By Jim Hagarty
I worked at a small daily newspaper 30 years ago.
The composing room, where the paper was prepared for printing, where all the ads were assembled and stories and photos laid out on broadsheets before being photographed and sent to the press, was populated by older and younger workers.
The older workers spent much of their time regaling the young journalists such as I was at the time, about how things used to be done years ago. The years of “hot type”, where metal letters were physically placed in special trays to form every word that appeared. It is a cautionary tale for people who think talk of the old ways in fascinating. It wasn’t.
But we tried to respect our elders. They were nice hardworking people, deserving of our respect. I liked them.
The owners of the paper were middle aged and in a constant battle to keep up with the times. I admire them to this day for their willingness to embrace change.
One momentous day, computers were introduced to the composing room. Henceforth, though there would be a long period of adjustment, all the ads would be created by the computers and the people who operated them.
Needed were volunteers who would be willing to be trained in the new methods. A few people stepped forward eagerly. Five gray hairs could not have been assembled from the heads of those who applied.
For their part, the old guys laughed defiantly and declared they would not be caught dead on one of those computers. One semi old guy did embrace the new way, but wasn’t great at it. Another tried it and quit in frustration, going back to the banks of broadsheets and what he knew best.
One by one, the old guys were gone, in fairly short order. They gathered in the coffee shops and bemoaned the indignity and injustice.
Thirty years later, many of the volunteers who stepped up that day are still there. One young woman I know eventually left and is now a teaching assistant in a high school.
Helping kids learn computers.
