It was my first year working for Melbourne’s premier morning newspaper. Because I had worked for a suburban rag for several months selling ad space and writing quirky advertorials for anything from arts and craft shops to incontinent clinics for the elderly, the company offered me a chance at the big leagues. To say I was on a steep learning curve trajectory would be understating my new role as Head of Entertainment advertisements for the publication. Added to servicing our established clientele that included the Melbourne Theatre Company, the Comedy Festival and the National Ballot of Australia, emphasis was placed on ‘new business' creating new revenue streams for the paper. This really wasn’t a problem for me, because my problem was chasing hard copy ads from the clients before deadlines and composing the pages like a large puzzle on a broadsheet using a ruler. Of course, those who have only lived with computers would find these tasks difficult to imagine or grasp. To put it into perspective, Fax machines were considered advanced technology.
It was a Friday evening, close to the deadline, that I was wrapping up the entertainment page and the weekly magazine. The phone rang and on the other end was a stern female voice asking if I was the accounts person for entertainment.
‘Yes, Middleton speaking. How can I help?’
‘You’ve taken way too much space this week in the mag. I need at least 20 centimeters by 8 to include an important story about the launch of the new comedy festival performing over the weekend.’
At first, I was stunned and sat silently on the phone.
“Who are you, may I ask?’
‘Tracey Albright, editor of Entertainment Weekly.’
‘Well Tracey, I’ve just completed the layout and am ready to take it downstairs for the Compositors. At this stage, there’s no way I can remove any advertisements. This includes The Comedy Store’s 8 by 5 on page 2. Because we’re on deadline, it simply can’t be done.’
This answer was not what she wanted to hear. After a barrage of insults and a short lecture on the evils of Capitalism, she says, ‘Well, I’ll be calling the Editor and Chief, and we’ll see about your 8 by 5 ad!’ It was obvious she slammed the phone down as I felt a slight ringing in my right ear.
My boss had already left for the night. The conversation left me a bit shaken. I thought well, I’ll take my layouts down to the compositors and just pray that I won’t get sacked. Standing up from my desk, the phone rang again.
‘Middleton speaking.’
‘Just the man I need to talk to. This is Gad Sellers.’
I was speaking to the Editor and Chief of Melbourne’s most prestigious morning newspaper.
‘Yes Mr. Sellers.’
‘I just got off the phone from our EW editor and told her your ads remain and to find a solution to her ‘space problem.’
‘Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.’
‘I can see you’re dangerously close to the deadline. You better get a move on, mate.’ and hung up.
It should be noted that the paper and mag went out on time that morning without a hitch. The following week was a different story.
*
Navigating around the ‘culture’ of a 150-year-old newspaper, working with 30-year veterans on the advertising end, including editors and journalists on the other, was an interesting and unique experience. It soon became a 7-day publication, and the central overarching rule was that the paper must get out every day despite earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados or nuclear war. This unwavering rule was forever etched in the culture. The only second ‘rule’ in line to publish was the pub.
Around the corner of the newspaper building and down a cobbled stone alleyway sat the watering hole for the paper’s employees. Editors, subeditors, compositors, marketing, journalists and advertising chumps like me frequented the establishment more often than anyone would care to mention.
One of my favorite memories is sitting around a table full of journalists and listening to them discuss the piece they were working on for the next day’s publication. There was one old reporter who had worked on the crime beat for many years. That evening he talked about a notorious Melbourne crime boss who, according to his sources, was being raided and arrested in real time as we spoke. The veteran reporter was beaming with pride because he had the ‘scoop’ before the paper’s main competitor across town. The next day, the front page splashed the story. We sold a lot of newspapers that morning.
It was one of those beer-laden Friday evenings that I caught wind that the editors and journalists were to go on strike the following Monday.
After an uneventful weekend, (a date with a girl that crashed and burned) entering the building felt empty like no one showed up for work. I just sat down at my desk with my first coffee for the day, when my boss swirled his head around the partition and said, ‘Meeting on the fourth floor, now!’ This didn’t sound good at all.
In the elevator with a friend from marketing, he said, ‘The entire news staff including the compositors have gone on strike.’
I asked, ‘Why are the compositors on strike?’
“They’re showing their support for the journalists.’
‘What are they striking for?” I asked.
‘Something about more editorial freedom and of course they want a pay rise.’
My boss at the meeting told us that it was “business as usual” for us and to carry on despite this ‘industrial action’. He told us not to make any plans for the evening, and that the paper might require a few more hands. What that really meant I didn’t know.
As soon as I hit my desk, the phone began ringing nonstop until after lunch. My clients were in full blown panic. “Is the paper going out tomorrow?” “Do I need to cancel my advertising?” “How long is the strike going to last?” My response to all these questions was pretty much the same. The paper will be published and will go out tomorrow. It might be a little thin, but it’ll be delivered to your office on time as usual.
The day travelled on like any other Monday. There were three or four clients that had new ads and needed the copy picked up in person. I arrived back at the office around 4:30pm. Grabbing my broadsheet size butcher paper, I began the daily puzzle of fitting all the ads around each other in a presentable fashion. One of the more important aspects of this exercise was knowing whether the ‘entertainment section’ would be on the left-hand page or the right. The compositor's downstairs would always assure me it would be on the preferred right-hand page. I needed this crucial information because it determined where I placed the ads on the page. Today was different; there were not any compositors on deck to confirm the page for Tuesday’s publication. I thought, well it didn’t matter, I’d just move ahead and design the layout for a right-hand placement.
After designing the layout, hard copy ads in hand, exiting the elevator to the second floor, there wasn’t a compositor in sight. I placed my layout and ads in the designated tray to be processed.
The time was a little after five, and once returning to the third floor, the entire place was empty except for my boss and a junior copy assistant. We were told at the morning meeting to hang around in case we were needed, but I guess no one ‘got the memo’ so to speak, and the boss was not pleased.
The phone on my desk began ringing frantically again with nervous clients wanting assurances that the Tuesday edition of the newspaper would be published and distributed like any other day. My favorite line for the clients was: “Our Paper is 150 years old and hasn’t failed to publish once in all that time. Trust me, you’ll see it on your desk when you get to work in the morning.” The common response: “Alright, mate. We’re counting on you. Don’t let us down.” Once the frenzied phone calls stopped, I decided to go to the pub and have a glass of beer and maybe a meal. Certainly, no surprise; the pub was nearly empty except for a few regulars that were not employees of the publication.
After a few hours the junior copy assistant walked into the pub and asked me if she could sit down at my table. Kerrie was an attractive 22-year-old with short cropped black hair, a pale complexion, slender with dark blue intelligent eyes. After a few too many beers, our conversation moved from the banal to the philosophical, when our boss entered the pub and ordered us back to the office because the editor was demanding we all meet on the second floor.
There was only about ten of us including the editor and the proofing staff. Every page of Tuesday’s edition was laid out on drafting tables across the compositor's floor. Mr. Sellers spotted me across the room and beckoned me to join him. Over the next several hours, we organized each page like putting puzzle pieces together between news stories, classifieds and advertisements ranging in size from full page to 5 centimeters by a single column. Finally, the pages were ready for the plates, and the press.
Like a puppy, I followed Mr. Sellers around the building most of the early morning, witnessing him push the red button that started the massive printing press. Tuesday’s edition was on its way. It was a wonder to watch the machine spit out small stacks of the paper already wrapped and ready for transport. We were a little behind schedule because the newspaper’s delivery trucks were lined up and extending a block around the corner. The editor, my boss, Kerrie the copy assistant and myself began loading the stacks in the back of the delivery trucks. The morning sun was just making an appearance when the last truck was loaded, driving away.
Exhausted and pumped-up at the same time, sleep felt to be out of the question.
The editor said, “Nice work people. Go home and get some sleep, and we’ll see you in a few hours.”
Rather than going home to bed, Kerrie and I found a coffee shop and had some breakfast. A few hours later I was back at my desk answering the phone and organizing the day ahead. As I watched my colleagues trickle in for a day’s work, I had a single thought, ‘You've made it Middleton.’
In that moment I felt like a real newspaperman.
