Original Associated Press Report of Lincoln's Assassination | Hacker News Reader

Original Associated Press Report of Lincoln's Assassination

bigstory.ap.org

40 pointsJacobAldridge11 comments

Contrast the vivid storytelling here with the modern approach taken to JFK's assassination, which begins:

"President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin today.

"He died of a wound in the brain caused by a rifle bullet that was fired at him as he was riding through downtown Dallas in a motorcade.

"Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was riding in the third car behind Mr. Kennedy's, was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States 99 minutes after Mr. Kennedy's death."

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1122.h...

The JFK story gets us to the facts but quickly bores. Lincoln's takes a while to get going but holds attention right to the end. Masterful.

I was struck by the same feeling, that this piece was a gripping read on what was already a gripping story to tell. His "brain was oozing out" was a point I stopped and read again. What changed the style of reporting I wonder?

Most likely the decreasing relevance of printed news. Most major events were soon known more quickly thanks to radio, then television, then internet.

I googled the question. Weirdly, the answer uses Lincoln's assassination as an example. It was the fulcrum event between new and old. Here's how the inverted pyramid report of his death began:

"This evening at about 9:30 p.m. at Ford’s Theatre, the President, while sitting in his private box with Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Harris and Major Rathburn, was shot by an assassin, who suddenly entered the box and approached behind the President. "The assassin then leaped upon the stage, brandishing a large dagger or knife, and made his escape in the rear of the theatre. "The pistol ball entered the back of the President’s head and penetrated nearly through the head. The wound is mortal."

http://www.poynter.org/news/media-innovation/12755/birth-of-...

The technological driver wasn't the addition of new media but the telegraph, which meant news stories took on a new urgency -- and editors had to make quick cuts to stories close to print time as they decided which stories deserved most column inches.

Will the Internet kill the inverted pyramid approach? There is no longer any cost associated with column inches printed or characters transmitted.

The cost is measured also in reader's attention. The implicit contract with the reader is that if you just read the first paragraph, you won't miss the essential fact in para 5.

Probably because everyone who was reading about JFK's assassination in the paper already knew about it. The emotional storytelling (Cronkite crying and all that) was on Television. The purpose of the newspaper was to record what happened more than report it.

I don't know why, (probably mostly because I'm accustomed to modern new reports)

but that strikes me as a sort of absurd way to learn that the President was dead

It lacks an urgency of information. Presumably the headline mentions it, but that the body gets around to mentioning he was shot in the third paragraph and that he died...well, it's hinted at in the seventh.

In 1956, an eye witness to the assassination was on a game show, which itself is now on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_iq5yzJ-Dk

There's something about how this bridges the past to the present that I find deeply fascinating.

Great read, thanks. One sentence in particular stood out to me: "... a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President's box." I found myself contrasting the initial reaction with likely reactions in the modern era. I'm going to guess that in many places in the US, many wouldn't know that they had heard a gun shot. Also, I suspect the reaction would be different in those that knew what they heard.

The comments on this article are pretty good. I know the lede is only buried five sentences in, but the report really does sound like it's going to critique the play and performances of the first two acts before it gets around to recounting what happened in the third.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com