Pylon 2
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"You have an instinct for events,” he said. “If you were turned into a room with a hundred people you never saw before and two of them were destined to enact a homicide, you would go straight to them as crow to carrion; you would be there from the very first: you would be the one to run out and borrow a pistol from the nearest policeman for them to use. Yet you never seem to bring back anything but information. Oh you have that, all right, because we seem to get everything that the other papers do and we haven’t been sued yet and so doubtless it’s all that anyone should expect for five cents and doubtless more than they deserve. But it’s not the living breath of news. It’s just information. It’s dead before you even get back here with it.”
The reporter will do anything to get a story and get it as quickly as possible. He is so ruthless he will use whatever means necessary, even buy the gun himself if he needs to. His tactic is selfish and depicts no care or remorse towards his subjects, but it does highlight his commitment and passion for his own job.
I believe that the sentence portrays the thirst that a reporter has to create a story that he may even instigate it if he had to. This is not realistically speaking, but the sentence is expressing the dramatic eagerness to find a lead or create a story.
According to that sentence, it seems that the reporter is the catalyst to the people and the events that he reports on. He never seems to be directly involved but he acts as an accessory to the crime.
He has a natural tendency of catching events. He has a desire of investigating and discovering news but he also has a passion for people
The reporter should be able to catch and find the essential place or people in the event. “As crow to carrion”, it is the instinct of the a reporter to get to the center of an event before others do.
To describe the reporter to be like a “crow to carrion” seems contradictory. A crow would find carrion, the dead rotting substance (or events after it transpired), but the second description describes the reporter as someone who reaches the news before it occurs, someone who knows that something newsworthy will happen before it happens.
The second sentence could speak to how the reporter has a very natural instinct for news but doesn’t use the information in a newsworthy way.
You make a good point. People flock to scandals and controversies. Such stories presented by reporters generate more discussion among people. The fact that humans are greatly drawn to stories of mass homicides and love affairs over a report on for example, Bitcoin does show an that we have animal instinct, in the sense of where we draw our entertainment.
The sentence expresses the reporter’s willingness to be ambitious as a reporter. Although reporting news is his profession, he shows compassion for people by becoming directly involved in a potential homicide.
I feel that the second sentence shows the reporters lofty ambitions to investigate in order to find a lead or get the story at any cost, even including provoking the situation and the people.
This passage portrays the reporters thirst for a story, even if it doesn’t exist yet, even if the rime hasn’t happened but he knows who has the capacity to commit it he will ensure he has the means to do so just to go back with a story : “you would be the one to run out and borrow a pistol from the nearest policeman for them to use”.
Crime *
The second sentence says many things about the reporter. For one, it shows the distance the reporter will go for a story. This further shows the risks he is willing to take in terms of reporting a story. It also shows that the reporter knows where to be. Most importantly however, the last part of the statement entails that the reporter likes to create stories too. By providing the gun, he instigates the event that would transpire. In terms of how this impacts his relationship to the people, it shows that he likes to entertain his audience.
The second sentence says to me that the reporter is willing to do anything to get the story. Even facilitating that there even is a story. His relationship isn’t a detached one, but rather a merged one. Something I view as an issue.
The second sentence suggests that a reporter has just a much a sense for events as much as they have involvement. Their natural instinct for the events typically ushers them to become a part of it.
It’s talking about doing whatever you need to in order to get a good story. Even if that mean’s the reporter needs to be the one that initiates it or pushes it along.
I think the last part of the sentence is there just to exaggerate the reporters enthusiasm for the job. Hyperbole is used to drive home the point.
The editor means that although people are receiving the information, it is still edited and not natural. since a lot of media outlets are owned by rich folks, they have the last say and therefore the editor is expressing that is not the same as what the reporter is catching in the moments of event. it becomes a different news shortly after. I believe that the editor is expecting the reporter to be as raw as possible, because it is the only way the internal people can really know what has occurred before it is changed and altered for external
The editor makes a distinction between news and information, in the sense that everyone has access to information but news is what makes it exciting to read about, the source of the information. When the editor says the “living breath of news,” I think he is referring to something new that other papers have not reported on, whether it be a new perspective or a new occurrence. It seems that the editor is expecting the reporter to bring back something that simply isn’t regurgitated information.
I think that the editor means the core of main purpose of news, which is, delivering noteworthy events to an audience through professional journalism.
I do not think the reporter is unprofessional, but he has not quite grasped what to report on. Based on the text, “its just information. It’s dead before you…” that indicates that he’s just bringing stories, with no real value.
The “living breath of the news” is more than just a list of dull facts, it is a story with life and a personality. It is unique enough to capture one’s attention and get people talking. The editor is expecting the journalist to meet his expectations and deliver a story that is both worthy of the journalist’s skills, and the innovative time period.
The news that the editor wanted should be important for people to know, as the breath is important for people to survive. The editor expects the reporter to find something that people care to know.
I think what the editor means by the “living breath of the news”, based around the context of the other lines as well, is that the reporter isn’t introducing a new story here or rather is not giving him any information that could direct/introduce a new lede on the current story [at hand]; rather the reporter is digging into the personal lives of the people involved, which the editor feels is irrelevant. I think the editor is expecting the reporter to do a little more investigative journalism rather than gossip journalism; find some sort of detail or topic that other papers wouldn’t have thought to find and use it to tell a more livelier story.
I think the “living breath of the news” means that news is also describe as living that is happening and rapidly changing just like human’s life. The editor is expecting from the reporter to get a story that is interesting enough to edit even before it has been published or passed to media.
Living breath of the new is the essence of an event that the reporter is supposed to capture. It should be more than just a record of the events that transpired. The breath is synonymous to the motives that caused the event being reported. For example, if a reporter is covering a mass shooting, then “living breath” is not reporting the sequence of events, but rather the cause, which might have transpired months prior. The editor’s expectations are that the reporter investigate further than what all reporter will eventually tell. The editor wants the reporter to find details that bring emotion for those awaiting information from the press.
The reporter either neglects or fails to make the story relatable to the reader on an emotional level. He’s great at telling what happened, but not how it affected his subjects.
“Living breath of news” could refer to how vital it is for news to be relevant and prompt, because it could be the matter of a week, a day, or even an hour for news to become irrelevant, perhaps because it was already reported, the situation has changed, or people have moved on.
The editor may be expecting more prompt news from the reporter, stories that are more relevant instead of stories that no one cares about anymore.
The editor wants to see fresher content. Repetitive information with the same structure and reminiscent headlines of other top reporters aren’t going to cut it. With this fresher content, more information will be displayed with facts and deeper details from a particular story. Instead of focusing on the tabloids, it’s time to be unique and bring out the entirety of an event.
An editors job is the ensure the reporter a) gets the story and b) makes sure it is factual and riveting and that is essentially what the editor is doing. The editor is not treating the reporting in a way to be liked, but to make sure the reporter gets the news whatever means it takes to do so and formats it to depict a news story not a novel nor feature.
What the editor means by the “living breath of the news” is that the living breath is the story, we can all read facts but the news is the story.
I think he’s talking about how the reporter is going more in depth with the lives of those that’s he’s reporting on than is necessary, and that the reporter’s time would be better spent trying to find a new angle or viewpoint for the story different from that of other reporters. The editor want’s something unique that people can only get from that particular paper.
General Document Comments 0
Based on the way the editor treats him, I envision a rookie reporter who has a knack for sniffing out events (since the editor says so himself) but fails at bringing back newsworthy stories. I imagine going forward, the reporter is going to try new ways, maybe even cross the line, to bring back a story for the editor because he doesn’t want to let his editor down.
The reporter is not a rookie, but rather acts as a reporter on his level would by defying the structure/format imposed by the editor that restricts his writing. At this stage of the reporters career he resists the constraints imposed by the required manner of writing and wants to maintain his individuality in his writing style as any writer would want.
I think the editor sees him as a young reporter that needs to build his way up to authencity. He might be good or be a natural news reporter but he still needs to grow and learn more about the standards that define journalistic intengrity of a reporter.
There is no solid evidence of the reporters age, but based on the interaction between the two and how the editor tells the reporter what a story should consist of, I got the impression that the editors is talking to the reporter similar to how a professor might talk to a young undergraduate.
The reporter may be down on his luck, or not doing enough to achieve the story his editor is looking for. He definitely has the right skill set, as illustrated in the passage, but maybe he hasn’t found that one story that gets his heart racing and mind spinning. In a news world plastered with identical information, he has learned to conform rather than stand out.
I’m picturing the reporter who hates to lose, really eager to gather information and a person who is passionate to his job.
Perhaps he hates to lose his creative freedom in his writing style
Based on the editor’s comment, we know the reporter is good at bringing back information. I think he does this not due to a matter of losing, rather a matter of being able to report on an event first.
Also, the fact that he brings so much information infers that he does not know how to properly filter what constitutes as rich news subject.
Describing the reporter as a “crow to carrion” or a passive participant in a homicide doesn’t sound like the editor exactly appreciates the reporter’s methods. The reporter seems like someone who is trying, who is working hard at his job, but is having difficulty in coming back with proper content.
He seems responsible and also he is enjoying the moments that he is spending on getting information. The editor criticize the reporter’s job because the reporter is bringing information that does not have anything impressive according to the editor’s point of view.
The reporter seems to be well educated and ambitious, despite not meeting the editor’s expectations in regards to news stories. The potential is there, yet the editor wants a more direct and informative content. Those are two elements that can help readers gravitate towards his work.
Based on this passage the editor sees a lot of raw potential in the young reporter, who is still trying to grow and learn as a journalist. The editor notices and appreciates the effort the reporter has in finding the lead, however feels that the content is off the mark and needs to be more candid.
The picture that is drawn of the reporter based on the editor’s comments shows that the editor is not pleased with the reporter’s work. The editor to a degree treats the reporter as a juvenile and amateur in his work. The last part, tells that the editor finds the reporter to be slow in his work, but the way its described, it seems like the editor wants to say that in a harsh, embarrassing manner.
The owners want a straightforward, detailed description of the events as they happened, no more and no less
The image of the reporter I received was a reporter who seems to have an instinct for eventful happenings but is unable to deliver them in a way acceptable to the editor. The editor seems to give him credit, but also jab at him.
I see the reporter as someone who as a lot of natural skill in his ability to find interesting and compelling stories, but as someone who isn’t used to writing in the way the editor wants. The way the editor interacts with him makes it seem like the reporter has enough raw talent to perform better than he currently is.
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