CENTENNIAL SUNDAYS
From a reporter's notebook to the front page
Printing the Journal in the early ‘70s involved hot lead, dedicated workers and an eye for detail
When folks think of the newspaper business, they most often envision notebook-wielding reporters who ask a lot of questions and uncover the hot story.
Today, that information for many of us is transmitted over our phones or on our laptops. However, for generations, people received their news via a printed newspaper. Many still do. A walk down a hallway in the ϼ plant on Jefferson Street NE presents a glimpse of what it took – and who it took – to get information from a reporter’s notebook to the newspaper in the early 1970s.
Both sides of that corridor are lined with large photos taken in 1972, showing the “hot type” production process needed to create a newspaper page at the Journal plant, then located at Seventh and Silver SW.
The work was much more time-consuming than today. It involved a multistep process that started with molten lead being transformed into words and ended with metal plates being placed on giant presses. These steps were conducted by composing room employees of the Albuquerque Publishing Company (APC). The process was required not only for every single page printed in the ϼ but also for those that comprised The Albuquerque Tribune. The afternoon paper, which was owned by the E.W. Scripps Co., was located in the same building as the Journal at the time.
Publisher Bill Lang recalls that many of those working in the backshop were “characters of those days.” They were “hard-nosed, hard-working” individuals who took pride in the work they did. Not only were many of them with the company for decades, several had family members who worked there as well.
In fact, there have been dozens of families with multiple generations who spent much of their careers at the Journal and/or Albuquerque Publishing Co.
STEP ONE – Turning reporters’ words into lead type
STEP TWO – Building a page with those lines of lead type
STEP THREE – Rolling out a ‘mat’ impression of page
STEP FOUR – Creating a 42-pound metal plate.
STEP FIVE – Finally! Metal plates go on the press
Coming May 17: Go behind the scenes into the Journal newsroom – and meet its diverse leadership – in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. The clatter of typewriters and wire service alarm bells interrupted the constant chatter of reporters and editors in the crowded, smoke-filled newsroom, then Downtown at Seventh and Silver.
Karen Moses is a former editor of the ϼ. She can be reached at kmoses@abqjournal.com.