should contain is determined by the status of the case in court. If a verdict or decision is rendered, that news is naturally the feature. If the trial is not completed, either the most significant testimony or the net result of the day's proceedings may be made the feature. As the trial goes on from day to day, it is necessary to explain briefly in each story, usually in the lead, what the case deals with, who the parties are, and before whom and where the trial is being conducted, so that the situation will be clear to readers who have not seen the preceding stories of the trial. The reporter must not take for granted that, because all this information was given once when the accused person was arrested, or when the trial was begun, he need not give his readers information every day as to the essential elements of persons, time, place, cause, result, etc. Each of these essentials, as in other stories, may be the feature of the lead. When, for example, a jury has been deliberating for a long time in an interesting case, the exact time at which they reached their verdict may be placed in the first group of words, before the verdict itself.
Hearings before committees of legislative bodies that are getting information and arguments from men for and against proposed legislation, and the taking of testimony by investigating committees, partake so nearly of the nature of trials that the forms and methods of the one apply to the other with little or no modification.
Various forms of leads for reports of trials, hearings, and investigations, given below, show some of the possibilities.
(1)
To continue its study of the best
methods of issuing railroad stocks and
bonds, President Taft's Railway Securities
Committee met today in the
banking house of J. W. Smith & Co.,
3 William St.
