Remembering a Better Brain

A Shift at The Wall Street Journal in the Last Century

Standing in the middle of the garage, I’m completely stalled. Moments ago it was vitally important to find something in the garage for use somewhere inside the house, but now I have no clue what I’m looking for. I stand here befuddled. And then I laugh at myself.

I hitch up my jeans, because they seem to almost always be hanging off my butt these days, and return to the house. Maybe, if I walk around for a few minutes, I’ll remember why I wanted a tool from of the garage.

This is normal now, but when I wore a younger man’s clothes, some years ago, this would never have happened.

* * *

It’s a Thursday night at 6:40 and we have a 40 page newspaper to finish. So far we have shipped 30 pages to stereotyping where they make the plates to put on the press. We are just about where we should be in terms of pages shipped.

We have 10 pages left to finish in 30 minutes before lockup, an easy night under ordinary circumstances. I have seven of the best printers out of a crew of twenty-five working with me. Most of the rest of the printers are doing low or moderately skilled jobs here in the composing room. Four of them are sitting on a bench doing nothing because they are useless. It’s union shop.

What looked like a normal first edition is now feeling somewhat out of control. New York has alerted us that they have a major story coming, and the toe-dancer that I have to work with on the editorial page is slow getting us cuts to their golden words.

It is almost always “New York says.” Seldom do we use someone’s name or position. It feels like there is an oracle on the Telex machine that sends us instructions during the late afternoon and into the evening. We seldom respond to the instructions. We read the yellow scraps of paper ripped from the clattering Telex machine and generally do as we are told. But sometimes we have to improvise.

If we don’t say “New York” but instead use a last name, it is either out of respect or ridicule. The managing editor’s name gets everyone’s attention—it’s a way of communicating: “Get this done now. Don’t screw-up.” But there are several pedantic little people with a modest amount of rank in New York who send us instructions that are sometimes useless or quickly rescinded.

If something really important is happening, the news production editor, my boss, will get a call from “New York” and walk out into the composing room to tell me what he has just heard. My title is makeup man. I work with the printers to put the paper together. Once I’ve heard what he says, I tell Willy, the straw boss what’s happening, and then the line printers that I’m working with.

We’re in a satellite production plant in White Oak, Maryland just outside of DC. There are six other production plants nationally including Chicopee, Massachusetts. Our edition goes north to Pittsburg, south to Key West, and generally to the Mississippi River. Our first deadline is 7:10. Sometimes we miss our deadline by a few minutes. It’s not a big deal to anyone but us. But if we miss by seven minutes or more it is a big deal. The trucks miss the mail trains. The Journal arrives a day late. People get grumpy.

The stereotype boss and I mostly communicate by hand signals due to the clamor of the composing room and the distance between us. He has an ulcer and probably blames it on me. He hates the fact that a 25-year-old is giving him instructions.

There are ten unfinished pages in my head. I can visualize each one of them and have a plan for shipping them on time. Nothing is time-critical on the editorial page, it never is. I Telex the editorial page guy.

“I’m still two lines long in 1 and 2. White Oak.

“Chicopee hasn’t asked for cuts.”

“I’m not Chicopee. I can squeeze the standing head.”

“No!, No! cuts coming.”

“Fast please.”

A minute later the Telex clatters and I read the cuts that come in the middle of the lead editorial. The rest of the editorial will have to be reset. Errors possible.

“Dummy.”

Page 1 is finished except for “What’s News” where the breaking story will either lead off or take the number two slot. That’s easy. Hal is working on page 17 where the jumps from the front page leaders and the A-Hed, the front page feature story, have been composed.

6:50. Hal calls me over. We both look at the page. He has filled an empty hole with a base for a house ad. I look up and wink, then I trot over to the ad guy and ask for a house ad on 17. We have three pages under control. Seven pages at the front of the paper, where we place the major stories, are in various states of completion or disarray.

I go to the imposing stone, one of a number of large metal tables that are belly-button high, where the new stories appear in type on long metal trays. The first take of the breaking story has moved. Dick, the news production editor, comes out to the composing room and we talk for a minute or so. He lights a cigarette.

“New York says we’ll get three takes.”

“You want me to hold for all three?”

“Yup, it’s outta the Washington Bureau.”

“Will the princes get their shorts all bunched up if we only get two takes before lockup?

“You are never going to get promoted. Get three takes.”

“Okay, a “One” head, 2-24 or 3-36?

“‘One’ head, on page 3. We are getting a 2-24 for the “One” head now leading page 3.

“Immediate replate to get the rest of the story?”

“Yup.”

What this means is that the lead story on page 3 has been temporarily downgraded to make room for the breaking news. It also means that we can finish all the pages except 1 and 3. And that we’ll need one printer to stay on the floor after lockup to redo page 3 with the rest of the story, and then ship the page to stereotype for an immediate replate. A good guess is that the press will stop twenty minutes after it starts up to get a new page 3.

Chaos is defined as complete disorder and confusion. If a person, who had no idea of how a hot type newspaper is put together in the very last minutes, shows up at 7 in the evening and stands on the edge of the composing room, that’s the word that would come to mind.

But if a person understands what was going on, they might smile and enjoy watching seven printers on the crew standing over seven pages on one side of the stone while a makeup man, half their age, often more, races from page to page.

If I turn and look up from the action, I always see the news production editor. The joke is that he is there in case I am disabled and die, in which case he will step over my body and finish my job. Beside him I sometimes see suits with their arms folded in front of them staring intently at what we are doing. Who knows who they are? Who cares? We have work to do.

I catch Willy’s eyes. I make a plus sign by holding up my crossed index fingers then point at Hal. Willy frowns and nods. With hand signals I have just asked Willy to keep Hal working past the lockup to redo page 3.

I’m back with the printers. With the exception of the editorial page, all the unfinished pages are on the first stone of the composing room. Hal is finishing up 17.

7:00. Zana, the most careful printer on the crew, has picked up the new type for the editorial page. I follow and watch as he makes three lines of corrections, then pulls out the type to be replaced and drops in the new type. We are still a line long. I tell him to take space out of the standing head and ship it. I don’t have to check Zane’s work. He nods and I move on to the first stone.

Now we are down to seven pages with ten minutes to go. I momentarily hover over each page and consult with the printer on that page. The question is the same: do we have any more type coming? Yes. If we have more type coming do we wait for it, or ask the ad guy for house ads? Depends. If no more type is coming, do we drop in a house ad and ship the page. Yes.

My job is simple. Make sure all the page are done in a workman-like manner by 7:10.

As I work along the stone, the printers talk or point at problems. I respond with directions for how to solve the problem by moving stories around, or blocking out for house ads, or I edit a story on the fly to make it shorter so that it fits. These are all smart guys, they could mostly complete the paper without me. But the deal is that I’m the last “news” guy to see the page before it comes out in print. And I’m following general instructions from New York on how the pages should be laid out.

Page 1 is almost finished, Hal will drop in new type in “What’s News” in first or second position, and pull out the last story or two in the column to make room for the new story. Then he will lock up the page and ship it after we both check the date on the page for the second time. He will move on to page 2.

Zana is on page 3 now. I explain that we are getting a new “One” head that will be three takes long; that the existing “One” head will become a 2-24 in columns 2 and 3, and will wrap into column 4, and he should pull the rest of the stories that he will remove from page 3 for the printer standing by to finish page 4.

I know that just sounded like gibberish at worst, and jargon stew at best, but time is short and there is an established order to our work that allows us to communicate in jargon and with hand signals. The way the printers are doing their work runs my brain, just as the way I am doing my work runs their hands.

I’ve got complete confidence in Hal and Zana. I work with the printers on pages 4, 6, and 7. With minutes to go, they are all going to make the deadline.

Page 5 is a mess. Willy is headed toward it with a tray of new type. Willy is gruff and never has much to say to me, but he’s the ultimate pro and sees I’m in trouble, not of my own making. I meet him there and signal the ad guy that I’m going to need help on 2 and 3. The ad guy will be close to page 5 if Willy runs out of type.

Hal is now on page 2. I ask him to put in a base for a house ad at the bottom of the page and ship it once the ad is in.

Back at page 6, I take a look and see no problems and tell the printer to ship it when he is finished. Next I check page 4 and make eye contact with the printer and point at stereotyping. He nods.

The printer on page 7 yells that he is long. I scramble down the stone opposite him and read the first paragraph of the long story and then the last paragraph. The type is upside down and backwards. The world will not stop spinning if I cut that paragraph. Worst case, we could get a grumpy note from a bureau chief. I point at the paragraph, look at the printer, and mark the last paragraph with a red magic marker. He pulls the paragraph and is short a line. He reaches in the top pocket of his apron and pulls out thin strips of lead that he inserts one at a time between each line at the beginning of the story until the story fits perfectly.

“Nice job,” I say, “Ship it.”

Willy yells at me from page 5. I look down and the page is perfect. He has broken a number of written and unwritten rules of the composing room. He looks at me with a crooked smile. I shake my head in wonder, do the cranking motion to signal he should lock up, and swing my index finger toward stereotype.

Zana is left with two odd holes on page 3. It the last page to go. Column one has about a 14- inch hole at the bottom and column two has an 8-inch hole. It’s against the rules to butt house ads for the Journal up against each other. It’s a night for breaking rules. Willy started it. The ad guy sort of saves my ass with a 14-inch public service ad from a charity.

Zana ships page 3, and logs it on the clipboard at the end of the stone closest to stereotype. As he moves away, Willy moves up to the clipboard. He slowly looks up at the clock on the wall. He presumably writes down 7:10, adds his initials, and looks at me, expressionless.

I touch the end of my nose with my index finger.

He smiles.

* * *

After a minute or so of walking through the house dumbfounded, I suddenly remember that it was a leather hole punch I was looking for in the garage. I think I can add one more hole to my belt before I need to replace it.

###

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