Progress at the newsroom

Many years ago, I was working in newsroom plenty of typewriters, with a teletypes room and a lot of noise. Phones ringing, the bells of the teletype announcing hot news that made us run to see what was all about, people talking and shouting (oh how I miss that environment!).

One day, they installed new desks with computers on them, and a man came to teach us how they worked.

We then had a hybrid newsroom with typewriters and computers, until we learned how to work with the new machines.

The instructor, an optimistic man, told us the first day that in five years there won’t be papers on our desks because we would do everything with the computer.

Computers destroyed many jobs in the workshop. Composers of texts, correctors, among others. I remember each one of them.

From then, we, the journalists, had to do everything, look for the news, write them, compose and fit the text on the page and correct it to eliminate typos, redundancies, grammatical errors the mechanical corrector couldn’t detect.

They installed big printers, and we began to print our pieces or pages at the actual size to be able to correct the errors because, on the screen, it was impossible. Above all on those old computers with black screens and green letters. When we made the corrections with a red pen on paper, we introduced them on the computer and printed another copy to show the result to our bosses.

Five years later, the newsroom had many more papers on the desks than before.

Computers brought us a new world of possibilities for research and communication through the Internet, and that was great.

I can’t think of working without the web and the latest technologies that are bursting with such force in my field. The progress is being dizzying and has its own rules. Not everything is how we predicted. We live in a constantly changing world.

There is something that doesn’t change: the journalist’s responsibility and his compromise with the truth.

Whatever the technologies, if the journalist (and his editor) is honest, the truth will reach the public. If he or she is an opportunist, He or she will spread confusion and lies.

#FOWC: Progress

In the background image, my newsroom team when we were al young. I’m the one with the t-shirt with stripes

What do you think?


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