A look back at those good old days......

(I wrote this a few years ago and just ran across it on an old disk.

 This relates how it was before the folks who “fixed it even 

though it wasn't broken” and the Wall Street push for dollars not good journalism.) 

  Once upon a time in the scheme of things, there existed in a small-townish metropolitan area of about five counties--roughly a bit over a quarter of a million souls--a great newspaper. Now this newspaper was a knight in shinning armor among a sea of those who aspired throughout the state to attain the status this newspaper enjoyed. Hated and at the same time courted by politicians. Feared, yet read and quoted everyday by those who wound up with dirty linen hung out for everybody to see. If an event happened, if a working man or woman stubbed their toe, got an award, bent a fender--somebody picked up a phone and called the paper. Or they simply stopped a reporter passing by--or covering that beat. For one of the reasons the paper's circulation soared (it was said the paper was delivered into 99 percent of the area's homes) constitutions felt they knew reporters and columnists as friends and neighbors. Even the editor and the publisher had some of this status. Despite such an "exalted" position as editor, he wrote a weekly notebook column that some turned to when they first opened their Sunday paper. He tackled issues of the day---his was a presence felt in words and in deeds within the community. And the publisher--he wrote a weekly Sunday column--folksy, about his childhood and the everyday things--actually a lot of nostalgia trivia--just stuff with which readers could relate. Both were very much involved in community events and were called on often for input by politicians, civil leaders, labor--whatever might need an idea or two for a quick fix. Example: City bus drivers were about to strike. And in those days, people took the bus to work, to school, to shopping (particularly since Main Street was lined with stores). The publisher was called upon to mediate at the 11th hour. He went to the room where labor and management sat glaring at each other. He checked the coffee and tea supply. And then told the negotiators. "I'm leaving this room and I shall lock the door. It won't be unlocked until I hear there is an agreement." He left and locked the door. It must have been dawn or a little after when he got the word. He freed the negotiators and went to work. On his way to his office, he stopped by the city desk and told the early man: "Got a tip. Call the bus driver union president. Think there might be an agreement." That was his style. Even though involved in story-making events, he rarely passed on information that might compromise or have a show of favoritism. Of course this was per-computer days and television was still feeling its ways news wise. Those all-news channels were still lurking on the other side of the camera. The staffers who wrote columns believed in local events, places, names, yes, plenty of names--and not just politicians and celebrities...the rubber worker, the office worker--the farmer--the businessman--big and small. Each suburb in the 5-county area had its own bureau, maybe staffed by one person sometimes, but that person made the rounds, picked up news and tips on possible news. He talked to folks at the local breakfast spots, city hall, town hall, police station, library... And people talked back to him. It was a era of who really belonged to whom--the community was an intricate part of the newspaper or the newspaper was an intricate part of the community. If it ran in the newspaper, then it had to be so. And Uncle John's fender bender, or Uncle Ned's fall from the barn roof--were duly recorded in the paper--not great news--but local news. you got the feeling that the community felt WAS the paper. And the paper reflected that feeling. And an example of total dedication by a veteran journalist on the staff. How many years this reporter we'll call Tom, (a great first name as far as I'm concerned) covered the suburb west of the city is up for debate. He was there when I arrived. I think it was a couple of months before I met him. He had an office in the suburb. His copy arrived overnight and if a hot story showed, he'd call it in to rewrite. This was the pattern for suburbs...reporters showed in the office if there was something special they needed to face-to-face with an editor. And instead of a suburban desk, these reporters came under the umbrella of a State Desk made up of a chief honcho--a state editor and a couple of assistant state editors. There was a couple of rewrite men and two or three other folks who could fill in on any number of jobs, including drawing the front page of the local section for the different zones. Each suburb had it's own front section with news from the other suburbs rewritten into briefs or trimmed down and used inside the local section. If a story was general, affecting the entire region, the lead would be recast to reflect the zone of the moment. But back to Tom. I don't really know when he slept. He was so connected, if the mayor broke wind, he'd know how loud. A school board fight? He had the insider view from both factions. And he managed to get names and faces of the average reader in a variety features that were ready to be plugged in on a dull news day. Unfortunately as new bosses arrived from the big, big cities, such dedication as Tom's was viewed with suspicion by these honchos who were used to under-the-table deals by some of their cohorts on those big, big city newspapers. They decided there must be some favoritism being displayed..some scandals not seeing the light of day. So transfers began of people with long histories in surrounding towns and counties. Switch 'em around to stop any hankie-pankie. And the great newspaper began to be a bit less great. It was a time in the "kingdom"when you identified yourself as a newspaper staffer and you were king of that conversation. Respect--even awe--and questions about certain by-liners and relating who they've met or seen. It was a time when journalists from around the state, and, yes, the country, looked to the newspaper as a big, big leg up on the career ladder, even though it wasn't a slick metropolitan job. And job openings among the 100 or so staffers were not easy to come by. At the time I joined, I was filling the spot being vacated by the retirement of a little guy who had close to 40 years on the staff. To fill his spot, my application had a fellow I had worked with for several years at previous newspapers. And the managing editor and then executive editor looked at the person and his background and experience. A degree after the name didn't count as much as the experience. There were no tests. And no personnel department, as such. The hiring was done by the people you would work with. Another key to success: You worked with folks--including the bosses--not for them. After the interviews, I was asked when I could come up for a 3-day tryout on the copy desk--even though I had been a copy editor, photographer, reporter, makeup editor and assistant news editor. They wanted a hands-on look at me. That seems to be gone these days. All it takes is a test or two to get your foot firmly in the door. And those good on tests are, from working with them are not as good on the job. Maybe we should do a sort of comparison--years ago-and later, as this narration goes on. Like this: YEARS AGO The copy desk was in the shape of a horseshoe. Copy editors sat around the rim. In the center sat the "slot man"--he handed out the stories to be edited and he checked the finished product--glancing over the editing and checking the headlines--before rolling up the copy, shoving it into an pneumatic tube which carried it to the backroom--the composing room---where it was parceled out to Linotype operators to be set in lead type. The news editor of the day sat at the end of the horseshoe desk to the right of the slot man. The news editor of the day had the day's empty pages before him. He took the stories neatly stacked for him by the wire editor--dummies them into the empty pages, writing headline orders on the copy and then putting them on spikes..one spike for inside pages copy, another for Page One copy and a third for advance copy. At the time we joined the copy desk, one fellow had a couple of years experience there, another had about five years. Among the rest--8 to 10--were older men--probably their years of service totaled close to 400. They knew the area...which streets intersect what avenues. Which politician held what office and which former politician bowed out under some sort of pressure or just plain lost by a landslide. So there were few "getting it straight"--very few corrections had to be run the next day. These men--(yes, there were no women on board) were and still are the last defense a newspaper has to avoid a slew of errors. And errors can erode creditability. LATER YEARS As the old fellows retired or passed on otherwise, new hires took their places. Of course they were not as familiar with the area. And the same can be said for those replacing reporters. And the trickle of errors almost became a flood. Many could have been avoided by just checking a map, checking names and checking clips in the library. Or by a phone call or a challenge to the now renamed city desk (Metro just sounds , so, well, metropolitan...especially to honchos who began to show up from some big metropolitan areas. YEARS AGO News stories arrived with clattering, bell and bell ringing (bells alerted the wire editor of an important story) on the wire service machines. The wire editor was attuned to hear those bells even when somebody was hollering in his ear. He'd walk very quick y the 60 or so feet and check out the machine pronouncing an urgent story. Now the paper had a bunch of wire machines...just typewriters without the keyboard. And they did not stop until silenced for a quick change of paper. Some used rolls of the narrow paper (yellow or white in color). But most used boxes of paper. They could then run for a few days without getting a new box of paper. Of course there were those times when paper would jam. That meant clearing the jam, changing the paper and determining what stories were missed. Then a call to the wire service for a repeat of those stories. The service tried to work those in when it could. Or shift them to another machine that wasn't carrying breaking news. At this time of its glory, the paper had all the big wire services: Associated Press, United Press International, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Chicago Daily News, Scripps -Howard National and Ohio wire. With all those wire services, a lot of different information could be found in their stories. So when a hot topic hit, the news editor of the day would skim through the different services (This after the wire editor had culled out the best). The news editor might mark a paragraph or two in each service that he wanted included in the main story. When it got the the copy editor, he was expected to use those paragraphs, plus any other information he found that, in his opinion would make a complete, well-rounded story. Then with paste pot and scissors--and a typewriter--he would put together a "wire services" story on the subject. And while he was at it, he would jot down names involved and holler:"COPY"...for a copy kid. The copy kid would take the names to the "morgue" where the folks employed there would check clipping stored in their file cabinets. They were looking for local connections that the wire services would not know about. Checking for a local angle was second-nature to those copy editors in those days. By finding a local angle, readers could relate more to that story. And along that same line, the story might be fertile ground for a local sidebar or an insert. Just a small example. A fast-foot restaurant in California had a new way of speeding up hamburger frying. The article ran in the paper recently--with a California photo and nothing from the same company restaurant in the area. The old paper would have at least had a paragraph or two on whether such an innovation was planned locally. And since the photo that did run was a stock shot of a person frying a hamburger, it would have been a good opportunity to get a local person's picture in the paper. And the caption could have contained local information on the process. And such attention to detail paid off time and time again. An example. Late Saturday night--plane crash overseas--five people out of a couple of hundred killed. The passenger list went through the local process even though the five had non-local addresses. And one person had lived in our area for a number of years before moving the year before. And that made this far-away crash worth Page One rather than a one paragraph brief. HEADLINE WRITERS ARE REALLY WORD ARTISTS Today's headline writers have a great tool that cuts down on a lot of the work of writing those headlines so important to tricking a reader into a story. That's the computer. You set the parameters of the headline..width, size, number of lines and start typing. If the headline doesn't fix, the computer tells you. But the old days of headline writing: Now that put headline writers to the test--they had to count the letters--because if the headline went to the composing room and didn't fit, it would come back through the pneumatic tube with a penciled in bracket showing the "misfit." And if it happened a few times, you could get a nasty comment included--"bonehead"--Can't count 'eh--where did you get this college dropout--the local bar?" The comments were usually from the printer on the "ludlow" machine--that machine that set the headlines in type. He would be a bit upset over trying to set the same headline over and over. He considered it a waste of his and your time. You were supposed to know how to count headlines. A capitol W would count 2--an I would be one-half. Most other letters were a one. You had a chart that told you how many counts in a headline--perhaps a 10 for a 1 col-36 point headline. For a 2 column headline in the same type face and same point size--21 (you picked up a count over a 1 col headline because a multi-column headline eliminated the column rule. Cheating--or squeezing in a headline was almost impossible--unless you cultivated the printer in the backroom. One such printer would help you out if there was a capital W. He'd set the headline long, and if it was just a bit over, he'd take a metal saw to the W--shaving a tad off. The headline orders came from the news editor of the day who dummies the pages. He decided the importance of the story and what headline he thought would give adequate justice to the story. Occasionally if you were having problems with a small headline (1 col or so) if you appealed saying you couldn't say what was needed to be said in that space, he'd relent and give it a bigger (2 col or a smaller type size). An example: Once we received a 2 col 3line 60 point headline. The story: the strike at a Westinghouse plant was over. Racking our brain for a headline that told the story in that short space gave us a headache. Fellow copy editors were no help. The were just happy they didn't have to come up with it. With deadline fast approaching, we handed over our effort with a suggestion that the news editor might want to go for a different look. Our headline: Strike Ends at GE Rival The slot man laughed and conferred with the news editor. The headline was revamped.