From Manual Typewriter to the Internet – Journalism’s Journey

Jennifer in 1959. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Donovan.

How far journalism has come—from typewriters to word processing, internet tools, social media and beyond.  And I’ve seen it all.

When I fell in love with newspapering—as editor of my 7th grade newspaper in the 1950s—we wrote on manual typewriters. When I was in high school, the gift of a little portable typewriter of my own was such a thrill.  

Fast forward to my second job after college, writing for a small daily newspaper. The publisher lured me there with the promise of an ELECTRIC typewriter! If reporters made a typing error, we had to go back and retype. Back in the composing room, typesetters were still using clanking linotype machines to produce bars of lead type, placing the heavy lead bars by hand in columns on page forms. Paper proofs were printed from those pages and read for errors by copy editors.

I was an anomaly in those early newsrooms. There were very few women, and the ones there were wrote society columns and covered “women’s news” like sewing circles and church socials. I covered City Hall and the cops.

In the late 1970s, when word processors appeared on the scene, I was working for a slightly larger daily paper. The reporters all grumbled. “We’ll never be able to write on those things,” they said. But we had to learn to use the new tool, so we did. 

The clunky word processors were replaced by centralized word processing systems linked to each computer screen in the newsroom. By then, reporters were in love with the new technology. Instead of retyping a whole page, they could mark a misspelled word or a line that belonged somewhere else in the story and correct or move it with the click of a key. But they still had to print out their stories, paste the pages together and hand-carry them to the copy desk.

Then word processors were laid to rest, replaced in the 1990s by computer systems that required a large tower that stood next to a small monitor and keyboard. The mouse made its appearance, speeding up the writing and revising process. Microsoft Word replaced WordPerfect, which had required use of all kinds of function keys. The Internet arrived, lending a new and growing library of research resources. 

By the time the last newspaper I worked at, the Dallas Times Herald, went belly-up, the clunky computer towers had vanished too. The computer itself had been incorporated into the monitor and keyboard. Reporters were writing away on large screens with easy-to-use keyboards and mouse control, sending their stories to distant editors just by pressing a key.  They were using the Internet to research their stories, find sources and fact-check. By then, newspapers were printed by computer too. The linotypes had disappeared, and the huge roller-presses that produced the low, rumbling background music of every newsroom, were sold for scrap. 

Today, reporters use portable laptops, carrying them along to interviews and meetings, often writing their stories remotely. There are far more women than men in the newsroom, covering everything from crime to courts, from public protests to politics. I wouldn’t even recognize most newsrooms today. 

Now we can read the news literally as it's happening, on the little rectangular computers we all carry in our pockets or purses, on which we receive news and weather alerts, as well as doing email interviews and calling or texting sources. 

The technology behind producing and distributing the news is still evolving and undoubtedly will continue to evolve in ways we can’t even imagine today.

The journalism industry has changed too, and not necessarily in a good way. Family-run newspapers where the reporters and editors knew their community have been taken over by corporate conglomerates. Newspapers hire reporters fresh out of journalism schools from all over the nation and editors wherever they can find them. The people we rely on to report the local news often don’t know the community, its people, issues and concerns.  

How can we fix what went wrong with journalism? Here’s my prescription: 

• Communities: Develop alternative news sources, like the Copper Beacon. 

• Journalists: Stick to the facts—all the facts—and fact-check, fact check, fact check.

• Readers: Support your local newspaper or other community news source by subscribing, and become citizen journalists, alerting your news sources to important issues, projects and events in your community.

• Family-owned and community newspapers: hang in there. Don’t let the corporate media giants eat you up.