An overt act is often necessary before an event can be regarded as news.
Commenting on this aspect of the situation, Mr. Lippmann discusses this very example of the broker, John Smith, and his hypothetical bankruptcy. “That overt act,” says Mr. Lippmann,9 “‘uncovers’ the news about Smith. Whether the news will be followed up or not is another matter. The point is that before a series of events become news they have usually to make themselves noticeable in some more or less overt act. Generally, too, in a crudely overt act. Smith’s friends may have known for years that he was taking risks, rumors may even have reached the financial editor if Smith’s friends were talkative. But apart from the fact that none of this could be published because it would be libel, there is in these rumors nothing definite on which to peg a story. Something definite must occur that has unmistakable form. It may be the act of going into bankruptcy, it may be a fire, a collision, an assault, a riot, an arrest, a denunciation, the introduction of a bill, a speech, a vote, a meeting, the expressed opinion of a well-known citizen, an editorial in a newspaper, a sale, a wage-schedule, a price change, the proposal to build a bridge.... There must be a manifestation. The course of events must assume a certain definable shape, and until it is in a phase where some aspect is an accomplished fact, news does not separate itself from the ocean of possible truth.”
From the point of view of the practical journalist, Mr. Irwin has applied this observation to the making of the news of the day. He says:10 “I state a platitude when I say that government by the people is the essence of democracy. In theory, the people watch and know; when, in the process of social and industrial evolution, they see a new evil becoming important, they found institutions to regulate it or laws to repress it. They cannot watch without light, know without teachers. The