John: how times have changed in journalism, from pens to typewriters to computers

Nov 12 2009 by John Avison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WHEN the first computers came into use in journalism, they were tiny black screens about the size of my watch face.

You pressed a button that said ON, made a cup of tea while it warmed up, and started to type. You were rewarded with an ants’ nest of orange letters.

I think there was a word-counter, but spell-checkers hadn’t been invented: you were supposed to be able to spell yourself.

When you’d finished your story, you pressed a button that said PRINTER and a machine at the far end of the room clattered into life, pumping out something that looked like graph paper with punched holes down the edges.

You folded this up, put it in an envelope and gave it to the bus driver, who promised to deliver it to head office within the next few days.

This ‘copy’ was a work of art, but the older hacks scorned the new technology.

“One power cut and you’ve lost the lot,” they’d sneer. “I’ll keep my old Royal and the office Reliance Visible, if you don’t mind.”

Presumably typewriters in their day were disgustingly newfangled, and the older gentlemen of the Fifth Estate clung on to their trusty Parker Vacumatic fountain pens.

“You’ll be laughing, won’t you, when the ribbon breaks? Bet you’ll wish you’d stuck with Quink then.”