The almost forgotten past

[nancylebov]

While archeologists try to recreate what life was like 10,000 years ago, and historians try to recreate what life was like 1,000 years ago, journalists can’t even recreate how they published a newspaper 20 years ago.

A history of journalism class produces a newspaper without using computers. It's hard work, but fun. I wonder how what else is enough fun to be worth recreating.

Link thanks to Lee.

Comments

[siderea]

This is awesome! Thanks for posting about it.

[twistedchick]

Excuse me? That story was pretty definite that they *did* recreate how a newspaper was run 20 years ago -- and I can verify that as that is how I did it. If the only thing they were missing was a hot waxer and a veritype, the did pretty well in terms of equipment. Though I'm disappointed that they didn't mark up their proportion wheels for 1 col, 2 col, 3 col, etc., widths, which makes sizing photos a lot faster. And their actual layout skills need work -- there should be no need for such heavy rules to divide stories, nor for the jog on page 11. They're probably using the heavy ones because they're easier to lay straight than the narrower ones.

They're also using a modern magazine-style layout rather than a newspaper layout, closer to tabloid than broadsheet, which is one anachronism; that 'horizontal' style was used on weekly papers far more than on dailies. The result is that it looks a lot more like the college papers I worked on than the weeklies and daily. Different layout styles, for one thing; if I were teaching the class, I'd use that paper as an example of how to do and not do a dozen things.

I have done all the things they were doing, including running the verityper, at one paper or another. Given the opportunity, I could do it again. Unfortunately, it's cost-prohibitive to even try to start an independent paper like that now; back then a start-up could cost $20,000. Now? Not so affordable.

[madfilkentist]

I worked on a college newspaper in the early seventies, with a Selectric typewriter to create copy, literal cutting and pasting (well, hot wax) to fix typos, and a photographic headline machine which we kept in a makeshift darkroom that OSHA shut down.

[gildedacorn.livejournal.com]

*nods* I remember having a conversation on this subject in which I had to explain what an Exacto knife was ...

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Wow! And those still exist and have uses. My elder nephew (he's 12) collects and restores antique and vintage typewriters, and is one of the few under-35ish that really knows about the tech.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I learned to type on a mechanical typewriter, but last time I tried to use one, in 1995, after going tappety-tappety-tap, I looked up to discover I'd typed nothing: I'd not hit any of the keys hard enough to bring the hammers all the way to the paper. :o)

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

One lieinaccuracy in that article -- some, many by the 60s and most by the mid-1970s, typewriters did have a 1 key, they did not all use the lowercase L. I've typed on both kinds through the years.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Heh. You talking about electric or manual? I think I still have the Hermes 3000(?) Portable I took to college; but I learned to type on my Mom's and Dad's machines.

(cue Frank Hayes's "When I Was A Boy"; Joe Bethancourt, YouTube 6:54)

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

There was a 1 key on the children's typewriter I learned to type on, circa 1981. <googles> Ooh, here's a picture of one on eBay. I haven't seen one of those in twenty-five years. I thought it was a much more pastel shade of blue. Maybe we just left ours out in the sunshine too long. :o)

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Both, actually. My nephew has a 1920 model with a 1 key. My 1955 Tippa has a 1 key. Don't think i've seen an electric produced after 1935 without a 1 key, though some may exist as my knowledge is less than extensive on this topic. :)

[avram]

Wasn't "20 years ago" 1991? Those were the glory days of desktop publishing. The authentic experience would've involved a layout guy who was used to PageMaker complaining about having to adjust to QuarkXPress.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

That article seemed to be more about 30-40 years ago than 20. I can't believe that any journalist who wasn't on remote assignment in a location with little or no electricity was still using a manual typewriter in the 90s. 1991 was the era of early (and by modern standards horrifyingly bad) word processors and the last few years of electric typewriters.

[avram]

I have to disagree on that last point. Word processor technology peaked in 1991 with the release of Microsoft Word version 5.1 for the Mac. The loss of that code in 1993, when Microsoft decided to stop maintaining two separate code bases for the Mac and Windows versions of Word and just tweaked the Windows code for the Mac version, was a loss from which the field has never recovered.

Nowadays you're better off just using a text editor.

[avram]

Also, the first word processor as we would use the term (a computer program for writing, displaying text on a video screen, saving it on a magnetic disk) was released in 1972.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I know a guy who has a collection of multiple Linotype machines in a barn in Wisconsin.

Another printer to whom I mentioned this shuddered at the thought.