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Show FALL 2013 UHQ pp 304-385_UHQ Stories/pp.4-68 9/16/13 1:25 PM Page 341 hArOLD BrIDE INTErVIEW It was Isaac Russell, working without assignment from the Times, who obtained the exclusive interview with Bride. He turned it into the best-known eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic largely through good fortune, but also through pluck and resolution—not through payment of a fee. The Times did pay Bride for the interview after the fact, but he had not withheld information to preserve the value of the interview. Ironically, as noted above, even the semiofficial history of the Times failed to correctly credit Russell as the Times reporter who obtained and told Bride’s famous account. The April 19, 1912, issue of the New York Times—which ran as its lead article the story told by Harold Bride to Isaac Russell—went down in newspaper lore as one of the greatest issues ever published. Original copies of it became unusually valuable as a collector’s item. Many years later, Carr Van Anda was reported to have visited Alfred Lord Northcliffe’s Daily Mail offices in London. When Van Anda met the newspaper’s editor, the editor “opened a desk drawer at his right hand. In it lay the New York Times of April 19, 1912. He said ‘We keep this as an example of the greatest accomplishment in news reporting.’”53 The final ignominy Russell endured was that, though he received a modest $25 bonus, he received payment for the publication of the Bride story only once, even though the Times reprinted it on several occasions and newspapers and magazines all over the world described the account countless times.54 In this era, the New York Times paid its reporters once per article, on a “space” basis. If an article was good enough to be reprinted, the newspaper and its readers benefitted, not the reporter. As Ike recalled, Newspaperdom is a funny world. The next Sunday, the Times reprinted the story by “request” of people who wrote in by the scores that they broke down in the midst of reading it and finished in a flood of tears. My pay came by “space.” On account of the huge exploitation of the story by the paper and its resale all over the English-speaking world, I asked if they could not allow my “space rate” on this special supplement publication. “No,” was the answer “you got your space the first time and now the story is ours. We would have got it anyhow, we had all our plans made if you had not slipped in on them.”55 In his unhappiness over his treatment in the whole matter, Russell neglected to acknowledge the congratulations and small bonus Adolph Ochs had sent through Arthur Greaves.56 Russell’s preparation of one of the most famous newspaper stories in history regained for him the favor of 53 Berger, Story of the New York Times, 201. Arthur Greaves to Isaac Russell, April 23, 1912, box 5, fd. 1, Russell Papers. Greaves noted how Adolph Ochs, the publisher, had asked him to send Russell the bonus. Greaves also wrote that “You have been made fully aware of the opinion of everybody in the office that it was very well done.” Ibid. 55 Russell, unpublished manuscript on his visit with Harold Bride, 9–10, Russell Papers. 56 Arthur Greaves to Isaac Russell, April 23, 1912, box 5, fd. 1, Russell Papers; Tifft and Jones, The Trust, 805. 54 341 |
