Following the unsuccessful raid (the umbrella fiasco) in the beginning of the movie, Ness reads a newspaper that night with the headline 'Crusader Cop Busts Out' when he first meets Malone at the bridge. The same newspaper is delivered to Capone the next morning. The question is how did Ness get hold of the next day's paper?
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Maybe an insider gave him an advanced copy of tomorrow's headline just to let him know how the botched raid was going to play out in the press.
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He probably got an advance copy from the reporter. During the era this film was made there was no internet. Newspapers had more than one daily edition. They often had a "morning" and an "evening" edition to cover whatever had happened in the interim. And they also "Extras"..."Extra! Extra! Read All about It!" with late breaking news like the death of a president.
But "today's" news in those days was printed the day before. There was no way they could get current news "of the day" in a newspaper printed for that day. Even the type was handset. No computers or telecommunications to get the story in quicker. It was always the previous day's news (again, excepting the "extras" and "late editions" that offered some form of updates.
So I would say the reporter got an advance copy of the next day's paper and gave it to Ness.
Yup - that makes sense. Thx.
shareActually, it wasn't uncommon to "stop the presses" for an exclusive which the typesetters would work furiously to reset the front page for an extra or evening edition when a reporter brought in a scoop and the editor thought he could sell papers to keep the publisher happy. Ness probably got a night edition from the local news stand.
shareSo maybe that's why there was no story in the paper to go with the photograph.
If my memory serves me correct, if you pause and read the news articles about Ness's raid failure and later his raid success, they bear no relevance to the headlines. I think one story was about a woman who murdered a man and hid him in a suitcase or something like that..
Maybe the papers didn't have time to print a full story??
In modern newspaper layouts, headlines run only above the stories they describe. In the time of "The Untouchables." it was common to run a huge headline of one story and place other stories below it with there own headlines.
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