Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 129.djvu/55

 covered and 100 times greater than the average speed of the lowly star. In fact, it is the greatest velocity known to astronomy.

The telescope at Flagstaff is situated on San Francisco peak at an altitude of 13,000 feet. Harvard astronomers are manifesting much interest in the matter because of its supposed great distance from the stars ordinarily seen in the heavens and because of the tremendous speed at which it is traveling.

Now, the facts of the case were that the discoverer’s name was not Sliphe, but Slipher; that he was not connected with Harvard, but with the Lowell Observatory; that he did not discover the nebula, which had been known for a long time, but only ascertained its speed; that the telescope at Flagstaff is not at an altitude of thirteen thousand feet, but of about seven thousand; and that it is not situated on San Francisco Peak, but merely in the neighborhood. It would be difficult for ignorance and carelessness to bring about more errors in the space of two paragraphs. What happened was that the Lowell Observatory reported its discovery to the Harvard Observatory, which made a brief announcement to the press; and the news-writer took this announcement, and tried, as he would have put it, to ‘make a good story out of it.'

‘Make a good story.’ That is the cause of infinite newspaper inaccuracy. It is to the interest of each reporter and editor to make a small piece of news look like a big one. College officials soon become resigned to the fact that, to the press, any teacher at a college, no matter of how low a rank, is a ‘ professor.’ An assistant in applied physiology at the Harvard Medical School, a man on one of the lowest rungs of the academic ladder, was arrested not long ago for having a still in his house; and the headline on the front page of a New York paper, the next morning, referred to him as a 'noted Harvard professor.' Ignorance of the significance of academic titles may have been partly responsible; but, pretty surely, the desire to make the story look as big as possible was a contributory cause.

The same desire often leads reporters at a public meeting to lay disproportionate emphasis on a sensational remark made by a speaker. The remark may have little real significance, and the reporters may misquote it because they happen to be half asleep when it is made, or are not even in the room and get it second-hand afterward from some neighbor of uncertain memory; but, if the remark seems striking enough to make a big story, that fact may outweigh in their minds every other consideration. Akin to the temptation to make a small story look big is the temptation to make an otherwise dignified story look breezy. A Boston newspaper recently printed an interview with a Harvard physician on the importance of using the feet, properly in standing and walking, as shown in the physical examinations of Harvard freshmen. It was an interesting interview, carefully prepared by an intelligent and well-equipped reporter. But the editor to whom the interview was submitted decided that it was too heavy: it needed to be brightened up. So he headed it —

WHY BE SAD? FEET ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL JOY

And the illustration — a photograph of the physician — the editor surrounded with a border of 'Joys' and 'Glooms,' after the fashion of the comic cartoons. In thus misrepresenting the nature of the interview, he succeeded in making ridiculous the man who had taken the trouble to give it; but to this particular editor nothing mattered except that he