The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

DANA: HIS "SUN" AND ITS CITY 243
the vital fact in the story, and to produce it, tell it,
write it out.
Dana saw the usefulness to a reporter of certain
qualities which are acquired neither at school nor in
the office:
In the first place, he must know the truth when he
hears it and sees it. There are a great many men who
are born without that faculty, unfortunately. But there
are some men that a lie cannot deceive; and that is a
very precious gift for a reporter, as well as for anybody else. The man who has it is sure to live long
and prosper; especially if he is able to tell the truth
which he sees, to state the fact or the discovery that he
has been sent out after, in a clear and vivid and interesting manner.
The invariable law of the newspaper is to be interesting. Suppose you tell all the truths of science in a
way that bores the reader; what is the good? The
truths don't stay in the mind, and nobody thinks any
the better of you because you have told the truth
tediously. The reporter must give his story in such a
way that you know he feels its qualities and events and
is interested in them.
Dana was catholic not only in his taste for news, but
in his idea of the manner of writing it. Nothing gave
him more uneasiness than to find that a Sun man was
drifting into a stereotyped way of handling a news
story or writing an editorial article. Even as he advised young men to read everything from Shakespeare
and Milton down, he repeatedly warned them against
the imitation, unconscious or otherwise, of another's
style:
Do not take any model. Every man has his own
natural style, and the thing to do is to develop it into
simplicity and clearness. Do not, for instance, labor