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GETTING THE NEWS!
AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST "STORY" IN HISTORY.
["EXPRESS CORRESPONDENT.]
NEW YORK, April 23rd. You may be interested in a summary of the manner in which the greatest nows event of our time was covered. Never in the history of Amorican journalism has there beon an occasion that necessitated the intense, concentrated strain and rapid working crowded into the few dark hours of Thursday night and after the Carpathia landed morning, her tragic It was human cargo in New York. dynamic drive of five hours, through which we were buoyed by the excitement, but we felt the reaction later, and only now are we returning to normal.
LIGHTNING, INTERVIEWS.
On the pier it was simply a question of lighting action, seizing any passenger who happened to be nearest, and squeezing him dry in the shortest possible time. You had to take whoever came to hand. Selection was impossible. Hysterical women, pale-faced men, women carrying cooing, wide-eyed babies, one man bearing a little brown dog saved from the wreck, solicitous relatives, all ware jumped toge ther in a great mass about the gang-plank, and in small, isolated, weeping groups up and down the length of the pier.
The fleeting seconds could not be wasted trying to induce reluctant passengers to relate their experiences. Each lost second meant two words lost, and each word that night was beyond all wealth. If a sur vivor would not respond instantly to lend- ing questions, there was a rush for some ond dise, for the whole world was crying for copy, copy, copy.
Never tefere was there such urgent To begin chronologically. None of us necessity for immediate copy. Only once knew until toward the end whether we did 1 see any time thrown away squeezing would be permitted to meet the Carpathia a stone. The first people off the boat were some distance away from New York, Dr. Frauenthal, a well-known Now York and, by boarding her, secure the revela- physician, and his wife. He was one of tions of the passengers leisurely and with the few passengers recognised-by his flow- greater primary detail, or whether all the ing red heard. His wife was ill, and she work would have to be done with un- was taken immediately to A waiting precedented baste at the pier, after the motor-car, but the doctor remained behind vessel docked. The Federal Government a moment, and the reporters instantly sur was willing to send a revenue cutter from rounded him. He started to talk, when Boston and another from New York, with relatives rushed up and dragged him off, reportera aboard, to intercept the Car- telling him he must not say a word. pathie, but this offer was made contingent ou consent being granted by the White Star and Cunard Lines. Both companies refused permission, and the plan had to be abandoned.
OUTTING THE RED YAPE.
Then we turned our attention to cutting the red tape that blocked the passage to the pier. The steamship companies mat tered about cravings of abnormal curiosity
The reporters followed, and he swayed back with them. He was perfectly willing to be interviewed, but his friends again surrounded him, and away he was dragged once more under guard. They got him a third time, and a fourth, but his relatives a physician and must keep out of the nows- became greatly excited, shouting he was He himself was too bewildered Papers. now to do anything more than grin in a nervous, hesitant manner. All the while as if we were trying to arrange a plea-la woman reporter kept shouting at him :---- eurable jaunt and the J. Pierpont Mor gan Company, which organised the Ship ping Trust, put itself on record, to our great good fortune. The firm wrote to Mr. Locb, collector of the Port of New York, who has control of all pier passes, urging that nowspaper representatives be barred from the whart. The collector im- mediately made the letter public, and all objection to the presence of reporters on the pier instantly vanished--a tribute to the uses of publicity in a democracy.
A third difficulty arose, concerning the distribution of tickets. Three hundred applications for Press passes' were receiv
"Doctor, your patients want to know about your rescue! Please remember your patients are very anxious about you!"
None of the others could get in a word while the woman continued her psycho- logical experiment of trying to impress on the doctor that it was his duty to his The incident took not patients to talk.
Other more than two or three minutes, passengers were ushing through the lane of people who lined. the way from the gang-plank, and so the reporters could spare no more time with the doctor.
My presence on the pier was due to my ed, and, of course, all could not be grant belief that quicker action in the long run ed. It was decided to allow only the would be possible if I could see things for myself and then return to my office. So, three Press associations to be represented at the wharf when the survivors disem arranged with the day editor of the barked Ten tickets were given to each affan Bureau, Mr. Carroll, to assist me Association, and all other applications during the evening. I left him in charge There was an immediate of my cable book at 6.30 on Thursday even were refused. reading of the Riot Act by the New Yorking, and went to the pier. I counted on newspapers. So there was a reconsidera-heing able to get back to my office by the tion, and the tickets to the Press agencies with me. I saw no other representa cies time the real work was starting, and luck were recalled. In their stead, each agency received six passes, each New York five of an English paper on the pier. morning paper four, and each New York. evening paper, two. After further agitu- tion, two or three representatives of Lon-
UNNERVING SCENES.
Most of the first passengers off the Cur
They were principally women, and their pitiful screams as they
don papers were included in the distributia were hysterical and could not be tion, but no other paper received any of interviewed. the procions yellow cards. Perhaps one hundred Press tickets were issued in all.
Belief was general that the Carpathia would not arrive at her pier until after midnight, if, indeed, she were eat held back by fog until daylight She might slip through the mist an hour or two before midnight, but whatever the time, it would be so late that the utmost haste would be necessary in transmitting details of the Titanic's awful fute from the pier -for the quantity of news demanded was measured by pages and not columns.
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throw themselves into the arms of their Purchase Department, INVESTMENT REGISTRY, LTD., 2, Waterloo Place, London, 8.W., relatives would have unnerved as under any ordinary circumstance. I was after and I dropped British views, principally, two or three Americans when the
passen gers began to flow into the covered pier, after a brief word with them. Then Fate flung me at 2 London resident, and when his narrative was secured, I had the good fortune to be able to squeeze through a group surrounding a woman survivor living in Calgary. I put queries to her, and she was so calm and business-like that the questions and answers flew like the discharge of gatlings.
On the
The newspapers and Press associations engaged for the night practically every About twenty minutes had now gone room in an hotel opposite the Cunard since the decking of the Carpathia. I did pier, in West-street. From this hotel.not want to remain away from my office two, three, and four private telephones any longer, and leaving the pier on the were run to the newspaper and Press as-run, I looked around for a taxicab to take Hociations' offices. at the wires being me across Fourteenth-street to the subway. etrung for that one night only. There are I saw none disengaged, and so I boarded several public telephones on the pier, and £ Fourteenth-street electric tram. It was a few early arrivals among the reportera crowded, but luck came again. rang up their offices from the wharf, and tram was an English woman steerage sur- kept talking about the weather until the vivor. I interviewed her during the ten- Carpathia arrived. Then the first brief minute ride across Fourteenth-street, words from the first passengers ashore though with mach difficulty, for her father was with her, and they were too wrapped were rushed to the waiting reporters in the pier telephone booths by their asso-in each other, after her restoration from ciates, thus saving the three or four the sea, for her to pay much attention to minutes necessary to cross West-street. ne. However, I got some essential points First editions were being held like crouch-from her-notably that though asleep for- ing sprinters for the starting shot, and award at the time of the collision, she had minute saved then was the equal of an heard nothing whatever, hour in normal times.
By half-past ten I was back at my cable-
But the public telephone could not be held captive long, for men were too badly book with three exclusive interviews. The needed to interview the survivors. Press news was just starting to rush in over the tickets had been distributed ton sparingly telephones. A brief introduction I bad before leaving the office, subject for reporters to act as telephone contrais wri when the rush really began, and after a to telephonic change from the pier, which hundred or so initial words were sent turned out to be annecessary, had been through the public telephones they were placed on the wire for you, as well as about a hundred additional words which deserted.
Mr. Carroll had been able to glean.
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Thereafter, as each reporter got an in- terview, he raced across West-street to the hotel, speeded into the private room bis
Once in my office. I began writing my raper or Press association had rented,
Never before have I been able to write. and dictated his story over his private interviews, handing the matter, about
I had my wire to an expert typist with receiver nd thirty words at a time, to the capable so fast as I did that night. justed to his cars Then the reporter operator, some ten feet away. I worked first experience in beating a speedy cable made a breathless journey back to the in the operating room, with fifteen to operator for, by the time I had finished, pier for more interviews. The best re-twenty telegraph instruments ticking I was about fifty words ahead of the tele- porters only were assigned to the inter- loudly on all sides, but I heard not graph instrumentay, three or four- Completing my three in-minutes. A little after midnight, when I viewing work, and probably never before single sound. have so many bighly-paid journalists been terviews, I gave my attention to the was closing down, came your query asking pitted against one another in so concen- Laffan Burean's report. Mr. Carroll had whether Captain Smith had ecommitted trated an area.
beon-busy-going through the Laffan copy, suicide. You were informed immediately But the best of the best, the highest marking the most important details, while that the report was without foundation, was cabling my own manuscript, and confirmation of that fact having just magnitude stars on the principal morning papers, did no actual work at all at the he had it all tabulated for me when I was come in.
I was able to use pier. They were there, but they spent ready to receive it. perhaps half an hour listening to the in- some, but the matter was pouring out like terviewers at work and absorbing the half a dozen floods, and because of the atmosphere. Then they motored back full rapidity with which I had to work, owing Thereafter they to the five hours' difference in time between speed to their offices.
New York and London, I was far abead Not leader, were the lead" writers.
Page three of is the of the Laffan matter. The American "Lend"
world he fallawad he
It was 2.45 a.m. (7.45 London time) when
I left my office, and an hour later I was in bed. At 8 a.m. I was working again, and the rush on Friday was so persistent that there was hardly time to breathe. About 4 p.m. the work began to slacken, and now it is possible to breathe once more
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