Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1921-02-11

ans:
"When the secretary asked me to
make a talk this week / told him |
would do the best could. I'm not
a member of the Knights of Py-
thias, like Ben Stein, therefore l
haven't had the opportunity to par
ticipate speechmaking on the other
helpless members.
"The printing industry dates hack
hundreds of years, but I'm not going
to give you the details of the indus
try from its origin up to the present
time. l will, however, try to tell you
how our town office is run.
"The first requirement in news
paper office is accuracy; the next
is speed. Speed particularly applies to
afternoon papers, where there is a
rush from the beginning Of the days
work until the paper has gone to press.
l don't mean, however, that there is
a noise and hubbub in the office, but
everyone on the paper is working at
top speed, and trying to accomplish
as much as possible.
1--WE are not quite as speedy, how
ever, as a place l was reading about
the other day. An automobile driver
had been arrested and was on his
way to court, But officer, l was only
doing sixty miles an hour said the
prisoner. DO you call that speeding?'
Who said anything about speed
ing? You were delaying the traffic.
the officer replied.
"Our office is opened every morn
ing at z o'clock. The first man at
work is the telegraph operator, as our
telegraph report starts coming in at
Z o'clock. We have a leased wire right
in our editorial room, and the report
comes in steadily from z o'clock in
the morning until 3 orciock in the af-
ternoon. The first news to come over
the wire in the morning, is news that
has happened during the previous
night, or some event that occurred
late the afternoon before, after the
paper had gone to press, together
with q Tot OF European news. When
it's seven o'clock in the afternoon in
Vicksburg it's 1 or 2 o'clock in the
afternoon in Europe.
1.-THE cables have been busy all
during the night and early morning
and the news is in our office shortly
after it happens. Telegraph, cables
and wireless annihilate time and
space and instead, of having to wait
a good many hours or even days for
a piece of news, as was formerly the
case, we can now announce the world s
greatest happenings a few minutes
after they occur. Some years ago
the New Orleans Picayune boasted Of
announcing the result of a national
election eight days after it occurred.
"Tak.a the explosion IN Wall Street
a few weeks ago. In less than ten
minutes after it occurred, we had the
news in our office. Of course we
.:idn't have all the details then, but
he full details followed rapidly. The
news comes in this way: FLASH
explosion in Wall street in front Of
Morgan's office. Many killed." This
prepares us for a big story and we
get ready to handle it. On any big
event we are informed about it right
away in few words, ana the particu-
lars follow.
How Press Associations Work.
"There are three big press associa-
tions who supply the daily papers with
news. The press associations have
correspondents everywhere, and by
that, l mean everywhere in the whole
world. There is not place on earth
that | know of where there isn't some
person who has been employed to
send in a big piece Of news when it
occurs. Here's the way it works: Lit
tie papers like our own have our
country correspondents who send
us the news in our office, but if
there is a real big piece of news we
send it in to one of the press asso-
Citations. and it is Immediately put
on the wire and sent broadcast all
over the United States. This of
course applies only to big news. The
press associations have distributing
points called Bureaus" where the
news is gotten into readable shape as
rapidly as possible and placed on the
wire. There are Bureaus at all the
principal news centers throughout
the United States, and the bureau in
Washington supplies our news.
'The Post, together with about
twenty or thirty other afternoon pa
pers, is connected on the same wire
which runs from Washington to
Shreveport. There Is one sender, and