CLEVER TRICKS TO SAVE TIME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18432, 16 March 1922, Page 7

CLEVER TRICKS TO SAVE TIME

STORIES OF GREAT NEWSPAPER “ SCOOPS.” During the Boat race a few years ago a certain ingenious editor sought to outdo his rivals. He decided to publish two editions of his newspaper. One was in dark blue ink and the other in light blue ink, and which ever crew won, the paper corresponding to their colours would be issued His enterprise was not rewarded, for that year there was a dead heat! An even better instance of the lengths to which keen newspapermen will go to secure “scoops” for their papers is illustrated by a story concerning a certain statesman. He was believed to be dying, and a Journalist arranged that one ’of the household should pull down the blind in a certain room when the great man had breathed his last. But the scheme fell through. A housemaid entered the room one morning, saw the sun streaming in, and pulled down the blind. AN EDITOR'S SURPRISE. The waiting journalist, of course, provided his newspaper with a great “scoop.” but it was not the kind wanted, as the heated letter sent by that statesman on his recovery proved. Ihe feats of Archibald Forbes, the brilliant war correspondent, provide one of the* bright pages in the romance of journalism. Once, during the Franco-Prussian War, he witnessed a great battle. The telegraph office was thirty miles away. Forbes know that whoever got there first and held the line would be the first to get the news through. Mounting his horse he galloped off, but when he arrived at the telegraph office be had not a line of his“copy” written. Any moment one of his rivals might appear, so. tearing a page out of his Bible, Forbes gave, it to the operator to send over the wire until he had his message written. On© can imagine the editor’s surprise when, instead of a brilliant war despatch. the message began with the first verse of Genesis and continued through the whole chapter. But when the “wire” switched on to a brilliant description of the battle, the editor understood the clover device to which his correspondent had resorted.

Tho greatest newspaper “ scoop” was secured for a London paper by its Paris correspondent, Al. de Blowitz. when the Berlin Treaty was signed. He arranged to meet at a restaurant an official attending the Conference. In order that no suspicion would be aroused they met as strangers, but when the correspondent left he wore the official’s hat. and in the lining was the clause that had been passed the previous day! MARVELLOUS MEMORY. Later, M. do Blowitz endeavoured to get a full text of the Treaty and approached a Minister, who, however, could not lend him a copy ; but knowing the correspondent’s memory, he read it over to him. The Treaty was signed the next day and at the time the same newspaper man came out with the full text. During an election a newspaper man was locked inside the counting-room and had arranged with a colleague outside to signal the result- Unfortunately the signal was unsuccessful, and, as a last resort, the journalist outside cried “Fire’” Out rushed the officials and with them the newspaper man. The result reached the newspaper in time! Tn a newspaper office the type is arranged on a table inside an iron forme, or frame, the same size as the page. The forme, when it is to bo moved, has to be handled very gingerly, otherwise the type would break up. and hours of work would have to be done over again. On one occasion, in a. certain office, when there was not a second to lose, everything was hustle and bustle. Directly the forme was completed and locked up. two men seized it. lifted it on to ihe trolley, and ran the precious page of metal to the lift, to lie sent down to the foundry. The shutter of tho lift was raised and, with a sigh of relief, the men pushed in the forme. Rut. sad to relate, the lift was not there!