The feng shui newsrooms
Back in the day, newsrooms were messy, smoky, noisy places. Notorious packrats, reporters piled notepads, copy paper and newspapers on every available surface and sometimes on unavailable surfaces. Ashtrays were emptied only when something pushed them off a desk and onto the floor. In the day before computers, reporters and editors clacked out stories on Royal and Underwoods, creating the respectable din of work in progress. The air smelled of printer's ink and raw newsprint. Cubicles didn't exist. Desks lined up so that you could cross a room the size of a basketball court without touching the floor. The linoleum floor, by the way.
It was wonderful. And, aside from the occasional messy reporter, it's history.
Juan Antonio Giner of Innovations in Newspapers has posted photos of newsrooms around the world. For newspaper junkies, they're worth a look at how the fourth estate works.
Comments (2)
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Ashtrays were emptied only when something pushed them off a desk and onto the floor.
You mean "converted bulk 35mm film cannisters," don't you?
And that day isn't so far gone, at least in two instances I've seen. In 1999-2000, the FW Star-Telegram newsroom had these little "half-cubicles" which were only about a foot taller than the desk, in the newsroom. A recent (2004?) tour of The State newsroom in Columbia, S.C. showed that not much had changed from when I first began in 1984 (and they also had those "half-cubicles") - except the absence of paste-up employees.
Posted on December 9, 2006 3:51 PM
The Cop Quad in the N&R newsroom, at least, is still a bunch of desks with piles of stuff. It's been like that in every newsroom in which I've worked or interned.
It's a little bizarre that everyone just sort of accepts the messiness - but it's also nice that it's understood that it's mostly necessary.
Editor Mike Kernels' desk, though...that thing is immaculate. It's kind of scary.
Posted on December 11, 2006 9:55 PM