It follows that in the reporting of strikes, the easiest way is to let
the news be uncovered by the overt act, and to describe the event as
the story of interference with the reader's life. That is where his
attention is first aroused, and his interest most easily enlisted. A
great deal, I think myself the crucial part, of what looks to the
worker and the reformer as deliberate misrepresentation on the part of
newspapers, is the direct outcome of a practical difficulty in
uncovering the news, and the emotional difficulty of making distant
facts interesting unless, as Emerson says, we can "perceive (them) to
be only a new version of our familiar experience" and can "set about
translating (them) at once into our parallel facts." [Footnote: From
his essay entitled _Art and Criticism_. The quotation occurs in a
passage cited on page 87 of Professor R. W. Brown's, _The Writer's
Art._]
If you study the way many a strike is reported in the press, you will
find, very often, that the issues are rarely in the headlines, barely
in the leading paragraphs, and sometimes not even mentioned anywhere.
A labor dispute in another city has to be very important before the
news account contains any definite information as to what is in
dispute. The routine of the news works that way, with modifications it
works that way in regard to political issues and international news as
well.
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