The Post-Journal 175 Anniversary

Table of Contents

  "Newspaper's History Spans 175 Years," Jamestown (NY) Post-Journal, 21 June 2001.
        The Post-Journal website:  http://post-journal.com/

Newspaper's History Spans 175 Years

     The Jamestown Journal
   Jamestown was a tiny settlement of 400 people hidden away in the wilderness of a vast forest when the first issue of the Jamestown Journal was published 175 years ago today.
   The publisher, Adolphus Fletcher, had come to Chautauqua County in 1818 from New England to live with relatives who had settled in what became Ashville. Although his training in New England had been as an apprentice on the Massachusetts Spy of Worcester, a newspaper that pre-dated the Revolution. Fletcher tried farming along Goose Creek when he first came to the area, and then ran a store and later kept a tavern.
   In Jamestown, meanwhile, a group of prominent citizens headed by Abner Hazeltine Sr. had been looking for a printer to start a newspaper in their hamlet. When they heard about Fletcher's training, they persuaded him to move to Jamestown late in 1825. At the time, Jamestown consisted of a few grist mills and sawmills, a few factories and a few rude dwellings.
   Fletcher built a two-story frame house on ground now occupied by St. Luke's Episcopal Church, purchased type and other printing material and either bought or built a wooden press in preparation for June 21, 1826, when he would publish the very first edition of the Journal.
   In the early years, Hazeltine and other lawyers in the village helped write editorial material and no doubt influenced the Journal's policy on political matters. The newspaper was a staunch advocate of the Whig Party and a strong supporter of the doctrine of protection of American industries.
   The family owned the Journal for 20 years, with Adolphus turning over control to his son, J. Warren.
   Frank W. Palmer, who had grown up with the Journal and learned the trade of printing there, bought it in 1848. During his 10-year ownership, the Journal became the leading Whig organ in Chautauqua County.
   C. D. Sackett and Coleman E. Bishop took charge of the Journal after Palmer left in 1858. During their tenure as owners in the pre-Civil War days, the Journal took a firm stand against compromising with treason, advocating that those who raised hands against the government must be sternly repressed, and that the union must be preserved.
   In the exciting presidential campaign of 1860, the Journal was an ardent supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and as one historical account notes, throughout the Civil War the newspaper did much to keep warm the country's patriotism and to maintain the principles of the Republican party.
   Sackett died during the war, and in 1866 Bishop  formed a partnership with A. M. Clark, to whom he sold his interest in the paper in 1868.
   Another milestone was reached Jan. 1, 1870, when Clark converted the newspaper into a four-page daily.
   Soon afterward, Clark associated himself with Davis H. Waite, who subsequently became the sole proprietor until he went west, where he served a term of governor of Colorado.
   Waite sold the Journal to John A. Hall on May 20, 1876. The business consisted of a four-page daily, an eight-page weekly and mechanical equipment located at a building at 215 N. Main St.
   The Centennial History of Chautauqua County notes that during the 19th century, about a hundred newspapers had been founded at one time or another in the county. Written at the turn of the 20th century, the history book says the prosperity of The Journal dates "from the time of the purchase by Mr. Hall who brought to the paper keen business acumen and enterprise, a thorough familiarity with politics, and an uncompromising devotion to the cause of truth."
   His successes came so quickly that within a year, The Journal had outgrown its quarters. Hall had the first of a Journal group of buildings on West Second Street erected and fitted out with the latest printing technology.
   (This) was the era when Otto Mergenthaler's Linotype machine replaced handsetting of type. Five to six lines of type could be set each minute with the "hot metal" process, instead of setting in place one letter of type at a time by hand.
   The business offices and press were on the first floor, and the editorial and composing rooms were on the second floor. In 1879, the Journal bought out the Daily Edition of the Chautauqua Democrat and combined its subscription lists with that of the Daily Journal. In 1880, John A. Hall took his son Frederick P. Hall, into the business forming a partnership known as John A. Hall & Son.
   John A. Hall died in 1886 after which the Journal Printing Co. was organized, consisting of the estate of John A. Hall and Frederick P. Hall, and two men who had been employees of the firm for many years, Frederick W. Hyde and Walter B. Armitage.
   After Armitage died, Hyde and Hall purchased his estate as well as that of John H. Hall. In 1891, Edwin A. Bradshaw acquired an interest in the company.
   In 1894, the partnership was incorporated under the name of Journal Printing Co., with William S. Baily and James A. Clary, employees for more than 10 years, becoming stockholders and directors with Hall, Hyde and Bradshaw.
   Baily retired in 1899, Hyde in 1905 . Bradshaw died in 1907, Clary in 1925.
   Meanwhile, three of the sons of Frederick P. Hall became associated with him in the company, taking up their work after graduating from college. They were Henri M. Hall in 1906, Levant M. Hall in 1909 and John A. Hall in 1925.
   In 1907, a fire badly damaged the Journal's two-story brick building. A four-story building of steel and concrete was erected at 14 W. Second St. That remained the home of The Jamestown Evening Journal until its merger with The Jamestown Morning Post in the fall of 1941 to form The Jamestown Post-Journal, with quarters in the Post building at 311 Washington St.
   Frederick P. Hall continued as president of The Journal Printing Co., publisher of The Jamestown Evening Journal and the Journal Press until his death July 7,1939. After his death, Henri M. Hall became president, treasurer and general manager of Journal Printing Corp. John A. Hall became vice president and managing editor. Levant M. Hall was secretary and advertising manager.

The Jamestown Morning Post
   The first issue of the Jamestown Morning Post was published Labor Day, Sept. 2, 1901. Throughout the next 40 years, until its merger with The Jamestown Evening Journal. The Post never missed publication daily except on Sunday. The newspaper office was in the Hoehl building at 19 Market St. until September 1912 when The Post's new building at 311 Washington St. was completed.
   The Post publishing company had been organized on May 29, 1901, by Cyrus E. John, Ralph C. Sheldon and Arthur Wade, prominent Jamestown citizens, with Edward L. Allen and Robert K. Beach, trained newspapermen of long and successful experience in other cities.
   Jones was the president of the company until he sold his interest three years after The Post was established. He was succeeded as editor by J. Harold Swanson, who continued to serve as head of the company until his death in 1937, when his widow, Mrs. Isabella Marvin Sheldon, was named to fill the vacancy.
   The day-to-day management was handled by Edward Allen as editor and Robert Beach as business manager and later general manager. When Allen died in October 1932, he was succeeded as editor by J. Harold Swanson, who was also named general manager after Beach died in June 1937.

The Post-Journal
   At the time of the merger of The Post and Journal into The Post-Journal, Henri M. Hall retired from the newspaper business. J. Robert Nelson, who had been associated with The Post since 1925, became vice president, treasurer and general manager. John A. Hall, who had been the managing editor of the Journal since 1929, became managing editor of The Post-Journal after the merger.
   In 1961, The Post-Journal was sold to The Ogden Newspapers, a company founded by H. C. Ogden in Wheeling, W. Va., in 1890, and owned by his descendents, the Nutting family. They asked John A. Hall to remain as editor-in-chief of The Post-Journal, a position he held until retiring in January 1968. Robert S. Koon, who had been managing editor since 1961, was named editor when Hall retired. He held that post until 1969. His successor as editor was the late Leigh E. Burdick, a native of Lakewood who had worked at the newspaper since 1943. He remained editor until retiring in August 1972. He was succeeded by Frank E. Fee Jr. Donald L. Meyer was named editor after Fee left in 1976.
   On the business side, Robert Nelson continued as general manager. Roger H. Venman, who had started his career as an advertising salesman for Jamestown's old Swedish language weekly, Skandia, was business manager. When Nelson retired, Venman succeeded him as general manager, a position he held until he retired in 1973. he was succeeded by Earl S. Champlin, who had been business manager since 1969.
   In 1982, Champlin accepted a promotion to the company's headquarters in Wheeling. Meyer was named publisher. Falconer native Roland W. Schultz was advertising director. Christie L. Herbst, who was born in Westfield and raised in Hartfield, was named managing editor. Two years later she was named editor, the first woman to hold that job in the newspaper's history. Meyer was succeeded in 1997 by James C. Austin, who had been raised in nearby Cattaraugus County.

Revolutions in Production
   On April 10, 1972, the 14 linotypes in the third-floor composing room were silenced as The Post-Journal became the first newspaper in New York state and the 17th in the nation to use the letterflex press-plate process for transferring computerized photo composition to the cylinders of its letter presses. The days of hot-lead production were over.
   Three years later, the era of rapid changes continued when the newspaper moved to new quarters in the former AVM building on West Second Street - directly across from the old Journal building. On Sept. 3, 1975, the massive 10-unit Goss urbanite offset printing press was used for the first time to produce The Post-Journal.
   Over the next few years under Meyer's direction, the editorial department established its first full-time bureaus at the county seats in Mayville, Warren and Little Valley, and increased the number of daily editions to four. The Saturday edition was converted to morning publication in 1978 to become The Weekender, with expanded news content, extensive use of spot color, and a restyled Saturday magazine. Later that year, conversion to computer typesetting by reporters began. In early 1979, the newspaper introduced a new look, with The Post-Journal published in four sections, with each section front fully devoted to news. The society pages were dropped and replaced with a restyled Family section.
   In September 1980, just eight years after the newspaper had stopped using hot lead, the last conventional type writers were removed from the newsroom when the conversion to computer typesetting was completed.
   Cold-type pasteup began to go the way of linotypes when the newspaper introduced computer pagination, in which complete pages are set directly from computer to imagesetter, in preparation for the launch of its first-ever Sunday morning edition on Oct. 24,1993. Six years later, under the direction of Publisher James Austin, The Post-Journal converted its weekday publication schedule and became a morning newspaper seven days a week.

Back to Table of Contents

Early Days Make Impression On Long-Time Reporter

   By Jennie Vimmerstedt
                (Oct. 13, 1979)

   When an announcement was left on the city editor's desk of a meeting to discuss "Why Newspaper People Should Go To Hell," I was sent to find out the reason. The church was packed when I arrived. As I was ushered to a front pew, I felt all eyes were on me. I didn't know if people felt sorry for me, or if they thought I was to get what I deserved.
   The sermon unfolded. The speaker had no fault to find with the local press; instead he expounded on his belief that if newswriters could visit hell and see its horrors, they would come back and write stories that would force people to change their  manner of living, to repent of their sins.
   "Repentence" was really his topic, something I had been taught by my church and in my home.
   My days as a newswriter go back to 1926 with the Jamestown Evening Journal and 1941 with The Post-Journal, and continued until my retirement in 1975, except for a leave of absence to do war work. While I have worked with many reporters who have influenced my career, I am limiting my story to the Halls, who owned the newspaper; Capt. E. B. Briggs, the city editor; and Gwendolyn Johnson, who will long be remembered for flamboyant style of writing.
   It was Gwen who suggested that I see the city editor for a job on the news staff of the Jamestown Evening Journal. I hestitated; I didn't feel qualified. Then one day in the summer of 1926, I met him on the steps of The Journal, and he startled me by saying there was a vacancy and I could start working immediately.
   Well that was quick, no questions asked about experience, not even if I knew how to type, which I didn't. I still don't. I use the hunt and peck method.
   The Evening Journal was across the street from the present Post-Journal building on Second Street. I often look up at the second floor windows nearest the alley, and it seems I can see whose desks were there - Capt. E. Bertram Briggs, the city editor; John A. Hall, reporter and later managing editor; and Bertha Butler, the vicinity editor.
   There are memories galore of the early staff: Vernelle A. Hatch, editor and sports promoter; George F. Dodds, sports editor; Gwen Johnson, society editor; Leon F. Roberts, who later became mayor of Jamestown; Stanley A. Olson, who started the photography department; and Charles L. Rowley, all deceased now except Rowley.
   My first day I was sent to cover a national church convention, with nothing said in advance about deadlines or press time. The convention starred national speakers. I was so carried away, I almost forgot to take notes, and when an invitation came to stay for lunch, I readily accepted. In the afternoon I sensed it was time to get back to the Journal. I stuffed the program and a few sparse notes in my purse, and bolted up Main Street with what I thought would be the lead story of the day.
   Imagine my embarrassment when City Editor Briggs asked me why the rush, the paper had been on the streets for a half hour. Then he tossed the paper on my desk; my heart sank as I saw the headlines. A friend, Eleanor Wilt, had been killed in an accident on her way back from vacation in Maine. She was the director of the Community Center where I was a volunteer.
   So began the long years of work and cherished memories. The Frederick P. Hall family owned the paper, had owned it since Mr. Hall's father bought it in 1876. The Hall name remained with the paper until January 1968 when John A. Hall, then editor in chief of The Post-Journal, announced his retirement.
   Frederick P. Hall's office was on the first floor, which we passed on our way to the girl's room. Often he called us in for a fatherly chat. Fatherly, affectionate and kind; he was interested in his staff, not only in them but their families as well.
   Mr. Hall's sons, Henri, Levant and John, showed the same genuine friendliness as their father. With their activities embracing civic, fraternal, charitable and church endeavors, they inspired me into several areas of community service.
   After the merger of the Post and the Journal, in 1940, John Hall, our managing editor, was made editor in chief. He was still editor in 1961 when the staff was called together to announce the sale of the newspaper to the New Publishing Co. of Wheeling, W. Va., the present Ogden Newspapers Inc. Julia Sheldon Livengood was then president of the Jamestown Newspaper Corp.
   Alfred A. Hill was the dynamic and enterprising newspaperman who came to Jamestown from the Midwest in 1940 to help bring about the merger of the Post and the Journal.
   It wasn't easy to move from the Journal building to the Post on Washington Street.
   Gwen had been told her old wooden desk was to be discarded. She loved that old desk with its clumsy drawers full of papers and clippings. When we were ready to leave the newsroom for the last time, we took one final look at the lone remaining desk, and in mournful tones Gwen announced, "All those not going to the cemetery may view the remains." That did it. Instead of a wrenching farewell, she and I went chuckling up to the new building.
   Gwen loved words, they were music to her, and accounts for her flamboyant style, a style frowned upon in news writing today. Her flowery wedding reports made you feel you had been there. Gwen always maintained that this was the only time a girl could read of lovely gowns worn by her, her attendants and families and the beautiful nuptial setting.
   She originated the Saturday Tea Cup Talk column, and continued it until the widening area of The Post-Journal demanded a daily society column with a 9:30 a.m. deadline. This put nerve-wracking pressure on her, especially when the city desk and composing room battled with her for copy.
   Gwen's reviews of the drama and music in Jamestown, Chautauqua and elsewhere in the county, her love for animals, her ready wit and her clever character portrayals in local shows have provided many a conversation piece. Who ever will forget her role as the winsome Little Buttercup in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pinafore?" She stole the show.
   Gwen was big and beautiful, with a coy manner when she wanted someone to run errands. One young man on the staff had an encounter with her that almost floored him. It was the occasion of the opening of the Post-Journal lunch room, when the staff had been told to come prepared to eat lunch in the building, if they so desired. When the boy asked Gwen if she wanted to share a carton of potato salad with him, she was delighted, and reached down in to the folds of her low neckline and pulled out a carefully wrapped fork and spoon. She had come prepared.
   We had shared many experiences together. It was heart-breaking to sense she was dying that August day in 1956. One of her last requests was that I relate again the story of the little kitten that strayed into the newsroom and was adopted by one of the staff, and given the name P-J.
   I inherited her scrap books, each a gem, also her blue angel with the tarnished wings. It keeps silent vigil from the top of our Christmas tree  as it did Gwen's for more than 60 years, except during World War II when it went through the Battle of the Bulge with one of her friends.
   City Editor Briggs was the Will Rogers of Jamestown. His wealth of stories sparked many dinners here. He was at his best when a few of us gathered regularly in a small back room at a restaurant across the street from The Evening Journal. Here we would hash over the day's events, sometimes joined by circus press agents, by some of the town's influentials, and by some not so influential.
   I was lucky to begin reporting when Briggs was city editor. He was a stickler for accuracy. He seemed to know names and initials of all people. He kept a mountain size pile of clippings in his drawer which he went over every day.
   These clippings he used in making assignments for his reporters.
   About 6 feet by 4, and red-haired, Briggs was a familiar figure around town. Sometimes at the invitation of friends he imbibed to freely in the morning and would return to find no one had moved copy on his desk. Sparks would then fly and salty language filled the air as the composing room hounded him for copy.
   A military man, he had been with Cadets in high school and with Company E at the Mexican Border and had led a contingent overseas in World War I.
   Briggs' greatest pride was that he was influential in bringing about the new state armory overlooking the city on the west side. His best friend, attorney Ernest Cawcroft, was greatly responsible for the Third Street bridge. The two were as different as night and day. Cawcroft, as well groomed as if he stepped from the pages of  Fortune magazine; Briggs in casual clothes and pleased if he had a clean shirt to wear. In Briggs' last years in a nursing home, Cawcroft was loyal, visiting him regularly with reading material.
   Briggs was originator of the popular "Round About Town" column and, after the merger, when he had to give up his job as city editor, he gave his time to this column. He would often write about his early days in the 1900s when reporters walked from one end of the city to the other to cover events, chased to fires in the middle of the night, and hung around the Erie Station asking people where they were going or where they had been to get news for the paper.
   These were people who made the first deep impressions on me in the newspaper world. These were days also when I was "Yennie" to many Swedish friends, and "Yennie of the Journal," to one who frequently phoned in lodge news.
   (The late Jennie Vimmerstedt was a reporter in Jamestown from 1926 until her retirement in 1975, except for a leave of absence to do war work.)
  Back to Table of Contents

M. Lorimer Moe Lived History Of ´The Post-Journal`

   By M. Lorimer Moe
         (Oct. 13, 1979)

   It was just 50 years ago in early spring 1929 that I first ascended the steep stairway leading from Washington Street to the second floor editorial offices of the Jamestown Morning Post. The cataclysmic Wall Street crash was still a few months in the offing, but Jamestown was already slipping into the economic doldrums that preceded the Great Depression in many areas; jobs were hard to find.

   There were no empty slots on the Post staff. I was told by a gruff but kindly City Editor J. Edward Swanson, but he would introduce me to "The Pope," managing editor Edward L. Allen - which he did.

   "The Pope" presided over an austere sanctum from behind a wide flat-topped desk, his back to a large window overlooking Washington Street. His eyes opened and closed myopically through thick-lensed spectacles as he greeted this would-be journalist. In voice, in manner and in appearance, Editor Allen was a reflection - from grizzled, balding pate to old fashioned button shoes of the highly literate old-school conservative we had learned to expect form the no-nonsense editorials he literally penned each day for the newspaper he helped to found.

   He chatted in friendly unhurried fashion with his youthful visitor before returning to the bleak truth; there was no room on The Post payroll for another reporter. But he left the door open: "If you have nothing better to do," he said, as I turned to depart, "you may use a desk and typewriter here. Harold may find something to keep you busy."

   The next five weeks opened a whole new world of fulfillment and disappointment - learning to hunt and peck at a typewriter, making the round of church suppers, actually getting a few paragraphs of my own into print and - every Friday night - trying to mask the pain as pay envelopes were distributed to everyone but me.

   I went to The Post newsroom early that next Sunday, the start of a new week, planning to collect a few trinkets and depart for other less sterile pastures. City editor Swanson, at his desk early as always, watched as I gathered my belongings, then suggested that I return the next day "to discuss my plans with Mr. Allen." (J. Harold was the only Post staffer who did not refer to Editor Allen as "The Pope," the affectionate sobriquet first bestowed by star reporter Pryde.)

   I followed the city editor's suggestion and was placed on The Post payroll the next day as a general assignment reporter at $12 a week, a nominal week of  six 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. workdays, with Saturday assignments the rule rather than an exception. I recite these facts for whatever historical value they may have. And the record should show that after four and a half years of repeated appeals for a raise, and advancement to City Hall reporter. I achieved the pinnacle of $17.50 per week before I left The Post to perform similar chores for The Jamestown Evening Journal at exactly twice the pay!

    But they were four and a half unforgettable years, filled with the opportunity for whetting journalistic ambitions under the guidance and tutelage of old school professionals in the blend of Horace Greeley and Front Page traditions. Edward L. Allen, City Editor Swanson and Edward McMillan, all literary craftsmen of high order, represented the former; Raymond C. E. "Finky" Pryde, who left The Post for a distinguished career with the Baltimore Sun papers, epitomized the star reporter of Ben Hecht's newsroom classic.

   It was an able staff from top to bottom, which made many notable contributions to national and international journalism. For example, there were S. Miles Bouton , famed European correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and the Associated Press; and Melbourne Christerson, war-time World War II president of the National Press Club in Washington, whose career with the Associated Press ended with his premature death at age 52 while he was directing the cable operations of the world's leading new agency at its New York headquarters.

   No less able were stalwarts such as sports editor Waite Forsythe, county news editor Roy Bader, society editors Marjorie Allen (daughter of "The Pope"), Catherine Rice and Molly Granger (later Mrs. Lee Ottaway); telegraph editor Floyd Jacobson; reporters George and JimWilliamson, twin brothers from Falconer, who went to important editorial positions in Troy and Utica, and many others.

   Many who began their careers as Post reporters went on to distinguish themselves in other fields. Ernest Cawcroft, one of the paper's first news men remained a journalism buff to the end of his career as one of New York state's most able lawyers; Leon F. Roberts, who never ceased to regard himself as a newpaperman, began at The Post. He worked in many editorial capacities on several newspapers, including The Jamestown Journal, before serving two two-year terms as mayor of Jamestown. Roberts went from public office to the telephone industry, first in Jamestown, then serving a number of independent companies before going to Washington in a public relations capacities for the U. S. Independent Telephone Association.

   I succeeded Ray Pryde as City Hall reporter for The Post, just as I later followed Roberts in a similar capacity at The Journal.
   Pryde's niche was the more difficult to fill and the more rewarding in terms of experience. Prohibition was still the law of the land, officially until Dec. 5, 1935, and the law enforcement agencies and courts at all levels were swamped with the "business" it generated. The city hall reporter covered police and fire department news as well as all city governing bodies and administrative offices. It seemed only natural that he should also cover activities in the bootleg booze business. We watched many a still go "under the axes" of federal agents and subsequently reported the trials and punishment, or lack thereof, of their operators.

   Memories crowded each other as I watched the demolition crew smash the old Post building into oblivion. Familiar faces rose in a wraithlike procession as the dust and rubble settled.
   There was the cub reporter who returned to the newsroom one night to sit quietly at his desk while J. Harold waited impatiently for his account of a crucial meeting of the Central Labor Council. Finally J. Harold stormed from his cubby-hole office and, in a rare fit of temper, demanded the reporter's copy.

   "But there's no story," the young man objected, "the meeting broke up in a riot." One potential career in journalism died there a-borning.
   No Jamestown newsman of my vintage can forget Congressman Daniel A. Reed. He was a Woodrow Wilson Democrat when he abandoned a football coaching job at Cornell University to become secretary of the Dunkirk Chamber of Commerce, but his early political indiscretion was forgiven when Republican leaders of the old 38th Congressional District adopted Reed as their own. Term after term, he was returned to Washington and, in due time, became a real congressional power as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

   Regarded as a "stuffed shirt" by many, the Dunkirk congressman endeared himself to reporters by his undeviating platform performances. He was in real demand as a speaker everywhere in the congressional district, with town picnics his specialty. These were featured events on Saturday afternoons during July and August.

   Post reporters, inured to Saturday assignments, were probably the first newsmen to discover they could salvage the best part of these Saturdays for themselves by listening only to the first five minutes of a Dan Reed oration. Their secret: Reed invariably delivered one of three speeches:  1, The Glorious Fourth of July; 2, the Cornell Football Pep Talk; or 3, a combination of 1 and 2, suitable for the occasion. When the pattern was set the reporters could safely depart.

   I recall one such Sunday at the Ellington town picnic, when I took off after the first five minutes of Dan Reed's talk. The next day I produced a two-column summary of the number 3 combination oration for Monday's paper. At noon, Monday, two hours before I was due at work, I recieved a call to report to "The Pope's" office as soon as I reached the building.

   Had I been betrayed? Not at all. This time the beaming Congressman Reed sat beside a beaming Editor Allen and I was the Prodigal Son. The congressman had made a special trip from Dunkirk to congratulate me and The Post on "the amazing accuracy of my report from Ellington.
   In retrospect, the west side of Washington Street, between Thrid and Fourth Streets, gives rise to spectral throng, a blend of familiar faces and figures long gone from the local scene; a transcendent roar lifts from the tens of thousands of World Series fans who jammed the roped off block each October before the advent of television (or even radio) to watch the re-enactment of the autumn classic on a simulated baseball diamond mounted on a scaffold extending from the Post newsroom to the roof of the old post office annex. Waite Forsythe in a battered felt hat puffing incessantly at an omnipresent pipe, presides over the proceedings, feeding to the field of marionettes - represented by ping-pong balls - the balls and strikes, the hits and runs and errors and outs that pour in a clicking clatter through the magical mind and nimble figures of telegrapher Charley Woodin, the last of a noble breed.

   The was an age of titans on the baseball diamond - Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Grove, Joe McCarthy, Connie Mack, and a host of others - titans whose exploits are recalled and memorialized at Cooperstown and scores of baseball parks.

   We also hear and see them now on that block of Washington Street, mingling with spectral giants of another ilk - phantoms of a proud era of Jamestown journalism.

   (The late M. Lorimer Moe started at The Jamestown Morning Post in 1929 and left Jamestown to be a war correspondent at the time of the Post and Journal merger in 1941. Until his retirement in 1970, he represented the U.S. State department in several countries.)

Back to Table of Contents

A Newspaper Embodies The History of Its Area

    By Bill Flynn
    (Aug. 23, 1975)

   Certainly more than any other institution, a newspaper embodies the history of its area.

   It is the daily chronicle of local events, both great and humble. And, over the course of the years - or in the case of The Post-Journal, nearly a century and a half - bit by bit it builds an enduring record linking the present with the past.

   The long-range result of publishing each day is the fashioning of this endless historical chain. But uncounted, quickly forgotten elements go into the daily process - pictures, notes, documents and directives.

   Which is why a newspaper's "junk" is so interesting.

   Over the past few weeks, as the staff of The Post-Journal newsroom prepared for the move from 311 Washington St. to new quarters on Second Street, filing cabinets that have stood unused for years were opened and desk drawers that seemingly have never been uncluttered were finally cleaned out completely. Amidst the dust were surprising bits of local history.

   A picture for example, of the high society of Jamestown circa 1890 on a Sunday pastoral frolic, the belles wearing huge hats and great puffy sleeved dresses reclining in the laps of their beaus.

   From perhaps 30 years later, seven intent men with slicked down hair stare back at the camera. They were the Spirals basketball team, winners even though none of them was over six feet tall.

   Copies of 19th century editions of The Post-Journal were found in several corners of the newsroom. An Oct. 6, 1864, copy of the Jamestown Journal, yellowed but not even brittle, was found intact; it carried up to date local casualties of the Civil War and a dramatized dialogue of imaginary Union soldiers in trenches.

   On June 8, 1880, the Journal saw fit to print an extra edition (one of them was found, in case there are any doubters) to announce  "the latest glorious news from Chicago" - the nomination of Ulysses S. Grant.

   Another drawer contained a dilapidated notebook giving the histories of the major social organizations in the city. It spanned some 30 years in the first half of this century.

   The more recent memorabilia is perhaps more pedestrian but still it underscores the continuing historical process. City school budgets from 15 years ago, county legislature agendas from about the same period; if the dollar amounts and issues have changed, it seems the typists haven't - both were arranged the same as they are today.

   The notes, files and clippings of former reporters and editors, many of whom are now dead, were left behind for other hands to throw away. One man left a thick folder of his by-lined stories - good enough to run on the front page, certainly good enough to save, but still forgotten.
   Of particular interest to newspaper people were a set of copy editing guidelines for the Morning Post, dating from the 1920s. And for printers, a batch of nameplates, made of lead with the letters reversed, which were given to staff members more than three years ago when The Post-Journal converted from the old hot metal printing system to a photo composition process.

   Other items found in the newsroom may never have gone into the making of a story but their historical value is still incalculable - an invitation to an inaugural ball for Franklin D. Roosevelt, personal letters from Charles Goodell, Christmas cards from the great and near great.

   The historical chain that the newspaper had forged over the years remains preserved forever on microfilm rolls containing every single printed edition. The best of the unexpected treasures found in the past few weeks also will be saved but mauch had to be tossed aside - old zinc cuts that were used to make pictures in the hot metal process, the collected, dust encrusted notes of the past 15 years of reporting.

   A small part of the area's heritage had to be thrown out at 311 Washington Street.

   Equally interesting "junk" will start accumulating at the new office on Monday.
Back to Table of Contents

Heads In The Bucket, Hot Lead, The Monster - All Lost Forever

By Margaret Look
(Oct. 13, 1979)

   The demise of the old Post-Journal building triggers a flood of memories for those who worked there.
   In the first place, those in the newsroom and composing room had to climb the stairs that were designed for Olympic athletes. The stairs were of stone and built so steep that even the young complained.

   The post World War II staff got used to seeing enlargements of some of the best photographs the paper produced because immense pictures hung along the stairways and halls, covers of the Saturday magazine lined the lunchroom. 

   The picture that drew the most comment was a huge copy of the photo of the fire at the State Armory in Brooklyn Square. This hung just inside the editorial room. Most of the staff became immune to the merits of the pictures, but visitors would often pause and look at them or comment on them.

   Outsiders often noticed a wide cloth belt that was used to send copy from the editorial department on the second floor up to the composing room on the third floor. This was called "the monster" by the newsroom people because frequently copy got caught in it and was badly torn.
   Also, there was a rectangular metal box, called "the bucket," which predated the monster and was used for transporting copy. It could be sent up or down by pulling a rope. Sometimes the copy desk would write a headline that did not fit the allotted space. Then someone would holler down "head in the bucket," and the metal contraption came banging down. But the call, "head in the bucket," often startled disbelieving new workers or visitors.

   The computers of today's papers are amazing but for old-timers they lack the atmosphere of the hot lead that was used to make the type, line by line. Learning to read the type in the chase, upside down, was part of the job. More space was put in by "leading out" the copy, or adding thin lead strips. A wrong letter could be hit on the lead plate on the press to remove it.

   The hot lead pots near the linotypes were convenient for warming sandwiches before lunch.

   In the morning, the newsroom was noisy with the clatter of manual typewriters. Sometimes it took a new reporter a few days to get accustomed to the noise, but soon the quiet room after deadline seemed uncomfortably calm.

   Situated near the center of the downtown area, the old Post-Journal afforded a good view of activity on parts of West Third Street. We watched the old Post Office being torn down, the Washington Street Bridge going up, parades to honor all kinds of people and events, and many a storm descend on the city.

   Now, we and hundreds of others, have watched the old Post-Journal building disappear, taking with it our tangible connections with many fond memories.
   (Margaret Look of  Nye, Montana, was a reporter and then news editor of The Post-Journal)
    

Writing Headlines When Type was Lead, Not Rubber

By Patricia Appleyard Parker
   June 7, 1997

   Sometime during my first term (1952 to 1957) as a Post-Journal employee. I was transferred to the copy desk. After working for society editor Gwen Johnson, I had been a general reporter for a short time, with a beat so uneventful that I don't remember what it consisted of. I do recall the closing of the Greenhurst Post Office and a visit to the Girl Scout headquarters, where they showed me Lucille Ball's file card. Mostly I did rewrites - putting sent in stories into newspaper language. Also I was put in charge of the recipe column.

   The copy desk is the brain, the nerve center of the newspaper. All copy - newspeak for not-yet-printed material - is processed there.
   The AP and UPI machines were close at hand, noisily turning out yards and yards of national and international news. When something significant happened, a bell rang, and we rushed to see what was happening.

   The McCarthy hearings and the death of Stalin are examples.

   Reporters turned their type-written copy in to the city editor, who sat on the outer rim. It was from here that the rare "Stop the presses" orders emanated, usually because a serious mistake had been discovered.

   One stop-press order resulted from a streamer that said something like "Carroll Hall to Be Refurbished."

   Editor John Hall was roused to action. Carroll Hall, besides being a township headquarters, was the city welfare commissioner and a relative.
   Leigh Burdick, the news editor, sat in the slot and directed operations. He planned layouts, assigned headlines to stories and passed local and wire stories out to the rim. Wire copy in those days was printed in capitals. Copy editors, following AP's style book, underlined the letters to be capitalized. Sometimes this seemed to be the chief function of the desk.

   Then as now, the AP followed a "down style" meaning that as few words as possible were capitalized. For example, the rule was that titles were to be "up" only when they preceded a name and not always then. For example, in the expression "astronaut John Glenn" astronaut was considered a job name rather than a formal title.

   Job titles were seldom capitalized when they stood alone. The only exceptions were the Pope, the President and the Dalai Lama. The new style book goes farther; only for the Dalai Lama, who uses no other name, gets capitals.

   Thus the later insistence of Realtors that their job title be capitalized leads to stylistic disorder. One might find oneself writing that a doctor, a carpenter, the pope and the president consulted a Realtor.

   A copy editor was supposed to know everything and catch all errors. For local facts, maps, telephone books, city directories and an Encyclopedia Brittanica were available.

   Everything about the copy had to be examined: are the five questions - who? what? where? when? why? - answered. Is the material logically organized? Are the sentences properly constructed? Is the meaning clear? Is the spelling correct? How about grammar? Is the material libelous? Are names spelled correctly, complete with middle initials? etc., etc., etc.

   All this had to be noticed almost instinctively. Sometimes the story was returned to the reporter. usually, when it had been read and corrections made, a headline was written.

   This was the most obvious job of the copy editor. It was an art to be mastered.

   Computerized newspapers were far in the future. Lead type was used . It was not made of rubber , as the grizzled old newsmen on the rim liked to remind me. Headline writers were under tight constraints. First I had to memorize the schedules for the type being used. At the P-J, heads started at 12 point and went up to , I think, 72 point. kept in reserve for world shaking news was a very large type, over a hundred points, which was called "second coming."

   For each size, the number of letters that would fit in a column had to be remembered. Fat ones like "w" counted for two, skinny ones like "I" were half. They could be squeezed a little by a cooperative linotype operator, but not much.
   There were other rules.

   Each head must have a noun and a verb, preferably an active one.
   The subject must be identified.

   Simply saying school or church was not enough: it had to be Ring or St. James, or whatever. Once we had a head about the treasurer of an unidentified county who was in trouble; our own officer protested.

   Clear, simple heads that summed up the story were wanted. Cuteness and plays on words could be used only occasionally and then only after being certified by Leigh as genuinely clever. Just the facts ma'am was the rule.

   I recall one I wrote that did get the green light. It was about an Easter egg hunt that turned into a melee.
   I said: Hard-Boiled Kids Scramble for Eggs.

   A name or expression had to be on a single line. A line could not end in a preposition.
   And, oh yes, the type should fit the space without being crowded.

   These were just a few of the precautions to be observed. It took practice to develop the knack. 
   We wrote the headlines in pencil on little oblong sheets, especially cut for us from ends of newsprint rolls.

   Once Leigh had approved the headline, the copy, head and corresponding tape were put together with a clothespin and sent upstairs to the composing room in the bucket.

   If the headline was too long, it was returned with a clatter and a voice from above would shout. "Head in the bucket" - an uncomfortable reminder of the French revolution. 
Back to Table of Contents

The Quick Brown Fox Keeps Jumping

By Patricia Appleyard Parker
   (Feb., 17, 1999)

   I learned to type on a ponderous old machine my father rented for me. It was the summer of 1949 and I had found out that I couldn't get into the School of Journalism at Syracuse University without being able to type 35 words a minute - I think that was it. This wasn't much to ask, the faculty thought. They just wanted to be sure their graduates could handle the tools of the trade.

   I sat at a wooden table on my grandmother's front porch, looking out at the lake through a sparse screen of vines, and did  exercises recommended in a booklet that came with the typewriter, trying to hit the correct keys.

   The skill didn't come easily. Earlier in the year, I had been tested for manual dexterity, among other things. The tester advised me to become a teacher.

   You had to hit the keys hard on those old standards. Eventually all your fingers had to be strong enough to hit equal strength. Getting little fingers in shape to do their share was more difficult than learning to hit the right keys without looking. Who ever uses little fingers for anything important? They seem meant to be supplementary digits without any functions of their own.

   I had a booklet that came with new typewriters, with suggestions and directions.

   All summer long, after my work at Kling's furniture factory was done, I plugged away, trying to teach my fingers their assigned keys. QWERTYUIKOP, I typed. ASDFGHJKL. ZXCVBNM.

   And then combinations, with large and small letters.

   Then: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

   And: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

   And the Gettysburg Address, which in those days I knew from end to end. Now I get mixed up toward the last and leave parts out.

   I never did learn how to do tabulations and that sort of thing. This is sometimes a handicap, but it never has been important enough for me to try to figure it out. Also, I always peek at the symbols on the top row, the numbers and the odd signs. They're different on different machines and they're not used very often anyhow.

   By fall, I could type my assignments for class, and I thought I could probably type at the required speed, although perhaps with more than the permitted number of errors. But I was nervous about taking the typing test and never even tried to get into the School of Journalism.

   It didn't make much difference really. Instead of graduating from two schools, I simply had a minor in journalism.

   I'm afraid I arrived at my potential level of accuracy that summer. To this day, I can't type anything correctly from one end to the other. If I have a letter that should be neat, I give it two or three tries and then go with the best one.

   About this time I bought a second or maybe fourth-hand portable Underwood, which I took everywhere for years. It was a nice little typewriter, but it took so much finger-power to get the words on the paper that it distracted from what went into the composition.

   I loved the big standard typewriters we used on the job at the magazine where I worked in New York and in the old Post-Journal building on Washington Street. They were easier to operate - and my little fingers were strong by then.

   When the first electric typewriters arrived, I hated them. Suddenly, all those years spent strengthening little fingers went for naught. The new typewriters came with a new printing system. The type had to be just so, because it was to be read by a scanner. We even had a special typist to make corrections, which also had to be just so.

   This system didn't last long. The newspaper converted to a computerized operation a bit later. The computer terminals are much like typewriters, but with more fancy stuff around the edges. It is now easy to type fast. Mistakes don't matter. Everything can be corrected,
 rearranged, changed before the final version goes into print. It's easy to compose. Just follow your outline or train of thought wherever it made lead. Nothing is final. Revision and correction- my favorite part of the process- is easy and neat. You can pick up paragraphs and move them, cross out whatever is unnecessary, change what is wrong or inept, make additions, corrections and improvements. It's the perfect system for a bumbler.

   I keep hearing about home computers that will correct your spelling. A clergyman I know had one with the theological terms in it. Other people can find programs suitable for their specialties. I'm not so sure this is worthwhile, really. It's easy enough to correct ordinary words and unusual ones will have to be looked up anyhow.

   I don't have a home computer of my own, but my children let me use theirs. The Post-Journal terminals are much easier to use, and not entirely because my fingers now know where all the those extra functions are. It's there location that is so handy, all around the edges of the machine. Left side: request, graph, sent(ence), word-roll, cursor; bottom: control, double, space bar, triple, cancel; right side: insert, move, headfit, save recall, delete. This is all perfectly clear to the user after a difficult period of adjustment.

   On the kids' computers the functions are on a separate keyboard, off at the side, so that you have to stop and think to use them.
   Can an old dog learn new tricks without forgetting the old ones? That's a good question. I hope the answer is yes, at least in my case. Eventually, I hope to have a home computer and to be able to operate it without calling for help.

   There is an alarming idea going about. I have heard the typewriter keys are arranged the way they are so that the typist can't go faster then the old typewriters, thus tangling the keys and bringing the action to a halt. So more efficient keyboards have been proposed.

   Not on your life. These fingers are never going to attempt to learn a new keyboard.

The Wonderful World Of Newspapers, Past and Present

By Patricia Appleyard Parker
     (July 26, 1997)

   Just about everybody has something unkind to say about the media.

   I try not to take it personally. It isn't easy. Old friends, close relatives, casual acquaintances, and people I've never seen before in my life feel obligated upon meeting me to enumerate the short comings of the media in general and this newspaper in particular.
   They nearly always add. "Of course, we're not blaming you."

   This demurrer has about the same impact as saying "No offense" after making a grossly insulting remark.

   I am torn between the knowledge that some criticism is justified and the urge to defend the trade in which I spent most of my working life. This dilemma is further complicated by an instinct to avoid confrontation and be conciliatory, and an almost total inability to find the right words for argument.

   For some time, I had been mulling a defense of my craft and all it represents. Journalism is, I am persuaded, an honorable calling, socially useful and personally fulfilling. It requires special knowledge and training. It has a code of ethics to which most of us adhere. But it is, like child-rearing, one of those occupations that outsiders think they could manage better than those engaged in it.

   I thought I should work out a defense of the functions of newspapers: printing news of international, national and local events, recording and preserving personal and public data, informing the electorate, painting a picture of the life of a community, documenting the drama or ordinary existence, educating the public and announcing upcoming activities - to mention a few.

   So when Post-Journal Editor Christie Herbst suggested last May that I put together some of our favorite P-J stories before they faded from memory, I was eager to do it. I hope that these columns would convey some of the mystique of newspapering in Jamestown, and share with our readers the not-unalloyed pride and pleasure that most of the news media or discuss freedom of the press. Nor did I depict the day-to-day grind, which can be boring and frustrating -the constant pressure of deadlines, the need to be alert and meticulously accurate in spite of eyestrain and exhaustion. Nor have I gone into charges of bribery, advertising pressure and the influence of particular political groups in shaping editorial policy which some people keep bringing up, although they stimulate my adrenalin.

   A lot of young people have entered journalism recently hoping to become muckrakers like old-time Jamestown resident Jacob Riis or investigative reporters like Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Or they aim to be critics. They discover that they are not easy jobs to come by. The day-to-day operation of a newspaper office is far less glamorous. City council reports, sewer board disputes, church picnics, automobile accidents, obituaries, weddings, club meetings and the like are the bulk of what make up local news.

   As someone once remarked, "The trouble with life is that it is so daily." That's the problem with the newspaper offices also.

   What a newspaper does is, properly considered, pretty remarkable. Everyday, in a few hours, the equivalent of a paperback book is produced.

   Always there are mistakes.

   They ought not, of course, to happen. Eternal vigilance should be maintained. Everyone involved ought to be thoroughly versed in spelling, grammar, the names of people and places, local geography, and the history of each situation in the news- among many other things.

   Each person ought to be able to remember all this while under pressure to get his or her contribution onto the production line right now so the paper can come out as scheduled.

   As City Editor Bill Dempsey once replied to an irate reader complaining about mistakes: "But think of all the things we got right."
   Re-reading the above reminds me of a lifelong and still intensifying love affair with words.

   You will notice that I have not referred to journalism as a profession. This word, I have been taught, correctly refers to a field which requires an extensive and specific body of knowledge taught at a university, for which the practitioner must have a license. It does not include carpentry, hairdressing, farming or any other trades that are sometimes called professions. Journalists customarily write of their field as a craft.

   Also, I have mentioned the media. Media, the plural of medium, is a new use for an old word. Once, a friend complained about the local media. It turned out the offender was not all the newspapers, radio and television stations but simply one reporter. Media is a pretty comprehensive term for one erring guy.

   I do not find this verbal quibbling trivial or boring.

   I am glad I chose journalism for all the reasons suggested today and in the past five weeks. These include working with colorful people in a stimulating environment, a long tradition of public service and the excitement of dealing with breaking news.

   But finally it is words - just words- that are the basis of my devotion to this sometimes despised craft.

Back to top

04/27/2004