Still a proud member of the Fourth Estate

As a semi-retired member of the Fourth Estate looking at the celebration of National Newspaper Week (last week October 4-10), it seems appropriate (to me) to offer a newspapering perspective developed for more than 60 years.

Many readers of the printed word fail to recognize that newspapers, whether produced using paper and ink or rapped out on a PC and offered on a website, are repositories of history. That’s right. No matter if a “real publication” (that is, one published pretty much since the dawn of news is daily, weekly or semiweekly) offers good news plus data on births, deaths, graduations, divorces, marriages and other social and crime happenings in one’s community.

Having started as a copy boy, now called editorial assistant or news assistant when I was some four months into my 18th year of life, I’ve seen many changes. In fact, it’s difficult to impart such a background because of the major changes that have occurred in the production of newspapers. So to provide a view of what it used to be like, here goes.

My first day on the job in 1963 was an experience unlike any I’d had. I entered the newsroom of the former San Diego Evening Tribune on the third floor of a five-story building in downtown San Diego. The room was filled with men and women hunched in great concentration over manual typewriters. There was a pervading tone of controlled anxiety, a feeling of work that must be accurately accomplished on time. It’s a feeling that can only be duplicated by meeting or beating deadline pressure. Copy had to be finished and sent to the composing department, which used hot lead Linotype machines in those early days.

Delays would be costly, as the press gang was waiting, delivery trucks were ready and newspaper carriers  and newsstand operators anticipated receiving their bundles. On time. A hold-up that broke the schedule was a situation that had to be avoided. You learned fast as a cub reporter about deadlines, especially when the city editor stomped to your desk and ripped your story out of the typewriter. You learned so fast that it only happened once.

Even as a copy boy sharpening pencils, filling glue pots or running photos to engraving, I found it to be an intoxicating atmosphere. It was a rush with telephones ringing, photographers and reporters rushing about, some of them headed to assignments. Despite the noisy clacking of typewriters in the newsroom, the clattering of Teletype machines in the wire room was louder. News came from the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, the New York Times and others. As well, stories came in from the Tribune’s reporters at City Hall, the county center, the police station and bureaus throughout the county.

It was thrilling to be involved in the process. It was extremely helpful to have been a copy boy because you were somewhat involved in all that was required. So becoming a cub reporter after nine months and working with the beat reporters as noted above was easy to swallow. Eventually, I and others were assigned to one bureau or another; it was all wonderful.

This reminiscing could continue for great length, especially if one’s most memorable stories were recounted even in greatly abbreviated form. That’s not going to happen this week. Let me just say with heartfelt emotion that being a newsman as a copy boy, reporter, bureau chief, news editor and editor and publisher has been and continues to be a cherished experience. Yes, some in the business have tarnished the reputation of the Fourth Estate, but the good guys continue to do their level best for their communities.

As Thomas Jefferson said: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”