A eulogy for old-school NEWSROOMS

Gaston de ROSAYRO

I stepped into my first newsroom and some tectonic plate of destiny shifted. Strangely enough it was the very editorial from where this paper you are reading now was printed. Even for a brash young 'yahoo' I realised that I had slid into a new and exciting dimension. That is because newsrooms in their heyday were a sort of idiosyncratic microcosm containing a cluster of contraventions. They say it is the adrenaline that keeps it all going. Every day, this thing we call a newsroom brought together the thrill of the hunt and a race against time. The mornings were fairly serene until around noon when the provincial deadline approached. No one worried much because the desks were fully manned and there was hardly any cause for panic.

For many years, as far I can remember, there was only one kind of newsroom, a perpetually chaotic place they called 'The Editorial'. Of course it was peopled by a bunch of mostly eccentric, unpredictable newsmen, many of who became legends in their lifetime. Proficiency in profanity was then held as a sort of norm, a sort of prerequisite of the trade, so to say. And the closer to deadline the thicker and more imaginative the swearing became. Still the morning staff comprised a fair number of women writers and sub-editors. The presence of the fair sex made everyone more polite. But as press time approached there was a new sense of urgency and everything happened at hurry-up pace.

But the fun really began when the nocturnal shift staff trooped in around twilight. Those dragooned into the night shifts usually had a fairly easy time because the only changes would be those with breaking news. At times there were calls for headline changes or story swops. But by and large the night shifts were the most exciting. The night staff usually comprised a bunch of veterans along with a gang of younger greenhorns who were all learning on the job. Along with the intensity came a rumpus-room collegiality backed up by hard work, all-professional skill and barely disguised altruism. It was a place of noise and laughter and laxity. To use the most basic word, it was fun.

Yes the journos were mostly a law unto themselves. And the management tolerated certain 'amazingly crazy' characters whose mutterings unnerved even their colleagues. Ah yes, we played games. We dared to play games. We had a few sharpshooters notorious for shooting rubber bands at their colleagues. Crumpled paper balls and paper clips were used as handy missiles.

Who can forget the clearing of furniture during a quiet news-less night for floodlit indoor cricket games. Someone brought in hard, small rubber balls and mini-bats to indulge in some of the most highly competitive games imaginable. As the old poem goes: 'Harsh circumstance oft made the rules and not the MCC.'

Wooden trays placed on tables were used as wickets and the boundaries were set. There was a lot of arguing pushing and shoving and some of the harder hitting batsmen managed to break a few windows and fluorescent lights. Who can forget the transport manager or his assistant coming upstairs to the editorial with a wastepaper basket that had been kicked out of the window by a frustrated scribbler. Or the time an inveterate prankster was given a taste of his own medicine by a youthful cub reporter who had snatched his pants off the toilet door where he had hung them.

There was much ranting and raving coming from the toilet area and no one took any notice. A while later the prankster emerged in shirt, necktie, shoes and socks while the flashbulbs from a barrage of cameras kept popping amid hoots of raucous laughter. The editors then valued the collaborative spirit in a newsroom. That spirit drew people who cared very much about what they did and its influence and impact on the life of the community. I still believe the rowdiness and pranks fueled passion and helped develop hotbeds of creative thinking.

But there were several violent theatrics that did emerge culminating in some pretty good punch- ups - a rather jolly good outbreak of old newsroom furore. Many of these contretemps went un

reported because even the duty editors felt it was a 'hooray' thing for colourful characters to indulge in violence in disagreement over the quality of a story. I look back fondly on the days of high spirits, and I do miss the fighting.

The antagonists had to send a peon out to sneak in a celebratory bottle where they would sink their differences with a cheery tot or three. Whatever their faults and virtues, it is hard to imagine old-style newsrooms returning. So let us toast those old news roosts and the tribe of rapscallions and reformists they let loose on the editorial. Shabby they might have been. Perfect they never were. Yes it is true we were being full of ourselves - but for the right reasons. We were holding people accountable. But who would trade the days you spent there, sassing the boss, telling off the Mayor, kicking bungling bureaucratic butt and hanging a bunch of crooks with your investigative nose and scribbling.

Today's newsrooms are much more controlled and antiseptic and not nearly as much fun. They could easily be a sales office for some big company. For instance if the episode I relate now had occurred today someone would have called security. No one called security when a feisty runt of a municipal councillor barged into the newsroom and mistakenly berated a hefty, dignified sub-editor who he had thought was responsible for an article that had chastised him. The man had pushed aside a few reporters while lambasting them in profanity.

The veteran sub-editor grabbed the man by his collar and lifted him against the wall. The councillor, feet dangling in the air, was still stuttering the 'f' bomb. His adversary queried in a menacing drawl: "What are you saying you little chamber-pot?" The municipal politico kept stuttering: FFfff.....Fffffff...Fabulous Sir, PPlease ffffforgive me!"

No, they do not make newsrooms like they used to anymore, nor the legends who peopled them!

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