That's 30/12-29-15

Composing newspaper story has become much easier

By Roy Ockert Jr.

Dec. 29, 2015

When I wrote my first story for a daily newspaper, it was for The Sentinel-Record, Hot Springs’ morning publication, in June 1962. I had just finished my junior year in high school, had been editor of the student newspaper for both junior high and high school and had been taking journalism classes since the seventh grade.

That was enough to gain the attention of a reporter for the local newspaper, who urged me to apply for a part-time position covering sports. I got the job, went to work after returning from Boys State and stayed on through the next summer, plus two more summers after starting college at Arkansas State in Jonesboro.

I don’t recall what that first story was about, but I know how it was produced. I wrote it on an old upright typewriter, using the same 4-finger method I do now, on a long sheet of blank newsprint that had been saved from an end roll off the press and cut up. That was especially great for writing anything from a short item or headline to a long story because you could tear it off at the end.By custom, we typed the number “30” on a line by itself below the story. That was code for “this is the end.” I’ve heard various theories about where that custom started. The most logical was that it replaced 30 dashes at the bottom, thus saving time.Almost all newspaper writers composed on a typewriter, rather than writing a story out first, or typing a draft and then retyping. We didn’t have time to do otherwise, still don’t, so you learned to write “on the fly.” Some of the best, especially those who worked for The Associated Press, could even write a story in their heads and dictate it to someone over the phone.By the time I sit down to write a column, I’ve seen much of it in my head.Composing on a manual typewriter, or even later on an electric version, produced messy copy. When you made a mistake or just wanted to start a sentence over, you just backed the carriage up and typed x’s over the letters or words you wanted to delete. Afterward, you read over your story and perhaps made additional changes in pencil.However, it was important that your finished story could be clearly read because at least six people would handle it before the story went to press, and all had to be able to communicate with each other on paper. You didn’t want anyone coming back to ask, “What did you mean here?”

That first story of mine was probably read by our night news editor, Malcolm Yates, a crotchety old fellow who previously worked for the Houston Post. He marked corrections with a soft-lead pencil. From there the copy went to Helen or Jessie, who retyped it by perforating paper tape. The coded tape was then mounted on an automated linotype machine manned by a printer, and the story was “set” in lead type, inked and a proof run. A long story could weigh five pounds or so.

The proof and my original copy then went to our proofreader, Loyce Poole, who also handled the switchboard at night. He marked any errors he found, using a special set of proofreading symbols, and sent the proof back to the printer for corrections.

You wanted few corrections here because each had to be set manually on a linotype by another printer, who couldn’t spell nearly as well as Helen and Jessie. Correcting a single letter meant resetting at least a line. Adding a single word could mean retyping an entire paragraph. The newly cast correction lines then had to be inserted in the right place, which wasn’t easy because the lead type was backwards.

The story was then ready to be locked into a page form with other stories, headlines, pictures, cutlines and ads — all set in lead. Mistakes could be made at any point in this process and often were.

Imagine my relief when, about 1976, I sat down and wrote a story on a computer screen with a keyboard that had — wonder of wonders — a delete key. The process could then be completed in the news department, and eventually the printers didn’t handle anything until the finished page was output to an aluminum plate for mounting on the press.

Malcolm, Helen, Jessie, Poole and the “dump boys,” as we called the printers who handled the linotypes, are long gone, their jobs disappearing with new technology. I miss the people but not the old process. Computers allowed us to keep the creative process in the hands of those most capable of getting a story right — a writer and one or more editors.

Newspapers have come a long way in my 50-plus years of journalism, and they will be around, in some form or another, for many more years. We will always need good reporters, editors, photographers and even column and letter writers. Newspapers are critical to the survival of our democracy; never give up on them.

Although I am ending “Behind the News” after more than 2,000 columns over 40-plus years, the ideas for future columns — subjects that need to be addressed — continue to flow into my head. From time to time I may offer a guest column.

Thank you for reading. For now this is “30.”

Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.

Photo above was taken in the old Sentinel-Record office on Central Avenue, probably in the summer of 1963. By then, I had graduated to covering news as well as sports.