Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 129.djvu/53

Rh Mr. Louis Seibold did in his dispatch to the New York World. After not ing earlier in his account that 'Five times his [President Harding’s] reading was interrupted by applause, but at no time was there a demonstration in which all of the people gathered in front of him united,' he quoted the President's peroration and then wrote: — The applause that approved this sentiment was rather more general than had followed any other statement made by the new President. Before it hud died away, and while the Marine Band was rendering the national anthem, the crowd began to melt away. Mr. Harding acknowledged the congratulations that were showered upon him by the members of his Cabinet and the leaders of the two Houses.

If, on the other hand, the reporter were favorably inclined toward Mr. Harding and impressed with the speech, he might, see its reception as did the correspondent of the New York Herald, who quoted President Harding’s final sentence and then continued: — There was a palpable moment of absolute silence. The President remained as if transfixed. The small group standing with him in the white-covered stand seemed Stayed from speech or action by the deep and moving solemnity of the voluntary promise. Then a wave of applause started up from the fringe of the crowd nearest the portico, rolled backward and to the right and left, carried through the massed thousands and became a solid roar. The President waved a hand in happy acknowledgement and turned to meet the eager compliments of his friends.

Readers of the Herald on that March 5 must have thought the address an immense success; readers of the Times and World undoubtedly gained quite a different, opinion; and yet each correspondent may have described the event conscientiously as it appeared to him. In such eases it is almost impossible not to let personal feeling color one’s report.

News may also be colored in the process of selection as well as in that of presentation. Let me take an example such as frequently occurs in my own experience. It is my duty to give to the press the news of a great, university. I do not happen to be a newspaper reporter, but my problem is essentially the same as the reporter’s. When the university’s enrollment figures for the year are made up, the Freshman Class shows a gain in numbers. If, in my announcement to the press, I compare the 1921 figures with those of 1920, or with those of any other year since the war, the gain looks very large. On the other hand, if I compare them with those of 1911, when the Freshman Class happened to be unusually big, the gain looks less impressive. If I mention the fact that part of the gain is caused by a difference in the method of classifying undergraduates, which automatically adds to the Freshman Class a number of men who were formerly listed elsewhere, it looks still less significant. There are thus three or four ways of making the statement. Even though I am honestly anxious to give an accurate impression, it is hard to decide just what facts to select for presentation. And there is, of course, always a temptation to make the gain look more imposing than it, actually is.

Or let us suppose that a reporter is sent, to cover a dinner. Shall he devote his leading paragraph to the size ami enthusiasm of the gathering, or to the consternation caused by the single untoward event, of the evening — a violent and inappropriate statement made by one of the speakers? This again is a question of selection. Sometimes it is a toss-up in the reporter’s mind between the two treatments of the event; and yet the opinion which thousands of readers form of the organization which