The Story on ‘90s Newspapering: Facts Belie the Fiction

Once in awhile we have tour groups come through the office, moving from one department to another and no doubt marveling at what a spectacular job we all do. I wonder, though, if they’re not a bit disappointed at how well behaved everyone seems to be. They might just as well be touring Prudential.

It wasn’t always like that.

In the old days, you’d walk into a newsroom and see flinty-eyed reporters with their feet up on their desks, wearing hats at jaunty angles, with one ear on the phone and hawking into a spittoon while sipping black coffee from grimy mugs with cigarette butts floating in them.

And that was just the women.

Pretty soon, a thrice-divorced city editor with suspenders and a chip on his shoulder would walk over to a reporter named Scoop and growl, “Get off your dead fanny and go interview the Widow Carmichael.”

He’d inform Scoop that the Widow Carmichael was widowed only within the half-hour, the predictable result of her pulling the trigger on the hunting rifle that her recently departed husband always kept in the bedroom closet, an unfortunate location given his insatiable thirst for entertaining young ladies in his and the wife’s bedroom.

So, Scoop would head over to the jail to interview the widow, who by now was sobbing and shrieking, “He was a good man! He was a good father!”

Back to the office, Scoop would pound out a heart-wrenching tale of the widow and the six kids The Good Man left behind and then head on over to the corner bar.

Every good newspaper had to have a corner bar, a place that somehow got as dark inside at 3 in the afternoon as it was at midnight. The bar wasn’t considered a separate business; it was more like a wing of the newspaper. At my first paper, the hangout was the Capitol Bar and Grill. In city No. 2 it was the Sportsman’s Bar, from which the proprietor once chased a patron out into the street with a baseball bat, clubbing him all the way.

There are no bars around this building. Across the street, though, they’ve opened a new “food court.”

Great Caesar’s Ghost!

The editors are different today too. In the old days they were like Russian czars, building reputations through terror and purges. In 1970, I was sent home by the city editor because I didn’t wear a tie to work. He told me that if I wanted to be a reporter I should dress like one and not like one of the copy boys.

Another legend told of the longtime editor who was hunched over his desk as a young public relations person approached him. Trying to interest him in an event her client was holding, she introduced herself. The editor didn’t look up and said nothing.

Handing him a press release, the woman went into her spiel about how wonderful the event would be and how the public would be greatly served should he deign to assign a reporter to it. Still not acknowledging her, the editor went about his work as the increasingly nervous woman stammered to a conclusion.

Fighting to retain her composure in the face of his non-response, she thanked him for his time and turned to leave. The only sound she heard as she walked away was that of the press release being wadded up and tossed into the wastebasket.

Another staffer nearby saw the episode and said to the woman as she passed, “I apologize for my boss being such an ass.”

Now that’s newspapering!

Editors today have to be sensitive to people’s feelings. Just this week, a bunch of our editors went to a management seminar.

I’m trying to imagine my first boss attending a seminar. He was a sports editor who didn’t talk to me for the first year I worked for him. He had all the charm of a snapping turtle, and it was my very strong sense that he did not care about my personal feelings.

But he was a good tuneup for my second boss who, shall we say, had a coolness about him.

As a rookie reporter I was having trouble writing a story on deadline, a trait that didn’t please my boss. He came over and asked where the story was. I mumbled something, and he said something that I didn’t understand.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

Twenty years later, I can still hear his retort: “What I mean is, we’ve got deadline in six minutes, and I want something from you in three.”

Had a visiting tour group overheard our exchange, it probably would have enjoyed the moment as an entertaining and revealing glimpse at the newspaper business.

Nowadays, in the same situation, the tour would probably hear the editor say, “I’m sorry to bother you because I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, but we have these deadlines that I know are unfair to you, but if you could possibly try to somehow send us that copy as soon as you’re able without inconveniencing yourself, we’d really appreciate it. And have a nice day.”