Descriptive Writing

Since the newspapers began to be more than a daily record of events, since the distinguishing characteristic of journalistic writing ceased to be brevity, it has become more and more necessary every year that the reporter should have a well-developed power for describing what he sees. Conciseness is still demanded, but it is the conciseness of short, suggestive sentences rather than the briefest possible account of an occurrence. The reporter, therefore, who was sent from the Sun office to get the details of a cattle auction, and began his stickful of report by telling how " Twenty Jersey cows swirled their tails in the air," and then noted the prices that these attractive animals brought, did his duty in a model fashion. He suggested a picture of a commonplace event that was so interesting, so surprising, that I doubt not every purchaser of the Sun read the whole item to see what it was about. I use the word "commonplace" under protest, for it does not seem to me that any event should be commonplace -to a newspaper man. Everything visible can be made interesting by adequate description, and an ordinary incident loses its commonplace character when a reporter busies himself with trying to see how its thread bare aspect may be burnished with romance, and a new interest in it conveyed to the reader.