Story for the Week
In the mid to late 1980s, on any given day of the week, I could be found in my college journalism lab (affectionately known as the J-lab). During the three days when we were putting the paper to bed in preparation for publication, I would go to class, toss my books and notes on the desk in my dorm room, and head up to the J-lab in every spare moment. My senior year, when I was the editor of the paper, I skipped class for deadline, and my professors all knew I was in the J-lab.
We spent hours (and hours and hours and hours…did I say hours?) in the J-lab. Sleep was almost non-existent. Exhaustion was a given. Snacks were abundant—pizza, Twizzlers, Oreos, gummy bears, and a mountain of Mountain Dew. I have never been a coffee drinker, so Mountain Dew was my staple in college.
Nowadays, newspaper design takes place on a computer, but I learned how to “paste up” a newspaper just before phototypesetting became obsolete. Articles were keyed in and printed out on film-type paper. We would run the paper through a wax roller to be pasted onto a blue grid page the same size as the newspaper. Any instructions for the printer were marked up in blue pencil because the press didn’t pick up the blue ink.
Proofreading was a must because any typographical error resulted in a reprint of a column of type unless you were really good with an X-ACTO knife and Liquid Paper. By the time I reached senior year, (not to brag or anything) I was really good with an X-ACTO knife and Liquid Paper. 😉 I would reprint corrections in a group on one piece of film. I’d cut each correction with the X-ACTO so the space between the lines looked even and then brush Liquid Paper on the edges so they didn’t create a shadow when the page went to print.
While I haven’t needed knife skills much since college, when I think about learning the art of paste-up, there is one memory that really stands out.
I had been working for a consulting firm for probably five or six years. We created presentations with Ventura Publisher. (Don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of the desktop publishing software since it released in 1986.) Pie charts and bar graphs, we created in PowerPoint, but it wasn’t nearly as simple as it is today. It was kind of a pain in the 🍑😉.
One of our partners wanted to recreate and refresh a presentation for a repeat client, but he didn’t want us to spend a lot of time recreating the previous graphics. I put my knife skills to work. I took the copy of his old presentation, cut the graphics out with an X-ACTO, and glued them into an empty space we left on the page for the graphic. And then I brushed Liquid Paper around the edges so it wouldn’t create a shadow when we made a copy.
At the time, I was in my early 30s, and we happened to have a contractor working with us who had just graduated from college. Now remember what I said about working on the college newspaper just before phototypesetting became obsolete. This contractor had only ever worked on computers to design anything. She stood there beside me, watching me work at a light table, completely in awe of what I was doing.
When I finished and made a copy to check for shadows, she asked me where I learned to do that. She literally could not comprehend the idea of cutting and pasting a page together to send it to print. And I stood there at 30-something feeling really old as I responded, “Umm…college?”
When I design anything now, it’s usually birthday invitations, and I definitely use a computer. Technology has come a long way. But I’m glad I learned the more manual part of putting a page together. You never know when your kid is going to need to do a presentation on posterboard and just cut out pieces of paper willy nilly…and then you can impress her with your X-ACTO knife. 😉
My latest read is set in the world of tabloid journalism. In college, we wrote the news. We didn’t create it. But the book reminded me of my days in the J-lab. It’s been a lot of years, but I still kind of miss them.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐
3 Stars for The Trade Off by Sandie Jones
304 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books
Publication Date: August 15, 2023
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books.
Publisher’s Description
For Stella, deputy editor of The Globe, the choice has always been clear. It doesn’t matter how low she has to stoop―getting the best story is what she’s built her reputation on.
For Jess, The Globe’s rookie reporter, the story stops when the truth does. But she knows that the dirty tricks of the tabloids will be hard to overturn.
And when a celebrity is hounded by The Globe and pays the ultimate price, Jess wonders just how much Stella and the paper are responsible.
Determined to show the world what the tabloid is capable of, Jess will do whatever it takes to uncover the truth, but she needs to watch her back, because someone else is prepared to kill to bury it.
************
Main Characters:
- Jess Townsend – new junior reporter at Britain’s biggest newspaper The Globe, hired by Max to turn the tabloid into a more reputable publication; Max wants her to work with Stella and report back to Max what she’s working on
- Stella Thorne – deputy editor of The Globe, known for doing whatever it takes to get a story; believes Max is a better journalist than editor and feels she was wrongfully passed over when Max was given the editor’s job
- Max Forsythe – editor of The Globe, came through the ranks working side by side with Stella, hires Jess to help clean up tabloid journalism
- Peter Kingsley – media mogul who has monopolized the industry for more than 30 years; owns the world’s biggest-selling newspapers including The Globe, a multimedia sports channel, and a film production company in Hollywood
- Harry – the foreign secretary’s bodyguard who Stella pays for leads; there is also a sexual component to their relationship, which Harry sees more as a real relationship than Stella does
- James McAllister – spent four years in prison for a plot against the prime minister exposed by Max and Stella; on the verge of being released, and Max and Stella know he will want revenge
Chaotic, full of naivety and derision (based solely on the number of times the author used variations of each word), and not as great as I hoped. This is how I would describe Sandie Jones’ latest novel, which releases on August 15. I have been a fan of Jones since her debut novel The Other Woman. That said, this is the second consecutive release that has been a 3-star read for me. 🫤
In fairness, a 3-star rating means a book is okay. It’s not a fantastic read that you can’t put down and keeps you up at night, and it’s not something that you would suggest people not read. But I hoped for more. I hoped for suspense and thrill, but the book fell flat despite Jones’ background in the world of journalism.
The story revolves around the vicious world of Great Britain’s tabloid journalism, told from dual points of view—Jess in the first person and Stella in third. Hired by Max to keep an eye on Stella’s activities, Jess finds herself participating in meetings and activities that are clearly not on the up and up. Stella, who believes that Max didn’t deserve the editor position over her, will do almost anything to get the stories. She’s tough and unrelenting and intimidating.
A lot happens in this story. A potentially wrongfully convicted criminal being released concerns both Max and Stella. Jess feels guilt over the manipulation of stories. Stella personifies a take-no-crap attitude at times but is paranoid and fearful at others. And I couldn’t tell whether Max was good, bad, or otherwise most of the time…which is probably the point, but I think it just makes everything too confusing.
The plot builds really slowly, and things don’t really seem to start happening and making sense until more than halfway through the book. There are enough twists and a decent ending that I won’t give away any of the story line. It just takes a while to get there.
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