Los Angeles Times cutting 74 positions

My “stop the press!” moment came because of a mug in an obit. The deceased was the male half of a young couple. They both had gender-neutral names, like Chris and Pat. The photo submitted was of the couple. We of course cropped out the wrong person.

When my hometown newspaper shut down its press in 2021, it live-streamed the last run on Facebook. Damned if I didn’t watch every minute of it, and damned if it didn’t get dusty as hell in that room.

 

I had a "STOP" moment. I was the Night Editor. Damn CCI system would not send through Sports-1. Everything else was done. Sports-1 just wouldn't go through the typesetter. All the computer gurus were working on it, with no solution. They wanted to go without the front sports page, just have a blank, which would have screwed up the jumps, and looked stupid, etc. That night the section had our GOLF EXTRA feature pages. So I suggested that if we could use the first page of GOLF EXTRA as Sports-1, at least we'd have a decent-looking page for our cover. They agreed and did some flopping and a few other minor fixes make it work. They put it on the press and were ready to go. Just then, the real Sports-1 went through the typesetter -- "STOP THE PRESSES" I was able to shout. Not only that, once they got the real Sports-1 on the press, I was able to shout "START THE PRESSES."

 

I was at the bar when a Cardinals no-hitter wrapped up, and I went back to the newsroom to get it on a page and make sure it made the paper. It helped that I was drinking with the composing room foreman; otherwise, the press folks didn't know me from Adam.

 

I haven't seen a printed version yet, but reading the online version, there have been fewer color pages inside. They also flipped the comics. There was a page with advice, bridge, horoscope, and puzzles with a half dozen black and white comics followed by a full-color comics page. Now the color comics come first. Not a big deal, but there are obviously fewer color positions with the new press run.

Plus there was this typo Tuesday on the Sports cover, unless Tyler Glasnow changed his name.

 

My official “stop the presses” moment came in Valdosta. The printing plant was actually a mile or two down the road, so I nights when I was the sports slot it fell to me to go by and check what was coming off the presses. Somehow the type blew out on a caption and the letters formed a crescent moon pattern. The foreman stopped the presses as requested, and then his assistant immediately fired them back up to get some papers for early carriers because “nobody reads the pictures anyway.”

 

I miss the way the whole building hummed and shook when they started the press run downstairs.

I am one thousand years old.

 

Then I’m one thousand and one.

Hearing the press crank up and then grabbing a paper off the line to get that fresh ink on your hands was the daily affirmation of our love story with the paper. Too bad it never loved us back.

 

There were some Saturday nights when sports was the last live copy and I was the sports designer that I'd have that duty. The last news-side editor would leave maybe 20 minutes earlier. We'd finish layout – cold-type paste-up – and OK the page and the back shop would work their magic. It was usually less than 15 minutes before the presses ran. Ah, that magic sound. Meanwhile, I'd monitor the AP wire and listen to the all-news station while waiting to inspect the first copies. I could stop the presses if there was a page error in the live sections – a page upside down or copy falling across an ad – or if the president or pope died in that short time. Everything else could wait for Monday morning. (Late Saturday night to about 9 a.m. Sunday was the only time our newsroom was unmanned.) Never had to tell the foreman anything but "good job."

 

In Fort Lauderdale in about 1987 we went to this state of the art "flexo" kind of press. And we literally advertised to our readers, "No ink stains on your hands!"

 

Long ago I worked for porn publisher Carl Ruderman's company on a mainstream music mag as part of the company's product diverisification. Seems newsstand sales of High Society, Juggs and other titles never moved much from 200k copies a month. In a meeting just prior to going to press we were told the music mag was struggling to attract sufficient subscribers.

"Stop the presses!" Ruderman exclaimed and smirking, looked around the room to gauge reaction.

EDIT: Now I see he recently got five years in prison for securities fraud.

 

Our pressroom guys loved me because I usually got them pages early. So if I ever needed to stop to correct a mistake, they would do it and not complain.

I admired them when they gave the ultimate middle finger to GateHouse when the company shut down our pressroom. On the last night there was a mysterious electrical issue with our press that just couldn't be fixed, so they had to transfer our print operations to the new site an hour and a half away, forcing those guys to work OT because they weren't expecting us, plus there was cost of having to go get those papers. The subtle grins from our pressroom guys told me this was no accident.

But yeah, I do miss hearing the presses roll.