I think that if we’re going to have schools of journalism, this should be a required exercise:
Mariam, our managing editor, was previously our rock-star art director. So she resumed that role for ALL ON PAPER. Her designers mostly deserted her after they learned a terrifying reality of pre-computer layout…
You must do math.
First, there’s headline counting: A capital M is two, but a lower-case L (or is that the number 1?) is one-half. So how many counts do I have for a 48-point head across two columns?
Then there are the stories whose column inches must be distributed evenly across the page, requiring long division (without a calculator) and resulting in vaguely sexual newsroom directives like, “I need 11 inches to fill this box, and I need it now.”
Finally, there’s sizing photos with that confounded proportion wheel. Even though it’s supposed to help you shrink or enlarge a photo, and even though the instructions are printed right on the front, that God-awful wheel still doesn’t ever seem to give you the proper percentages. It’s more like a Magic 8-Ball than a round slide rule: much more mysterious than accurate.
“It’s been rough,” Mariam admits. “I’ve found myself sitting in silence, reminiscing about the days when CNTRL+Z was all it took. I miss my iMac.” But she also confesses…
Regardless of the stress or the obscene amount of paper that’s accumulated on the newsroom floor, I won’t forget what this project has given us. We’ve formed this sort of newsroom camaraderie that I hadn’t experienced before, and it means everything.
I’ve never been a professional journalist, but this is the process that we went through preparing proposals at Rockwell in the eighties. It took a long time to get the publications department to go to computers, even after the engineers were writing their proposal inputs in Wordperfect, and some had Macs with Pagemaker. We would have to print out our word processing output, and they would dutifully rekey it into their typesetting machines, because there were no compatible disk formats, which meant, of course, that we got to reedit for typos. They would cut out and wax the columns and lay them out on the boards, and then copy the gallies for us to review.
It meant that you had to have everything done about three days before it was due, because last-minute changes were just too painful to incorporate. On a thirty-day proposal, that was a lot of lost time.
There was an ugly transition period in the early nineties (a year or three before I left the company) when those responsible for actually writing the proposals rebelled and insisted on doing it themselves on Pagemaker. Pubs resisted, of course, reading the handwriting on the wall, and washing their hands of the results, though a few saw the future and came over to help (and learn what they would be doing themselves in a few years if they still had a job). Upper management had to adjudicate the situation, but the transition must have happened, because when I went back to do consulting at Boeing a decade or so later, everyone was publishing in Word, with an editor assigned to the team. But I think that it’s important for journalists using modern tools to understand the roots of their profession. If you could give them a hot-lead type machine, it would be even more educational, though probably going full Gutenberg with carved wooden blocks should be reserved for grad school. Hell, it might even teach them the difference between “font” and “typeface.”
Sounds remarkably similar to the current e-publishing revolution. What was considered taboo just a year ago is now the best way to go if you actually want to make money (assuming you have a decent book and a marketing plan).
Rand, have you decided what to do with the novel you said was in the works?
I am writing a book, but I have never even considered writing a novel. I wouldn’t even know where to start with that. I’ve never even written a short story. Any fiction I write is completely inadvertent.
Back in 1982, I was the photo editor from my college newspaper and yearbook. Back then, even using a word processor for writing and editing copy was a relatively new innovation. They’ll get my word processor from me when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I spent a lot of time in the darkroom, so much so that I was able to crack up the younger students with an old military joke. One day, when leaving the darkroom, I commented, “I’m begining to feel like a mushroom. They keep me in the dark, feed me shit and expect me to thrive.”
Sports photography in the film era was challenging, especially night football games. I’d load up my camera bag with about 15 rolls of film (B&W that I loaded myself), my zoom lens and the biggest flash I could find. I’d work the sidelines trying to anticipate the action and get off a quick shot when the play ran my direction. Even pushing the film to 1600 ASA in processing and with the big flash, I was only good out to the first set of hash marks. I’d shoot all of the film then go into the darkroom to process it all. Then, I’d look for the few good shots and spend a lot of time with the enlarger trying to make the photos look better using my hands as a mask. This was especially important when taking pictures of African Americans – dark skin reflects less light and if you want to do a good job, you have to make some compensations so their faces showed clearly.
Working the sidelines of a football game can be dangerous. At the homecoming game, I got nailed by two football players. They shoved me as they ran out of bounds, knocking me about 10 feet through the air. It’s a strange thing when you hear thousands of people go “OHHHHH!” and know it’s for you.
To quote Billy Joel, “The Good Old Days weren’t always good and tomorrow’s not as bad as it seems.”
Oh, LOL:
The “mine’s broken!” because they couldn’t find a “1” key, and the response when they were told to use the lower-case “l” instead, is priceless.
Actually, though, the writer got one thing wrong: many models of manual typewriters did provide a “1” key. But it was usually optional. I wonder what the response would have been had she asked them to type an exclamation point — that character was also rarely provided, usually being the shift option of the optional “1” key… I can see it now: “Type a period, then backspace and type an apostrophe… all that just to get a goddamn exclamation point?!?”
I only hope that the closing quote sticks with its writer for many years into the future:
There’s also something about the leveling effect of getting your hands dirty that modern journalists don’t experience. They’re up there in the cloud, talking on their cell phones like an Important Person, pressing a button and having it all published like some sort of scifi god. Back when newsrooms were full of people with their hands covered in ink, restricted by the physical limits of paper and metal, actually having to use some muscle to even get to the story onto paper, all this had the effect of making the people involved more aware of each other and the world, especially the working world. Now people getting into journalism — and the people still there — all seem to think of it as some sort of special club where they go to shmooze and make their plans for world domination — excuse me, make the world “a better place” — while barely seen servants whisk away anything that’s mundane.
Yes, Andrea, that’s one of the things I was thinking. The old phrase for journalists was “ink-stained wretches.” And it was more of a blue-collar profession, that involved not just interviewing the working class, but being part of it.
I got an AA in graphic design in the mid 90s, and while we got computerized training, we also had to do wax pasteups and all that, too.
Certainly made you put a little more effort into planning and forethought, for damn sure.
i.e. JournoList
Much the same can be said of other occupational areas too. I’m old enough to have done a fair amount of compass and T-square drafting, with lettering laid on using Rapidograph pens and pantograph templates.
Ah, the Good Old Days… May they never come back.
As a tangent, this reminds me of a little hobby horse of mine, something that would also be useful for journalists (and others) to remember whenever they decide they should be the arbiters of all information:
It is simply my argument that in the First Amendment, when the words “or of the press” are used, the “press” being referred to is not a journalistic class, but the actual item–the printing press. Coming right after the words “or abridging the freedom of speech”, and before “or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”, it makes sense. The first Congress was trying to make sure that the ability to disseminate information was not restricted by magistrates trying to game the system somehow (i.e., “you can say it, but not in a group and you can’t put it on a broadside, and you can’t call your Congressman either”)–an appropriate act for a generation that had started the long march to revolt when a tax was placed on paper.
Naturally, I’m not in much favor of campaign finance laws, especially where they impinge on the activities of persons not running for office.