Journalism Circa 1940
On this day of journalistic mourning, as the Seattle PI fades away and we’re hearing about layoffs from newspapers here and across the country, we’ve been asked a lot of questions about the future of journalism. To be honest, we’ve avoided the questions. We’re still processing all the changes and no one (we’ve found) has all the right answers.
In the middle of all this thinking, we stumbled across a video that looks at the vocation of journalism in 1940. It’s fascinating. So many ideas have stayed the same. So many things have changed. Take a look.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Found at AVGeeks.com
(p.s. We wouldn’t recommend clicking through to Veoh that hosts this video. Other content may not be safe for work.)
3 comments
T Tora! Tora! Laura! March 17, 2009
I used to be a “girl who wanted to be successful in journalism” but wasn’t good in “special women’s departments like home-making and cookery”.
In the ‘80s I worked as a city editor and sports editor on a couple of small-town weeklies, and occasionally had my stories published in the daily owned by the same publisher.
Once I got to use my paper’s expensive long lenses to take pictures of Mick Jagger throwing water on the audience in a concert I got to attend for free.
I realize after watching this video that my title of “city editor” would have been more in line with the duties associated with “country editor” because, with the exception that I did not solicit advertising, I covered the city beat, was the assistant sports editor, did my own photography, and participated in the editing and layout of the paper.
My college journalism school newsroom was much more technologically advanced and interesting than what I encountered after being hired in the real world. We had computers, a typesetting machine (now obsolete), and got to listen to really loud music when we were under deadline.
In my first professional job I was given an old typewriter that re-awoke the nightmare pressure to get stories on paper at 35-words-per-mintue, a basic requirement that intimidated me so much that I almost didn’t apply to journalism school.
One thing that both college and professional newsrooms had in common was that once the paper had been “put to bed”, we drank…lots.
Under protest, I was appointed the sports editor of my college newspaper simply because I was a good runner. Things got worse when my post graduation newspaper job interviews were instantly sparked when the interviewer realized I had been the token “woman sports editor”. It was edgy and interesting and ultimately became the shameful selling point and farce I fell back on to get my foot in the door.
After the initial new-hire glow had worn off I confessed to my editor that, other than being the daughter of an obnoxious former professional football player father who had abandoned me, I was not qualified to pick up on the nuanced understanding of specific sports that was required to write a good story.
My fondest memory as a professional sports writer was when I was assigned to attend an Oakland A’s game to interview a hot (looking) pitcher who had some “filthy stuff” until his magic arm was injured. His sad fate relegated him to doing pretty boy underwear ads.
I begged and pleaded with the real sports editor to release me from the assignment. He knew that I knew nothing about baseball and thought it was the most hilarious of situations. He had once been a hot-shit pitcher himself, throwing heat in excess of 95-miles-an-hour. This was his opportunity to balance the books and proved my personal theory that he had an ax to grind.
I stopped on the way to the interview and quickly consumed two over-sized beers. My racing mind considered the task at hand – interview handsome, talented-but-injured professional baseball player. Suddenly it came to me. I would interview him all right – I would chat him up with magnificent finesse….I would talk to him about everything BUT baseball.
And so it went – I asked him about his love life, his family, his sad injury, the gum/tobacco he preferred to chew, and the big one – how it felt to be one of those big, bad sports underwear models.
I pulled it off. The pitcher took me under his wing that night, posing with me for nerd shots that the paper happily printed, and gave me fistfuls of gum and signed baseballs!
T Thorax O'Tool March 17, 2009
Ironic.
Where’s the video for Texas Oil Fields and Pittsburgh steel mills?
T Tora! Tora! Laura! March 18, 2009
Memories float on an oily Texas slick and are pulled onto the hard and shiny surface of your youth.