Do you have any job skills that are now obsolete?

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339. That was about the time I started my working at Newsday...

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

the big Long Island tabloid-sized daily. They had switched to cold type. Still had a Linotype Machine on display in their lobby for the general public.

Those operators really had to have some skill to run them, sorta like a drummer using all four appendages at the same time. I've only seen them in action on film.

I did the backpage, sports. Worked the nightshift wating for photos from the night Yankees, Knicks, Mets, Rangers or Islanders games that we'd rush to finish the page with the photo.

Good thing was I got to see my page the next morning.

It was pressure but a sense of accomplishment to have made the deadline and see the results the next morning on the backpage of the paper.

Sometimes had to go to the composing room where the guys recently trained using cold type did the paste-ups of the pages using wax machines. If anyone, an artist or editor from another dept anything, those union guys would drop what they were doing and raise hell because they knew what leverage they had. It was crazy, I learned fast as I had to see they were doing it right.

Wild, hectic times to meet that deadline.