God, Act of

Stanley Frank and Paul Sann tell a classic story about a cub reporter in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, at the time of the disastrous “Johnstown Flood” in 1889. The first report of the flood reached the nearest big-time newspaper office late at night when only the newest addition to the staff — a droopy youth just out of school — was on tap. The editor hustled him to the scene of the catastrophe, and then spent the next hour in a frenzied effort to get his veteran reporters on the job. By then it was too late. All wires were down, and the valley was isolated. For twenty-four hours the only reporter in the devastated area was one green beginner!

The press of America waited feverishly for his first report. Finally, it began to trickle in over the telegraph. “God sits upon a lonely mountaintop tonight and gazes down upon a desolate Johnstown. The roar of swirling waters echoes though . . . “ Whereupon the editor…