Lesson 5 The facts
Editors of newspapers and magazines often go to extremes to provide their readers with unimportant
facts and statistics. Last year a journalist had been instructed by a well-known magazine to write
an article on the president's palace in a new African republic. When the article arrived, the
editor read the first sentence and then refused to publish it. The article began: 'Hundreds of
steps lead to the high wall which surrounds the president's palace.' The editor at once
sent the journalist a fax instr ucting him to find out the exact number of steps and the
height of the wall.  
The journalist immediately set out to obtain these important facts, but he took a long
time to send them. Meanwhile, the editor was getting impatient, for the magazine would
soon go to press. He sent the journalist two urgent telegrams, but received no reply.
He sent yet another telegram informing the journalist that if he did not reply soon
he would be fired. When the journalist again failed to reply, the editor reluctantly
published the article as it had originally been written. A week later, the editor at
last received a telegram from the journalist. Not only had the poor man been arrested,
but he had been sent to prison as well. However, he had at last been allowed to send a
cable in which he informed the editor that he had been arrested while counting the 1084
steps leading to the 15-foot wall which surrounded the president's palace.