=72. Persons Seeking Advertisement.=--From the standpoint of the newspaper man, there are three classes of persons one encounters in interviewing: those who talk, those who will not, and those who do not know they are divulging secrets. Concerning the first little need be said. Such persons talk because they enjoy seeing their names in print. It is a marvel how many men and women object with seeming sincerity to their names being made public property, yet at the same time give the reporter full details for the story he wishes and hand him their cards so that he may spell their names correctly. Many such celebrities will stand for any kind of interview, so that the reporter need only determine in advance what he would have them say to make a good story. With them advertisement is so much personal gain; they are glad to accede to any sort of odd statement for the sake of possible public notice. Such persons are to be avoided; advertisements are written by the advertising manager or his helpers and fixed prices are charged.
=73. Persons Refusing to Talk.=--With the second and third classes, however, the interviewer must be careful, particularly with the second. Men who will not talk are usually well acquainted with the world. Sometimes they may be forced into making statements by asking them questions that will almost certainly arouse their anger and so make them speak hastily, but the reporter himself must be doubly careful in such cases to keep his own temper sweet. Oftentimes such men, particularly society criminals and others who possess an especial fear of having their wrong-doing known among their friends, try to keep from being written up by saying they are unwilling to make any kind of statement for publication, but that they will do so in court if anything is published about them. The reporter will not let such a threat daunt him. He will get the facts and present them to the city editor with the person's hint of criminal action, then let the city editor determine the problem of publication.
=74. Persons Divulging Secrets.=--Frequently a person of the second class may be slyly converted into the group of those who do not know they are divulging secrets, by the reporter deliberately leading away from the topic about which he has come for an interview, then circling round to the hazardous subject when the person interviewed is off his guard. Probably the most ticklish situation in all reporting is here. To make a person tell what he knows without knowing that he is telling is the pinnacle of the art of interviewing. As Mr. Richard Harding Davis has so exactly expressed it: