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Image provided by: Buffalo State: The State University of New York
Lbi Ist H4 xlnuu Kllk l\PR§\\ Nunday Seproniner 9 fan The People Who Put Out the Paper The Courier-Express moved into its home at Main and Goodell streets in 1930. But lights there will no tonger burn brightly into the night, as the newsroom. and presses grow silent. RJ 73 - COUR R-EXPRFSS/ KEN KERBS By Rita Smith 4 Ben Davis sat at the typewrit- er, pecking the keys with one finger in the Courier- Express city room. The _. hard-boiled, vet- eran newspaper- man could hard- ly - find - them- tears. He was writing his mother's obitu- ary for the first edition. The memaries-of Davis, one of Buffalo's greats from the old school of journalism, and of my days as a cub reporter flashed back as I began to write this column. For 38 years the Couri- er-Express has been my paper, and now its death hug/fine. It's like writing the obituary of a dearly loved friend. %, «l ° It is with a heavy heart that I léaf through my time-yellowed notebooks and mounds of news- paper clippings and play the ostaglic. . game of '\Remem- ber?\ I am grateful to all the thou- sands upon thousands of people, from every walk of life, who for more than three decades gave me the privilege of looking deep- ly into their lives, of sharing their joys and sorrows, their needs and dreams. You have 4 s. enriched my life beyond meas- ure. Thank you for your constant loyalty, your ever-generous and compassionate response to the cry of the poor, the unwanted, the lost and the voiceless I liked best to write about. Do not forget them when the voice- of the Courier-Express is stilled Where did the years go. I 'wonue 0 P U 'and pieces the people. the events, the changes along the _ way. World War II was on when I > began working for the Courier Express for $18 a week, straight out of D'Youville College. It was 1944 and early 1945, and I wrote a lot of stories about gold: star mothers, whose sons would never come home, and the anxiety in homes where there were four and five stars on the service flags in the front windows. I was a society reporter, and it was the era of the elegant debu- tante balls when girls from \old Buffalo families\ bowed to socie- ty, and their parents hoped rich young men of equally \estab lished\ families would marry . them. 20> - One mother confided to me that she and her husband had mortgaged the family home to throw such a lavish ball. She said it was worth it if their daughter got a rich husband Obviously the family wasn't as wealthy as was commonly be- lieved. N 3 C-E's Death: Writing a Frlend’s Obituary And then suddenly those who could afford to be \'debs\ longer wanted to \come ouL\ and an old . tradition passed away. The Women's Liberation Movement came to tine forefront I here were changing trends in newspapers, too, and coverage of women's organizations and so- ciety news of interest only to a \(ew was minimized. The o emphasis in stories became, as it is- today, service to the reader - how-to articles, features reflect ing drastically changing lifes: fyles, and people talking about personal problems and expres- sing views never discussed so openly in the past. In writing these last words for All People, I feel a profound sense - of - loss. The Courier. Express has met its final dead- line 1 would remind all to heed what Henri Amiel wrote: \Life is short and we have not much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love' Make haste to be kind!\ Now T will set out on another path to Shangri-la. There's a book to be finished, a whole aching world to be served, all kinds of exciting, challenging Second Chances. But first, I've got to look up that old story I wrote, the one about how to mend a broken heart Printen By Elizabeth sperm Kenneth Ross - remembers when a printer's work involved \a lot of slugging.\ Until recently, most newspa pers were typeset by linotype machines that cast-type in metal molds. - Printers | lifted - heavy trays of completed type and put them into frames called chases \Just empty, the steel chases would weigh 50 pounds,\ said Ross, head makeup man on the When he completed his six years' training, he was hired by the Windsor Daily Star. Ross' next job was at the Toronto Star, where he stayed for 12 years. Then, he said, \there was a newspaper strike, and so I lost my job there.\ He went to work for a commercial printing business but was laid off alter three years. \On that day,\ said Ross, \I went right down to the American Consulate and applied for my visa. At that time, printers were in demand in the U.S. There was photographic paper generated by computers; Ross waxes the type so the back is sticky, cuts it to fit the layouts and pastes it up. He makes a proof of the page for editors, who may make changes. After corrections are made and approved, the boards are photographed, and negatives - put through a machine called a Letterflex, which makes them into plates for the presses Making up the paper takes all day cmm n anon r Says He Has No Regrets mce the Courier - switched from hot metal to cold type, Ross says that printing is 'not near as interesting and is not near as much of a challenge. ''We would lay the type fat in frames upside down and back- wards. I got so fast that I could read type as-fast as I could read the paper. In those days we had quite a few more proofreaders At edition time you were always rushed and you ran 'railroad' stories - stories that you pif in without being proofed For the counter- XWESS oB sTockriELO Kenneth Ross, head makeup man on the day shift at the Courier Express, has been a printer for 36 years. day shift at the Courier-Express and a printer for 36 years. Hot metal type, as that print- ing process is called, is no longer used at the Courier. Instead. machines produce photographic images of letters, a process known as \cold type.\\ Pages are laid out on cardboard grids rath ér than in metal frames. As the printing industry be comes more sophisticated, more and more newspapers are being made up by computer. Techno- logical progress is squeezing printers out of jobs Long before the Courier an nounced that it would cease publication, the company had been retraining printers in a variety of other occupations Ross said that when he started work here in 1969. there were more than 200 printers; today there are 107 No printers have been hired here since 1975 A! one time. however. printers were in demand. Ross, a Canach an, started in the business in 1946 as an apprentice at the St Thomas (Ont.) Times-Journal no .problem.-Onee-you-got-your visa, you just came over and got a job.\ Ross has been at the Courier since 1969. He chose it over the Buffalo Evening News use \I knew I'd have to go on nights. The night shift at the Courier was much better than the night shift at the News. At the Courier, you started at 6 o'clock. The night shift at the News started at 8 o'clock. I decided the Courier was best because I don't sleep too good in the daytime.\ . At first, Ross laid out advertis- ing copy. Within about three years, he was working days. \I was after my boss to put me on makeup,\ he said. \He said if I quit smoking I could go on make- ap So I quit smoking. I've been head makeup man fot seven years \ Although he works an all sec- trons of the paper, Ross' primary responsibility has been the To- day section. He pastes up pages according to layouts provided by editors and the Art Department The type he pastes on pages is More Between the Lines -Page A- 15. \'Sometimes you have a real good day and everything goes together just beautiful,\\ he said ''Normally. that's the way it goes. No matter what you do. you always have a sense of pride when you see the finished pro- duct in the newspaper 1 think every printer feels the same way, too.\ Although a - printer's work space is confined to the compos ing room, Ross said, \I feel there's a certain amount of ex- citement about this business \ He remembered one particular day when he was making up the front page of the Toronto Star \It was the day President Ken nedy was assassinated. When the news broke, we were putting out an updated edition about every 20 minutes. We were all doing. it with tears in our eyes It was a very sad day, but it was proba- bly the most outstanding time of my life ° : By Nanette Tramont Kollig Copy editor It's one of those anonymous newspaper jobs that of video display terminals. by which stories are moved electronically rather than by passing pieces of paper. the rim now consists of many desks pushed together. more out of first of his eight children and more experience in newspapering In 1956 he landed a reporting job at the Auburn Citizen-Advertiser. a small daily. But at that time certainly damage its credibility.\ next edition, pretty much all the mistakes were corrected except for the stories rushed for that edition. That's why there were a lot more mistakes in the paper than there are now.' Today, editors proofread and correct stories on computers. By the time printers paste up the pages, there are relatively few corrections to be made. \'It was very easy to make the transition to cold type.\\ Ross said. As a printer, he has had to make a lot of adjustments over the years. \It's had its setbacks, with layoffs,\ he said. \I've been working all my life and here ! am again - nowhere.\ Ross is §4, and he's sadly afraid that, with the closing of the Courier-Express, he will have to leave printing for good He says he will find work ' 'doing any1hmg ' But he has no regrets \Every body has to take their lumps. he said ''Printing's been good to me over the years. Basically. if ! had it to do over again. I'd probably do the same thing “xi Copy Editor: Behind the Headlines IF : does a lot to prevent a newspaper from looking silly. And that would Looking ally can be something as simple as \Mrs Smith was pre. deoeased in death by the late Mr. Smith,\ or \\a man was arrested for drunken dnving while driving a motor vehicle.\ or ''the house was totally destroyed\ \'that's a Higgins said, you had to work for a small paper \or you wouldn't get on a big one \ After a stint at the Niagara Falls Gazette. he started at the Courier Express as a reporter in January practicality (because 'the computer terminals are so bulky) than to break with tradition mast people have never heart of - \unless they watch \Lou Grant\ reruns or worked on their school papers Joe Higgins. a newspaperman for 30 years now and a copy editor for Ans-r a reporter writes a story. he or she sends it to a supervising 11 of th ears. is used to e editor This editor city. sports. - 1961. And after covering the federal h . “mo Noni“); - \unless {$19 features - reads it for content and - beat. City Hall and the labor beat, - COmimon one. Higgmsaid. . : a style. The story next goes to the among others. he joined the night But a tot depends an the report- . per fans. They know what's : happening - others think you're a : proofreader On the other hand. * when I was a reporter, people used ~ to chew me out for the head on my story.\ , Which gets around to one of the . things a copy editor does -- write headlines At the Courier-Express, the copy editors used to have a proper \rim\ - a big horseshoe-shaped desk, with copy editors sitting around the er To start with, this is a metropoli- tan paper. The people who come here are generally pretty well quali fied. But the reporters are a little distracted - they have the facts on their minds, not the niceties of phrase construction. \I remember a lot of exciting days as a reporter - not too many as a copy editor. But I'm getting paid to read, and I'm a reader anyway Youreddngkindda copy desk, where the copy editors are usually the last ones in the newsroom to look it over before it appears in the paper Higgins started in the business at the Lockport Union San & Journal in 1952, unmarried and fresh out of callege with a bachelor's degree in history and government. 'I stayed there four months and decided I liked the trade enough and needed a journalism degree \ Two years later. he had it - a master's in copy desk. There's a sort of intimacy in a newsroom. It's born out of the daily pressures intposed on the staff by their jobs and the adversary rela- tionships built into those jobs. But those adversary relationships do not extend to the people. Copy editors and reporters fight a lot. Some reporters don't want their stories changed by the copy desk - even if there should be changes. And it's the copy editor's job to outer rim and the copy desk chief in journalism from Syracuse Universi- change thase stories if changes are the English language, straightening the center (the \slot\) - a tradh oy He also had a wife (Jeanne, who animals? watching out for worked while he gor his degree), the ibe! tron in newsrooms With the advent As Higgins pats 1. \a copy editor oto t o + % » a =. » e
