In the American paper the idea is that the reader is so
busy that he must first be offered the news in one gulp. After that
if he likes it he can go on and eat some more of it. So the opening
sentence must give the whole thing. Thus, suppose that a leading
member of the United States Congress has committed suicide. This is
the way in which the American reporter deals with it.
"Seated in his room at the Grand Hotel with his carpet slippers on
his feet and his body wrapped in a blue dressing-gown with pink
insertions, after writing a letter of farewell to his wife and
emptying a bottle of Scotch whisky in which he exonerated her from
all culpability in his death, Congressman Ahasuerus P. Tigg was
found by night-watchman, Henry T. Smith, while making his rounds
as usual with four bullets in his stomach."
Now let us suppose that a leading member of the House of Commons
in England had done the same thing. Here is the way it would be
written up in a first-class London newspaper.
The heading would be HOME AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. That is inserted
so as to keep the reader soothed and quiet and is no doubt thought
better than the American heading BUGHOUSE CONGRESSMAN BLOWS OUT
BRAINS IN HOTEL. After the heading HOME AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE
the English paper runs the subheading INCIDENT AT THE GRAND HOTEL.
The reader still doesn't know what happened; he isn't meant to.
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