The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-02-05
THE MODERN NEWSPAPER

BY WALTER HARPER.

, quick wit, though there are older heads and experienced bralns in the baekground directing the machinery and tempering the frenzy.
 Telegrapt keys are clattering away in dustriously in the Associated Press room
 while nimble fingered operators are snatching from the wires the choice bits
 of news that come sparkling and crisp from every quarter of the globe The news editors sit calmly at their desks editing this matter and dispatching it to the hungry linotypes up stairs. In rapid succession they receive accounts of trag-
 edes, scenes of sorrow, royal festivitv, joy, hope and despair. the fall of nations, the grovelingS of crowned heads in the dust, disasters that will make you shiver with horror in the morning, while the
 only emotion you see depicted in their faces is one of exultation over q bit of
 good news Disasters are luscious morsels to them and yet they are not heartless. They have a keen sympathy for the distressed but it is news, and the , people must have the news
 No man loves his work more than the newspaper man, and there Is no stimu- iant on earth that has the effect on him of ''rattling good story
 This strenuous scene In the reporters room continues with little ab~,ment until after midnight and only ceases when the bis press in the basement begins to trem- ble under the task of delivering the last edition for the early morning trains and the city delivery There are earlier edi- tiohs to catch trains leaving the city at
 different hours that people in the out laying towns and hamlets over the state may read the happenings of the world along with the man in the city at break fast.
 These early editions catch rural free de- livery mail carriers far out in the country and at the noon hour or before, the enter- prising farmer, beyond the sound of the locomotive whistle and the hum of the world sits down in his quiet home and enjoys one of the choicest luxuries of his city brother Not only is this lux ury to him but 1t puts shining dollars in his pockets. Intelligence breeds thrift and enterprise, information inspires pride and manhood and the newspaper is the mod ern educator
 From the reporters room we go to the third floor where a battery of linotype machines are busy putting the copy into type, line after line and column after column The linotype machine is one Of the most wonderful inventions of the age and makes the modern newspaper pos sibility. Without these machines, each
 doing the work of seven or eight men, the mammoth newspaper of today would be a physical impossibility.
 In the stereotyping department you sec these "lines of type" set by the linotype
 nodded into solid sheets Of metal from each of which is printed a page of the paper When every page has been com nleted in this way they are locked on the
 cylinders of the huge press in the base
 ment and the paper is ready to bt
 printed
 As you descend to the press room witt
 tho last stereotyped page, or form, vol
 wonder if they are not late with that da,'
 paper. You know that many thousand
 copies have to he printed, folded. count 1 ed and distributed to every quarter o1
 the city before the people are up. besides
 several thousand copies are to be go
 ready and loaded onto early trains fo
 every section of the state and ad1oin ! ing states. You are told that not pag' i has yet been printed. For the last edition you get nervous over the llck of tim'
 and feel sure that your favorite pape will fail to make connections for once | You are the only one present however ! that seems concerned. The pressmen arr l lounging about smoking and chatting while the last form Is being placed ol
 the press Ready" is announced ant
 at once the decks are cleared for action The head pressman touches a leavel