Myth of a clean newsroom?

My shop is a dive as well. The printing press is just on the otherside of the wall, and all of the fumes leak into the editorial department. Does not help writting blocks, but can leave there with an incredible high some days. As well the ceiling - because of the fumes - is no longer white, various between an aged yellow and a black, I wanna say film, but it's black none the less. I swear, if I ever end up with a brain tumor I know exactly who i'm suing.

 

In my career, I have had the honor to assist in extinguishing a newsroom desk fire.

 

There's a guy in every newsroom whose keyboard is coated with a sort of viscous greasy goo.

 

the cleanliness and absolute quiet that permeates my current newsroom, as i've stated before, has stripped papers of their energy. i hate it. newsrooms used to be cathedrals where there was always a racket -- typewriters going, yells for copyboys, reporters and editors shouting at one another. it was glorious.

give me those newsrooms over today's insurance offices any day. "the paper" and "all the president's men" were pretty representative of what it was like.

call me an old fogey longing for the days of yore, but you youngin's have no idea what you missed out on. it was that kind of atmosphere that brought employees at a paper together.

i believe my buddy dave kindred is working on a book about newspapers. and this subject will be one of his chapters. i'm looking forward to it.

 

Apparently none of you have a scanner blaring static for a minute straight into your left ear as you read about quiet newsrooms.

 

I'd love to have a column written on the sports department.

I few footballs and baseballs lying around, various football helmets.

Supposedly 'filed' newspapers stacked or stuffed so tighly that you can never find the one you want. Or it's because it's stuffed in the back of some file cabinet.

Throw in a small stereo, a ton of four-year-old press releases and notes with information nobody will every care about, and you've got an accurate picture.

 

I watched Zodiac today and it really didn't strike me as unrealistic. There was a decided lack of cubicles that reminded me of my first job at a daily paper. Desks crammed together in groups of four, that kind of thing. It was funny when the scene came up where Graysmith was working on his book, and he had file boxes and stacks of paper all over his apartment. If there's one thing my wife hates about the newspaper industry, it's the clutter it creates in her home, because I never throw anything away. As for our newsroom, yeah, it's cluttered. Sign of a collection of creative minds. If you really want to clean it up, do a coupla stories about fire code enforcement, and you'll be scheduled for a visit from the local marshall. That'll get management's attention.

 

well spoken

my first newsroom was a disorganized, disheveled slophouse. bins of old newspapers everywhere, white crap falling out of the ceiling, old black telephones constantly ringing, dusty old wooden desks everywhere with piles of shit stacked all over the place, police radio blaring, reporters and photographers rushing in and out ... there was always a great sense of urgency and I loved being a part of it.

 

A rat ran across the room in one of my old newsrooms, and its long, thick tail made a WHACK! sound when it hit my chair leg. Also had a bat.

 

Before we were fully paginated with Quark in my first shop, we'd grab those tubes that ads came in, run a sheet of 11x17 through the waxer a couple of times, and have a blast. Man, I could make that ball of paper break a foot and a half.

I broke a picture frame on an ad saleswoman's desk once, and she chased me out of the building, cursing all the way. Good times.

As for desk cleanliness, I'm a stickler about that. At my last shop, I bitched without ceasing about keeping the area clean.

 

While I get the part about the waxer (my first shop was cut and paste), the rest of that statement is way over my head.

 

I think he meant that they would play baseball using the ad tubes as bats.
I also assume he meant that he would pitch and he could put some english on the wax ball.