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When my company laid off a large number of editorial staff, all you could hear was banging as each member left. I fear this tradition will be lost also. Newspa

When my company laid off a large number of editorial staff, all you could hear was banging as each member left. I fear this tradition will be lost also. Newspapers are still extremely important and I yearn for the days when you could actually purchase a thick broadsheet newspaper that didn’t focus on drivel.

chrisseaton 9y ago
> I yearn for the days when you could actually purchase a thick broadsheet newspaper that did t focus on drivel This article is about how the newspapers are printed. What gets printed in them doesn’t change with how you print them.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Given what's currently happening to old-guard newspapers and general journalistic standards, the metaphor is clear enough.
- chris_wot 9y ago
  And yet, the article has this: > Dodd also mentions that “one of the great traditions [in the composing room] was banging people out.” This was the long-established send-off for retiring printers and involved everyone grabbing the nearest piece of metal and banging the stone ( itself in fact made of metal) rhythmically for five to 10 minutes. This symbolic ceremony also took place for the coffin, to bid farewell to lead-setting. > Dodd and Postance talk about the camaraderie within the composing room. While Dodd says that “being on the stone was often a battle,” Postance says that he enjoyed the close contact with journalists: “you were talking to them across the stone on a sort of one-to-one basis […] you knew the people who wrote the yarns and you could relate to them.” Dodd remembers that the whole of editorial came down to observe the funeral on 11 May; “there were grown men crying” he says. I would argue that the way the news is produced has and does change the nature of news reporting. I’ve seen it at the company I work for now. The old-timers talk about the fact that it was always a high pressure environment, it it’s a great deal more unpleasant to work in these days, and that has changed how news is reported. If you are going to quote me, how about quoting the full paragraph? I’m curious though, did you not read the whole article?
- lucozade 9y ago
  > What gets printed in them doesn’t change with how you print them This isn't true. More specifically, if you substantially reduce the cost of printing, you also reduce the bar to competition. Similarly, if you substantially reduce the time it takes to get from thought to publishing, in a competitive market, you'll need to get more thoughts published. And the death of hot metal printing, followed by the rise of internet publishing, has hugely affected what is published, when and by whom. However, this whole rosy tinted rubbish about hot metal printing is comical. It was the least efficient, most expensive, nepotistic, ineffectual closed shop industry. It held back journalism (not exactly a hot bed of activity at the time either) for years. It almost destroyed the news industry before there was a reasonable replacement. Of course "grown men were crying". They could see the end of their short hours, high pay, minimal work jobs that had been passed down father to son. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was that there was no effective competition. Once that changed, costs had to come down and journalists had to start writing what folk wanted to read not just what they wanted to write. Now it's a little unfortunate that what most people want to read is celebrity tat but such is life. I'd also question just how much better journalism was versus today (although I'm on shakier ground here). There was a lot less of it, of course, and it is likely that the signal to noise has dropped appreciably. But most journalism was filler then as it is now. Sure we remember the great scoops and uncoverings but that's because we remember them. I'm sure, in 30 years, we'll recollect Snowden more than Kanye and look back fondly too.
  - cafard 9y ago
    "I'd also question just how much better journalism was versus today (although I'm on shakier ground here)." You do well to question. It was all over the place, and frequently awful. Examples that occur to me: Murray Kempton quoted Westbrook Pegler's father as saying that the tone of the Hearst press during WW I was that of a woman running down the street with her throat cut; any number of H.L. Mencken's articles on the failings of the press; Walter Duranty's reports from the Soviet Union. I will add that Kempton, the Peglers, and Mencken were all lifelong journalists. Actually, the competition for advertising is what hurts the newspapers. If suddenly all the classified advertising left Craig's List tomorrow and went back into print, the metropolitan newspapers would be fat again.
  - 9y ago

chrisseaton 9y ago

> I yearn for the days when you could actually purchase a thick broadsheet newspaper that did t focus on drivel This article is about how the newspapers are printed. What gets printed in them doesn’t change with how you print them.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
Given what's currently happening to old-guard newspapers and general journalistic standards, the metaphor is clear enough.
chris_wot 9y ago
And yet, the article has this: > Dodd also mentions that “one of the great traditions [in the composing room] was banging people out.” This was the long-established send-off for retiring printers and involved everyone grabbing the nearest piece of metal and banging the stone ( itself in fact made of metal) rhythmically for five to 10 minutes. This symbolic ceremony also took place for the coffin, to bid farewell to lead-setting. > Dodd and Postance talk about the camaraderie within the composing room. While Dodd says that “being on the stone was often a battle,” Postance says that he enjoyed the close contact with journalists: “you were talking to them across the stone on a sort of one-to-one basis […] you knew the people who wrote the yarns and you could relate to them.” Dodd remembers that the whole of editorial came down to observe the funeral on 11 May; “there were grown men crying” he says. I would argue that the way the news is produced has and does change the nature of news reporting. I’ve seen it at the company I work for now. The old-timers talk about the fact that it was always a high pressure environment, it it’s a great deal more unpleasant to work in these days, and that has changed how news is reported. If you are going to quote me, how about quoting the full paragraph? I’m curious though, did you not read the whole article?
lucozade 9y ago
> What gets printed in them doesn’t change with how you print them This isn't true. More specifically, if you substantially reduce the cost of printing, you also reduce the bar to competition. Similarly, if you substantially reduce the time it takes to get from thought to publishing, in a competitive market, you'll need to get more thoughts published. And the death of hot metal printing, followed by the rise of internet publishing, has hugely affected what is published, when and by whom. However, this whole rosy tinted rubbish about hot metal printing is comical. It was the least efficient, most expensive, nepotistic, ineffectual closed shop industry. It held back journalism (not exactly a hot bed of activity at the time either) for years. It almost destroyed the news industry before there was a reasonable replacement. Of course "grown men were crying". They could see the end of their short hours, high pay, minimal work jobs that had been passed down father to son. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was that there was no effective competition. Once that changed, costs had to come down and journalists had to start writing what folk wanted to read not just what they wanted to write. Now it's a little unfortunate that what most people want to read is celebrity tat but such is life. I'd also question just how much better journalism was versus today (although I'm on shakier ground here). There was a lot less of it, of course, and it is likely that the signal to noise has dropped appreciably. But most journalism was filler then as it is now. Sure we remember the great scoops and uncoverings but that's because we remember them. I'm sure, in 30 years, we'll recollect Snowden more than Kanye and look back fondly too.
- cafard 9y ago
  "I'd also question just how much better journalism was versus today (although I'm on shakier ground here)." You do well to question. It was all over the place, and frequently awful. Examples that occur to me: Murray Kempton quoted Westbrook Pegler's father as saying that the tone of the Hearst press during WW I was that of a woman running down the street with her throat cut; any number of H.L. Mencken's articles on the failings of the press; Walter Duranty's reports from the Soviet Union. I will add that Kempton, the Peglers, and Mencken were all lifelong journalists. Actually, the competition for advertising is what hurts the newspapers. If suddenly all the classified advertising left Craig's List tomorrow and went back into print, the metropolitan newspapers would be fat again.
- 9y ago