Thoughts from the Publisher

Last week I wrote about my ability to read upside down. Although some may think of that particular talent as one of little use, I have enjoyed being able to decipher documents at a glance no matter how askew they are on my desk. As I stated in my last column, I recently discovered the topic on a posting and graphic that I saw on Facebook. Piquing my interest was a comment made on the subject by a man by the name of Richard Stafford. He shared with Facebook readers that at one time he worked for a newspaper as a composing-room editor. Below is information he sent to me that gave some details on his job from, as I call it, “back in the olden days.”
If these lines (of the paragraphs printed upside down on the Facebook page) were made of that dark metallic element that we call lead and were displayed under dim light in mirror image (which also flips the typeface), then the passage would be akin to what all printers and composing-room editors recall from the days of hot type.
Those of us who were responsible for the release of pages, although usually not before printed proofs were pulled, studied the copy that printers arranged for us in dark forms that allowed for little contrast between line and space. But we had to work quickly, and we had to be accurate.
Our job as composing-room editors was eased by veteran printers (some of whom knew more about what we were there to do than we did). They helped us make certain that the first setup and subsequent corrections were fairly clean.
Although we envied the visual prowess of veteran printers, who were used to working in that mole-friendly atmosphere, we did our job as well as we could. We often stumbled when reading and when correcting spelling, grammar or even facts; we sometimes worked too fast— faster than our competence permitted— because we knew that the news editor, the copy desk, the late shift on the city desk and everyone else waited for the proofs.
We worked in the dark, and mistakes that we always blamed on the dim light and leaden shades sometimes haunted us later.
Also, when the news editor sent any of us to make a late change, it was no picnic to confront the composing room foreman and demand a revision. If the page had been released, especially if the printing plates already had been made, there could be trouble. At that point even veteran makeup editors might question the wisdom of so much as thinking about correcting anything at all trivial.
But, it was fun, sometimes as exhilarating as it is to be in an electric storm, lightning exploding in the skies and crashing all around you. It was grand!
I think the reason I always recall the mirror-image leaden type as being upside down and backward is that we (the make-up editors) traditionally stood at what would be the top of the page and read from the galley version’s bottom right to the left, following the lines successively upward toward what would be the bottom of that printed page. That may seem awkward, but the printers apparently believed that we could read the mirror-image display easier from that position. At least, that position at the top of the page is where they placed me from the beginning. And for several years, every time I worked in the composing room, that is where I stood.
I don’t think we changed to the first punch-cards of our transition to cold type until the mid to late 1970s. Until then we printed from plates made from galleys containing lines of type first composed from molten lead on Linotype machines. That was long ago, and if my memory is imperfect, I plead the fifth.