9. Attempting to garner the attention of the press for their accomplishments, newspapers were unwilling to report on the event until a leaked and highly exaggerated version was published in Virginia against the brothers’ wishes
Sending a telegram to their father celebrating their accomplishment at Kitty Hawk, the Wright Brothers requested that he “inform press” of their success. However, despite considerable effort by Milton Wright, the Dayton Journal refused to publish the story, claiming that the flights achieved on December 17 were too short to be important or newsworthy. Meanwhile, Jim Gray, a telegraph operator involved in transmitting their initial message home, asked permission to pass the story to his local newspaper. The brothers refused, but Gray leaked the story to the Virginian-Pilot who concocted and distributed a highly inaccurate version of the events of December 17.
Claiming that the Wright Flyer had soared “three miles in teeth of high wind…under perfect control”, the newspaper reported that the brothers had “the power to steer it and speed it at will”. Offering a blatantly false interpretation, the story continued “the invention hovered above the breakers and circled over the rolling sand hills at the command of its navigator” before it “gracefully descended…rested lightly upon the spot selected”. Most egregiously, the article named Wilbur “the chief inventor” and first flyer. Reprinted across the country, the brothers responded with a statement calling the article a “fictitious story incorrect in almost every detail” and seeking to correct inaccuracies; this effort was largely in vain, as the story did not generate noticeable public excitement in the United States anyway.