Many text editors make the similar mistake of regarding the reader as a professional digester of everything the news organisation has ever published on the subject. American newspapers, and broadcasters, have been somewhat better at appreciating that the reader may have lived a day, a week even, without the evening news or the morning paper. This does not mean that on the 50th day of the 1999 Kosovo war, the text editor has to retell the entire history of Yugoslavia, or that every brouhaha in Europe requires a recapitulation of the history of the European Union. But polling suggests we assume far too much awareness even of landmark events.
In the developing story of a few days’ duration, or a foreign story, it is wiser to assume that the reader is a suburban Rip Van Winkle who has slept through all the stages now so familiar to the text editor who has been in the thick of them. The skill is in editing for such readers without weighing them down with a recital of everything that has been going on. Every developing story has to be constructed so that the vital background information is conveyed but conveyed without unduly delaying the new events, and without irritating readers who are up to date.
There is one caution before we see if this can be done: developing court stories are special. The nature of the case must briefly be given, but previous statements by witnesses can be recalled only if they are vital to an understanding of the present proceedings. A background paragraph quoting what a previous witness said (or the same witness said earlier) might be construed as comment. It may well be transparent that the man is not saying what he said when you edited his previous statement. But under British law it is wise to leave that discovery to the judge and jury.
Background should be given succinctly, in passing. There is no need to recapitulate every single one of the previous facts – just sufficient to make the new developments meaningful. Reporters who have absorbed the idea that background is important sometimes get carried away and present the reader with an unnecessary wodge of yesterday’s news. Here are two bad examples from newspapers. The original story is in the left-hand column and my rewritten version on the right.
County Durham club chief, Mr Bob Blythe, yesterday picked up the gauntlet thrown down publicly, he said, by Mr Stan Hall, long-serving secretary of the working men’s club movement who has resigned.
County Durham chief Mr Bob Blythe yesterday rebutted the charges of the former secretary, Mr Stan Hall, that the Northern Federation Brewery Ltd was dictating to the county’s 322 clubs.
It was last week that 43-year-old Mr Hall, who ends his 20-year service with the county Club and Institute Union at the end of next month, said that among his reasons for resigning was that the Northern Federation Brewery Ltd. was ‘dictating’ to the county’s 322 clubs.
Mr Blythe, a brewery director as well as president of the county branch of the working men’s clubs, said there was ‘no feud’ between the clubs and the brewery which supplies most clubs and has advanced mortgages for new premises up to £4.5m.
He also said there had been a clash of personalities between him, Mr Blythe, president of the County branch CIU, and Mr John Ward, the Vice-President.
Mr Blythe said he regretted etc. ...
Mr Blythe and Mr Ward are also two of the nine members on the board of directors of the Federation, the brewery which supplies most clubs in the North with beer and has advanced mortgages for new premises of up to £4.5m.
Last week Mr Hall said: ‘In spite of the fact that I was clearly employed as secretary of the Durham branch, control was, in fact, exercised by members of the Federation Brewery. Clubs are shareholders and prominent clubmen serve on the board’.
Mr Blythe yesterday said he regretted that Mr Hall had said anything about his resignation and was anxious to point out that ‘there is no feud existing between the branch executive and the board of directors of the Northern Clubs Federation Brewery’.
The first and last paragraphs are the news: all the rest is background. Some of that background may be required in the story – but later. To begin with, only enough is required to make the latest developments meaningful to a new reader. Other background should be introduced as the narrative progresses.
In the next instance the news is delayed with background in the second, third and fourth sentences. Note the vagueness of what the row is about –‘the lorry parking row’ does not tell us that the County Council has approved a plan local people dislike. The rewrite on the right clarifies and also introduces the ‘monstrously noisy’ quote.
Blanktown urban council, vocally supported last night by some of the citizens, is determined not to let the lorry parking row die down.
Last month the county council voted to take no action on Blanktown’s demand that planning permission for the park should be revoked. Blanktown had complained that the County Council should never have passed the plans because the lorry park is built in a once quiet residential area and had brought many complaints locally.
Blanktown has so far organised a petition and had two angry public meetings and last night the anger had not abated. Mr James Johnson who lives two houses away from the lorry park said it was ‘monstrously noisy’ . . .
[More speeches with a last paragraph:]
The meeting decided to invite the MP to a protest demonstration; to press the County Council and send it full details of complaints; and formally to complain to the Ministry of Housing.
Blanktown urban council, vocally supported last night by an angry meeting of citizens, will go on fighting to stop a ‘monstrously noisy’ lorry park approved by the County Council for a once quiet residential area.
The County Council’s refusal to revoke planning permission will be contested by Blanktown protesting to the Minister of Housing, inviting Blanktown’s MP to a protest demonstration; and asking townspeople to write to the County Council.
[Pick up report of the meeting.]
If you are in doubt about where and how to introduce the background, remember that we learn by relating new facts to what we already know. In an ordinary running news story a good general guide is (a) give the informed reader a signal in the intro – a passing reference to the news context, and (b) give the fuller background, in one paragraph, at paragraph 3.
Sir Basil Blackwell, the bookseller and publisher, told a jury at the Central Criminal Court yesterday that it was nonsense to say that the controversial American novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn , was in the tradition of Zola, Dickens and Galsworthy.
‘Controversial’ gives us a clue about the dispute.
Sir Basil, who is 78, was appearing for the Crown to rebut literary authorities called by the defence. He said he considered the literary merit of Last Exit to Brooklyn to be slight.
Takes the story forward by explaining why Sir Basil was there and that he considered the book’s literary merit slight.
Calder and Boyars Ltd have pleaded Not Guilty to two charges under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959, which allege that they had in their possession copies of the book for publication for gain and that they published an obscene article, namely Last Exit to Brooklyn , written by Hubert Selby, jnr.
The full background – but restricted to one paragraph – runs little risk of delaying the new events too much.
In reply to Mr John Mathew, for the Crown, Sir Basil said: ‘Dickens was a great artist. He certainly portrayed wicked and evil men but he made them live.’
Picks up the news events again.
You can often indicate the background with a key word in a passing phrase. A report referred to the possibility that the Russians might release an American pilot named Powers. The text editor assumed everybody knew who Powers was. But it is better to tell ten readers, glancingly, what they know than to omit telling one reader the only fact which enables understanding of the story at all. Here the text editor could have played safe by saying: ‘Captain Powers, the pilot of the U2 spy plane shot down over Russia . . .’ The key reminder is U2 spy plane. Similarly, in this extract the key words are ‘border dispute’:
Vi
olence flared when about 5,000 people, protesting against the recommendations of a Government commission on an 11-year-old border dispute between Maharashtra and Mysore states, tried to prevent Mr Y. B. Chavan, the Home Minister, from attending the meeting.
Background is easier than interpretations; on interpretation you run the risk of introducing too much opinion or bias. The report on a stage in a teaching dispute is essential interpretation:
After three months during which the National Union of Teachers have been imposing sanctions in more than 1,200 schools, it is clear that its dispute with the local education authorities has reached a climax.
This usefully seizes the reader to say: Look we know you have lost track of all the troubles of the last three months, but you really ought to read this latest development.
Interpretation drifts too far when a text editor writes in:
The Turks have caused the trouble by pressing for a drastic revision of the balance of power in Cyprus.
In a bitterly contested dispute, it is enough to say:
The Turks are pressing for a drastic revision of the balance of power in Cyprus.
If there is one thing American newspaper journalists have learned better than their colleagues elsewhere it is the importance of explaining as they go along. Consider the way Anthony Lewis of the New York Times cleverly etches the background for US readers in his report from Britain. The italics are mine to show the phrase written in as background to the events:
LONDON, Nov. 29 (NYT) – In a major shift of power within the Labour Government and a move toward new policies, Roy Jenkins today became Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He replaced James Callaghan whose three year struggle to maintain the value of the pound ended 11 days ago in devaluation. Mr Callaghan resigned and shifted to Mr Jenkins’s former post as Home Secretary, in charge of police and other internal affairs.
British text editors would not write in copy for British readers the phrase ‘in charge of police and other internal affairs’. But they would write in what the US newspaper might leave out when presented with copy referring to say, Mr Sargent Shriver as director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. They would write in the phrase ‘which administers America’s anti-poverty programme’.
In domestic stories the biggest failure to provide background or interpretation is in dealing with labour disputes. It may seem that the dispute has dragged on long enough for everybody to know what it is about; but do not believe it. Fair reporting, to both sides, requires that some explanation should be written into every story. And only day-by-day recapitulation saves readers from being lost in the eddies of negotiation and compromise. The background can be a phrase:
The drivers, working to rule because they refuse to have guards riding in freight trains, are hoping the Trades Union Congress will intervene.
It may be a paragraph:
The dispute stems from a battle between the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) and the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR), to which guards belong. The ASLEF drivers fear they will commit industrial suicide if they allow guards to ride in the engine cab now that the freight guards’ brake van has been abolished.
It may seem that the longer the dispute goes on, the more the text editor can rely on a phrase. This is wrong. The newspaper may manage on phrases for a few days, but from time to time a fuller explanation should be written in. This is in the public interest in the wider sense – to enable readers not merely to follow the story but to form their own judgment on rights and wrongs as the labour dispute produces effects on everyday life.
In a complicated dispute lasting several weeks it is a good idea to spend time preparing a concise explanation which can be carried daily in a panel or footnote. Where one or other side in the dispute wants to say nothing, it is as well to record this fact so that your paper is not accused of reporting only one side.
We can now examine how professional text editors tackled a common problem in a second-day story. Having set the standards, let us see how the daily papers managed on the second day of that story in Chapter 6 about the atomic scientists being tempted to America’s Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The development announced was that the Minister of Technology, Mr Benn, was flying to the Atomic Energy plant at Risley in Lancashire and would meet some of the scientists who had been invited to the United States.
In editing this story we may have to remind the reader of Mr Benn’s vehement protest at the alleged poaching by Westinghouse. We have to do that quite soon in the story so that the significance of MrBenn’s trip is clear: the details of the trip should not begin before Mr Benn’s visit has been set in its new context. There is no justification for assuming every reader will recall the news context. We do not need to elaborate it. A concise signal will do.
You might yourself at this point write in one paragraph how you would relay the background. The essential points you want to remind the reader about are: (a) Mr Benn is meeting scientists who have been invited by Westinghouse to the United States; (b) Mr Benn yesterday condemned the invitation; (c) Mr Benn accused the American company of trying to gain British nuclear knowledge ‘on the cheap’ after under-bidding for the rights to it under a proper licensing agreement. To get all three background points in quickly and concisely without delaying the new story requires careful attention to every word.
Version A conveyed two of the background points – but rather too late in the story:
Mr. Benn, Minister of Technology, has asked to meet a delegation of four senior Dounreay nuclear scientists at Risley, Lancashire, tomorrow.
Two of the team of four, representing the scientific staff at the Dounreay research establishment, Caithness, are Mr. Arthur Parry, deputy director of the establishment, and Mr. Roy Matthews, head of administration.
They will fly to Manchester in an aircraft chartered by the Ministry.
Mr. Benn’s visit to Risley, one of the two centres of fast-breeder research, is a routine one. But it is understood that it has been brought forward because of the Ministry’s concern over the Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s attempt to attract nuclear scientists to the United States.
A great improvement is made if the text editor transposes paragraph 4 to be paragraph 2. The existing paragraph 2 links into the new arrangement with a small change of phrasing: (‘Two of the team of four Mr. Benn will meet are Mr. Arthur Parry, deputy director of the establishment, and Mr. Roy Matthews, head of administration, who will represent the scientific staff at the Dounreay research establishment, Caithness’). The omission in the background paragraph (4) is Mr. Benn’s letter. His strong personal feelings could at least have been indicated if the text editor had changed ‘Ministry’s concern’ to ‘Minister’s concern’. The paper had a much better background paragraph in a story inside the paper:
Mr. Benn’s letter, disclosed on Wednesday, appealed to scientists not to accept the offer and accused Westinghouse of trying to get hold of our information ‘on the cheap’ after their attempt to secure a proper licensing agreement had failed.
Version B gave a clue to the news context in the intro and the background in paragraph 3. Like version A this page-one background fails to indicate Mr Benn’s personal involvement and does not mention his attack on Westinghouse:
Technology Minister Mr. Benn will meet 250 scientists at the atomic energy centre at Risley, Lancs, to discuss the brain drain.
Ten scientists from the Dounreay fast breeder reactor station in Caithness will also be at the meeting.
Mr. Benn’s visit was scheduled for after Christmas but has been brought forward, his Ministry said last night, ‘in view of the news that Westinghouse are inviting our scientists to apply for posts in the United States’.
The paper slips up here by relying on the Ministry spokesman for the background briefing in paragraph 3. The good thing about this treatment was the attempt to indicate the background in a phrase in the intro sentence, which could then be elaborated a little later.
Version C had the same technique, but did it much better because the intro reference gave the reader a clue at once to Mr Benn’s passionate involvement ‘. . . in his campaign to plug the threatened brain drain to America’:
The Minister of Technology, Mr. Tony Benn, has called a meeting with atom scientists today, in his campaign to plug the threatened brain drain to America.
Mr. Benn will fly to the Atomic Energy Authority Centre at Risley, Lancs, to address 250 scientists and engineers, including a party being flown from Dounreay atomic station in Scotland.
The visit is one of a series Mr. Benn is making to atom stations, but he has brought it forward following reports that 24 Dounreay men have answered advertisements for jobs with the American Westinghouse company.
On Wednesday Mr. Benn published an open letter to scientists at Risley and Dounreay accusing Westinghouse of trying to get British scientific knowledge ‘on the cheap’.
The trouble with this paper’s development of the background in paragraphs 3 and 4 is that it spends just a bit too much time on yesterday’s news: the background is not succinct enough. The text editor would have improved the pace here if in paragraph 4, for instance, the words ‘published an open letter to scientists at Risley and Dounreay’ had been cut and simply left it at ‘On Wednesday Mr Benn accused . . .’
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