Birth of a Hack: Part Four

i started at the news-tribune just as it was poised to enter modern times.

The days of hot type were quite recently behind us (we kept a linotype machine in the lobby, as a reminder), and more change was on the way.

the AP news still came in on a machine that typed the stories on a big roll of yellow paper. Every so often the copy chief walked over and ripped off the latest news, read it, and decided what we would publish. (hence the phrase “rip and read.”) the stories that he didn’t use were impaled on a metal spike by his desk. (and “to spike a story” still means to kill it.)

you got accustomed to working in noise--the clattering of the typewriters and the AP wire machine, the ringing phones, the squawks of the police scanner. when the news was urgent, the wire machine rang a bell to get our attention. If it was a bulletin--president shot, war declared--the bell rang and rang and rang.

wire photos came in on another machine. They were large and slightly sticky and tended to fade over time to an unusable sepia. they were not permanent photos; they were news photos; here today, gone tomorrow, just like the newspaper itself.

And then there was the copy girl…

she was an odd woman in her early 30s, short and curvy, with poufy brown hair.

she told me that she was involved in a love affair with one of our writers. i couldn’t tell if this romance was real or imaginary, but it seemed to me that it must have been imaginary; the writer in question was an intelligent, religious man with a wife and children. But it seemed very real to her; she claimed it had started when he saw her reading Ayn Rand in the lunchroom.

she had been at the paper for quite some time, but her job wasn't to last much longer.

We typed news stories on a special kind of paper, using a Selectric typewriter with a special font. We kept a carbon copy. edits were marked in blue pencil. the copy girl ran the pages from the newsroom to the backshop, where the printers scanned each page into a computer and then keyed in the edits by hand.

It was a fairly time-consuming process, but nowhere near as time-consuming as the old days of hot type, where the compositors set every line in lead, on deadline.

in the late '70s, the company installed pneumatic tubes from the copy desk to the composing room--just like at a drive-in bank. Photos and copy were rolled up and stuffed into the tube. WHOOOOSH! they were sucked up into the ceiling and spat out in the backshop within seconds. (you can see it in this picture, if you click on it--it's the gerry-rigged-looking metal pipe that stretches toward the ceiling.)

and that was it for the copy girl. with no need for someone to run copy, there was no need for her job, and she was let go.

the rest of her duties, of course, fell to me--sorting the mail and bringing up the afternoon paper off the press, and running down to the pressroom with last-minute changes while the press was still running. (and no, I never yelled, STOP THE PRESSES. Just handed the marked-up paper to the head pressman. he wore big ear protectors, anyway, and would not have heard me had i yelled.)

i didn't think it was fair to summarily increase my duties without increasing my pay. So I walked into the managing editor's office and told him he should give me a raise. this was not easy for me; i was painfully shy and intimidated by authority. but feeling that i was treated unfairly was a powerful motivator.

he just chuckled. "we'd all like a raise," he said.

I didn’t consider that an answer. So I just sat there and looked at him. He looked back at me. Long, awkward silence. And then he said he’d look into it. i cannot remember now if i got the raise or not; what i do remember is that i stood up for myself. which i learned to do over and over in that room.

Keep in mind there weren’t many women in the newsroom, and there wasn’t anyone else even close to my age. It took a while for the guys to know how to behave around me.

usually I sat at the city desk, but during the middle of the day, when both city editors were on duty, i sat at a desk nearby. My typewriter had a short cord, and every couple of hours i had to crawl under the desk to plug it back in.

one afternoon i started to crawl back out when i saw a pair of cowboy boots blocking my way. They belonged to one of the editors, who was standing in front of my desk, his legs spread in a manly way. my face flamed with embarrassment and anger.

He looked down at me with amusement. and then he spoke.

there’s something about the sight of a woman on the floor.... his voice trailed away as the whole dayside copy desk burst out laughing.

i was furious. i managed to get out from under the desk by crawling around him--not very dignified, but better than going between his legs, which was the only other route. i brushed off my knees and sat down at the desk without a word. And as I sat there, I got madder and madder.

later that day went into the managing editor's office. i said i wanted an apology.

he looked at me in surprise. "i saw what happened," he said. "i thought it was funny. i didn't think he did anything wrong." again, i stared at him in silence. finally, he said, "if you think you need an apology, i'll talk to him."

it was the most half-assed message of support i've ever gotten; the man was practically shrugging. but i have to hand it to him--even though he had no idea what i was angry about, he did talk to the offending editor, and i did get my apology (bewildered and slightly pissed off though it was).

but, as i said, all this was poised to change. within the next few years, the paper started hiring--young women, mostly. a beautiful, talented photographer named Joey, who is still my good friend. P. Miller, a brilliant copy editor, who you all know from the Peter Miller Retirement Party. Ruth and Lynnell, two reporters who are still among the best writers i have ever known.

the winds of change were blowing, and the newsroom was changing with them.

TO BE CONTINUED