The Ability to Kill Read Online Free PDF Page A

balanced sentences appear, as if by magic, in his notebook.
    Good, simple fun; until one day a terrible thing happens. A harassed editor takes leave of his senses, and the dreamer is actually asked to report a trial.
    The day came for me eventually. The alleged crime had been committed in extraordinary circumstances, and the case had already attracted wide attention. An American news agency, serving the Hearst papers among others, asked me to report the Old Bailey trial.
    Eagerly I accepted. Within twenty-four hours panic had set in.
    The American in charge of the news agency’s London office was a sleepy-eyed professional with long experience of ‘wire service’ operation. Over luncheon he explained to me what the assignment would entail.
    I need not worry about the literal reporting of the case. He had already arranged with a British agency to share the cost (staggeringly high it seemed) of a complete daily transcript of the proceedings. This would be roughly edited, and teletyped to the New York office as it was received. My task would be to dramatise the daily progress of the trial, to report trends, highlight personalities, make the whole thing ‘come alive’ for Americans from San Diego to Portland, Maine. New York, he told me a trifle wistfully, had said that I was to be given a ‘hunting licence’ on adjectives and adverbs.
    At the time, I did not understand what he meant by this. Now,I think, I do. There is a tradition in American newspaper reporting which forbids the reporter to ‘editorialise.’ He may write only the received facts. This is not to say, however, that he only reports the truth. He may, indeed must, report what someone has said, even if he knows it to be a lie; but he may not say that he knows that it is a lie; that is editorialising. The ‘fact’ which he is reporting is the fact that the statement was made. The theory behind all this is that it is not the reporter’s business to tell the reader which facts are really facts, but only to report what has been said and done. It is up to the free and independent reader to decide for himself what he believes. The reporter who writes the ‘truth as he sees it’ is hell-bent for corruption.
    The principle is admirable; its practice has drawbacks. One of the reasons why the late Senator McCarthy was able so rapidly and so easily to lie his way to power was that everything he said was always faithfully reported. The New York
Times
once acknowledged the problem, but also shrugged it off: ‘It is difficult, if not impossible, to ignore charges by Senator McCarthy just because they are usually proved false. The remedy lies with the reader.’ As Richard Rovere has pointed out, ‘to many people, this was rather like saying that if a restaurant serves poisoned food, it is up to the diner to refuse it.’
    What was meant by a ‘hunting licence’ then, was a pundit’s right to comment on what was said and done during the trial; moreover I was given that right in respect of the one event for which it must always be denied by British editors—a legal process which is still
sub judice.
I did have sense enough to question that aspect of the job, but was assured that, as none of the subscribing newspapers had British editions, there could be no contempt of court involved. It was the only piece of reassurance I received.
    ‘We’d like a couple of pre-trial pieces,’ I was told; ‘say a couple of thousand words apiece. The first one should outline the case as it comes from the magistrates’ court. The second should be a run-down on the trial personalities involved; the judge, counsel pro and con, Scotland Yard brass, the local police, the accused man, probable trial tactics and so on. Of course, when the trial starts you’ll have plenty to work with. You’ll have to keep the pieces fairly short though. Not more than a thousand words a day. And there’s just one more thing I’d better fill you in on—the time factor. New York is five hours