GETTING THE NEWS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11656, 11 June 1912, Page 2

GETTING THE NEWS.

AN INSIDE ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST STORY IN HISTORY. (London Express' New York Correspondent.) You may be interested in a summary of the manner in which the greatest news event of our time was covered. Never in the history of American journalism has there been an occasion that necessitated the intense, concentrated sera in- and rapid working crowded into the few dark hours of Thursday night and Friday morning, after the Carpathia landed her tragic human cargo in New York. It was a dynamic drive of five hours, through which we were buoyed by the excitement, but we felt the reaction later, and only now are we returning to normal. To begin chronologically. None of us knew until toward the end whether we would be permitted to meet the Carpathia some distance away from New York, and by boarding her, secure therevelations of the passengers leisurely and with greater primary detail, or whether all the work would have to be done, with unprecedented haste at the pier, after the vessel docked. The Federal Government was willing to send a revenue cutter from Boston and another from New York, with reporters siboard. to intercept the Carpathia, but this offer was made contingent on consent being granted by the "White Star and Cunard Lines. Both companies refused permission, and the plan had to bo abandoned. Then we turned our attention to cutting the red tape that blocked the passage to the pier. The steamship companies muttered about cravings of abnormal curiosity—as if we were trying to. arrange a pleasurable jaunt—and the J. Pierpont Morgan Company, which organised the Shipping Trust, put itself on. record, to our great good fortune. The firm wrote to Mr Loob. collector of the Port of New York, who has control of all pier passes, urging that newspaper representative* be barred from the wharf. The collector immediately made the letter public, and all objection to the presence of reporters on the pier instantly vanished —;i tribute to the uses of publicity in a. democracy.

A third difficulty arose, concerning the distribution of ticket?. Three hnndrsd application'; for Press posses were received, and. of course, all could not he granted. It was decided to :illow only tiie three Press associations to hi represented at the wharf when the survivors disembarked. Ten tickets wore given to each ris'-ociatioT). and all other nnnlications wer; refused. There was an immediate reading of the Riot Art hv the New York newspapers. So there was a reconsideration, and the ti r to the Press agencies were recalled. Tn their s.tead. each agency received six nasscs. each New York morning paper four, and eacli New York evening partwo. After further ;icitation, two or three representatives of London were included in the distribution, hut no other paper r.-ooived my of the precious vellow cards. Perhaps one hundred Press tickets were issued in all. Behef was general that the Cnrnat-lvn. would net arrive at her pier until aft-r midnight, if. indeed, she we're not hold back by fog until daylight. She might slin through the r.iist an hour or two before midnight. .but .whatever the time, it would 1>? so late" that tb? utmost- haste would he in transmitting derails of the" Titniro's awful fate from th" Tvier—for ouantitv of news demanded was measured by pages and not columns.

The newspaper? r.wl Press cssoei o ,- tions; engaged for the night prnetierdheveryjoom' in an hriol opposite fTm Cunardpier. in TYe-t -street.' From this hotel, two. three, and four private telephones were run to the newspaper ancl Press associations' offices from the wharf. a"d kept talking about the until the Carpathia arrived. Then the first brief words from the first passengers ashore were rushed to the waiting reporters in the 1 pier telephone booths by their associates, thus earing tie

three or feur minutrs necessary to cross West-street. First editions were being he'd like crouching sprinters for the starting shot, and a minute saved then was the equal of an hour in normal times.

But the public telephones could, not ho hold captive long, for men wire too bndlv needed to interview the survivors. Pro:-'* tickets had been distributed too sparingly for reporters to act as telepiii;:v' centrals when the rush really he-

:;i\;i. and after a hundred or so initial word.-, were sent through the public telephone:: they were de'-erted. Thereafter, as each reporter got an

interview, lie raced across West-street to tin' hot-:!, ■speeded into the private room his paper or y Pr'ss association had routed, and dictated his story over his private wire to an expert typist with receiver adjusted to his ears. Then the reporter made a breathless journey back to the pier for more interviews. The host reporters only were assigned to the interviewing work, and probably never before have so many highly paid journalists been pitted against one another in so concentrated an area.

But the best of the best, the highest magnitude stars on the principal morning papers, did no actual work at all at 4 bo pier. They wore there, but they spent perhaps half an hour listening to the interviewers at work and absorbing the atmosphere. Then th?y motored heck full speed to their offices. Thereafter they were the. "lead" writers. Not lender, but lead. The American "Mead" is the English "introduction," xoept that it is carried to a much moro intricate development. The work of r.be l"ad writers was to prepare from two to three columns of description and general summarv. They snt in their riFV-os. writing feverishly, having their own experiences at the pier as the basis of thcr inspiration, and being furnished continuously with th° essential '"toil? in every story that subsequently was telephoned in. LTOHTNING INTERVIEWS. On the pier it was simply a question o? lightning action,, seizing any passenger who happened to be nearest, and -one; zing him dry in the shortest pos--io!e time. You had to take whoever come to hand. Selection was impossible. Hysterical women, pale-faced men. women carrying cooing, wide-eyed habit, s. one mail bearing a little brown do;r saved from the wreck, solicitous relatives, all were jumbled together in •i great maes about the gang-plank, and in small, isolated, weeping groups up ••rd down the length of the pier. '!';>.' fiering seconds could not be •.'.••:et cl trying to induce reluctant passengers to relate their exprinees. Each '-.si second recruit two words lost, and each word that 'night was beyond all wealth. If a survivor would not re-sr-~nd instantly to leading questions, to.- re was a ru=h for someone else, for - 1 --. veivlo world was crying for copy. C"'v, cony. Never before was there such urgent ...-...,.-:,,- f,..,. immediate copy. Only o'.o-e d'd I see any time thrown away sque. ziog a stone. The first people off the boat were Dr Franentbal, a wollb"Tii New York physician, and his :v'f-\ Ho was one of the few passeng?r< recognised—by his flowing red b: "rd. His wife was ill, and she was taken immediately to a. waiting motoroar, but the doctor remained behind a moment, and the reporters instantly surrounded him. He started to talk, when relatives rushed up and dragged iuin oft", telling him he must not say a word. The reporters followed. and he -waved back with them. He was p-r----r-ctlv willing to be interviewed, but his friend'! Again surrounded him, and •v.vay ho was dragged once more under en-rd. Thev got him'a. third time, r-\d a ■fourth, but. his relatives became :ov.fitly (xcited. shouting he was a phystelan and must keep out of the news-;e-:er~. He himself was too bewildered now to do anything more than grin in i nervous, hesitant planner. All the while a woman reporter kept shouting at him: . "Doctor, your patients want to know about your rescue! Please remember

your patients are very anxious about you!" None of the others could get in a word while the. woman continued her psychological experiment of trying to .nipress on the doctor that it was his duty to his patients to talk. The incident took not more than two or three minutes. Other passengers were pushing through the lane of people who Jined the way from the gang-plank, and so the reporters could spare no more time with the doctor.

My presence on the pier was due to my belief that quicker action in the lens: run would be possible if I could see things for myself and then return to my r>ffiee. So, I a ranged with the day editor of the Laffan Bureau, Mr Carroll, to assist me during the evening. I left him in charge of my cable b- ok at 8.30 on Thursday evening, and went to the pier. I counted on being able to get back to my office by the time the" real work was starting, and luck was with me. I saw no other representative of an English paper on the UNNERVING SCENES. Most of the first passengers off the Carpathia were hysterical and could not be interviewed. They were principally women, and their pitiful screams as they threw themselves into the arms of their relatives would have 1 unnerved us under any circumstance. I was after British views, principally, and I dropped two or three Americans when the passengers began to flow into the covered pier, after a brief word with them. Then Fate flung me at a London resident, and when his narrative was secured, I had the good fortune to be able to squeeze through a- group surrounding a woman survivor living in Calgary. I put queries to her, and she was so calm and business-like that the questions and answers flew like the discharge of gatlings. About twenty minutes had nowgone =iuce the docking of the Carpathia. I did not want to remain away from my office any longer, and leaving the pier on the run, I looked around for a taxicab to take me across Fourteenth-street to the subway. ■ I saw none disengaged, and so I boarded a Fourteenth-street electric tram. It was crowded, but luck came again. On the train was «n English woman steerage survivor. I interviewed her during the ten-minute r'de across Fourteenth-street, though •.villi much difficulty, for her father was with! her. and they were too wrapped up in each other, after her restoration from the sea, for her to pay much attention to me. However, I got some osential points from her —notably that though asleep forward at the time of the collision, she had heard nothng whatever. Rv half-past ten I was hack at my -able with three exclusive inter- ; views. The news was just starting to j rush in over the telenhcnes. A brief ; I had written before 1-eav- j ing the office, subject to telephonic j "hang? from the pi'---, -"dn'ch turned out ! to be unnecessary, had been placed on ; the wire for you. as well as about m ! hundred additional words which Mr j Carroll had been ;nblo to glean. \ Once in my office, I began writing my j interviews, handing the matter, about j thirty words at a time, to the capable i operator, some ten feet away. I | worked in the operating room, with. I fifteen to twenty instruments ticking i loudlv on all sides, but I heard not a- ■ single sound. Completing my three j interviews, I gave my attention to the > Laffnn Bureau's report. Mr Carroll i had been busy going through the Laffan | eo'nv, marking the most important details, while T was cabling my own maim- i script, and he had it all tabulated for ; me when I was ready to receive it. I i was able to use some, but the matter w.r>* vouriiig out like half a dozen floods. i.v-i hjreuso of the rapidity with which T end.to work, owing to. the five boors' difference in. time between New York ■>nd London, -I was far ahead, of the Liffa'n. matters. Page three of Smith's :ntervi" T r would be followed by page ! two of Brown's, nnd that, bv page four '■ of Jones'. This was all right for Ame- , rica. where the papers were taking j everything, for a mechanical detail in

slugging alone was necessary to get it all properly into the papers. But, ; for rapid, consecutive cabling, the copy was next to impossible, and had I not gone to the pier, probably an hour and :l half would h.nve been Inst, besido turning me into a fit subject for it. lunatic asylum. Never before have I been able to write so fast as I did that night. I had my first experience in beating a speedy cable operator, for, by the time I had finished, I was about fifty words ahead of the telegraph instrument — say, three or four minutes.' A little

after midnight, when I was closing down, came your query asking whether Captain Smith had committed suicide. Yen were informed immediately that the report was without foundation, confirmation of that fact having just come in. It was 2.45 a.m. (7.45 London time) when I left my office, and a.n hour lat-erl was in bed. At 8 a.m. I wa. c working again, and the rush on Friday was so p?rsistenfc that there was hardly time to breathe. .About 4 p.m. the work began to slacken, and now it is possible to breathe once more with the normal number of respirations.