.P.—the Story of News,” a new J book by Oliver Gramling, which is a j best-seller in America. The trick is usually associated with H. M. Stanley, when reporting the British victory at Magdala. It was used by Sir Archibald Forbes during the Franco-Ger-man War of 1870 (states the London “Daily Telegraph”). Mr. Gramling tells many good stories of ingenuity and resource that brought the great A.P. organisation scoops from all over the world. When the Russo-Japanese war broke out in 1904, a correspondent, Paul Cowles, startled the head office with a request for 80,000 dollars (about £20,000 at current rates) to buy a yacht to help cover the war. He not only got the yacht and covered the war, but sold the vessel for a profit afterwards. The same year the A.P. took an active hand in history when John Hay, United States Secretary of State, was preparing a note protesting against the kidnapping of a wealthy American, lon Perdicaris,. by the Moroccan bandit chieftain, Raisuli. Mr. Hay showed his lengthy formal note to the A.P. correspondent. “I’m afraid you’re slipping, Mr. Secretary,” said the correspondent. “If I were you I’d boil all this down to five words.” ’ And, taking a pencil, he scribbled, “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” v That ultimatum went to the Sultan j of Morocco and became a national catchword, that helped to re-elect Theodore Roosevelt. Salvatore Cortesi, the A.P.’s Rome correspondent, had “contacts” so close to the Pope that he was able to record the death' of Leo XIII. before it was known to many in the Vatican. His code message read: Melstone, New York: “Number missing Bond, 404.— Montefiore.”

Cortesi was probably the only man who ever gave the Pope as a reference. Bored with a document asking for “character references,” he wrote: “The Pope and the King of Italy.” During an audience a few weeks later the Pope said: “I have received a let-

ter from an American company asking for information about you? Why should they apply to me?” Mr. Gramlin traces the A.P.’s origin to 1811, when the owner of a Boston coffee-house engaged Samuel Topliff to pick up news for his customers. Topliff used to row down the harbour to meet ships; New York newspapers pooled resources to meet harbour ‘boats, and when the telegraph came they shared the news over the wires. The non-profit-making organisation thus launched now serves 1,400 newspapers, employs 7,200 persons, leases 285,000 miles of wires, forwards 1,000,000 words a day, and has a skyscraper headquarters in New York from which feelers reach out ail over the world.

BOER WAR PEACE CLUE. According to the late Mr. Macintyre’s history of “The Daily Telegraph,” on Whit Monday, 1902, when Lord Kitchener was having a conference with the Boer leaders, Bennet Burleigh telegraphed to the office in Fleet Street the message “Whitsuntide Greetings.” The editor’s first thought was that its transmission at full rates was a superfluous demonstration of politeness, but he also knew by experience that Burleigh was not the man to waste money unnecessarily for an ecclesiastical festival, and happily he remembered that in the Eastern Churches the symbol of Whitsuntide was the dove of peace. Turning to the Prayer-Book he read in the Gospel for Whit-Sunday, the date of Burleigh’s despatch, the sentence “Peace I leave with you; My peace ! give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Just at that moment a telegram came from Burleigh’s brother in Glasgow saying he had received the folI lowing message from Benent: “Returning: Tell Lawson.” Then, the “Daily Telegraph” came out with the bold news next morning, “Peace Assured.” Burleigh’s roundabout message was justified within a few days.