FOUNDING A NEWSPAPER

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 1, 26 September 1907, Page 5

FOUNDING A NEWSPAPER

BIRTH OF THE DOMINION. A HIVE OP MODERN INDUSTRY. When tho citizen, goes out to his doorstep beforo breakfast, and brings ill his morning paper, ho is not in t-ho least caocoriii si. a.? ,:i rule, .<<« >• ytio methods that havo given it birth. If ho is ono of thoso who like to get at the bottom of things, ho perhaps wonders vaguely what processes of ink and steel havo given him his twenty-four hours' history of tho world, and concludes, usually, that a lot of "eomps" stick tho typo together and somebody—the editor, probably—inks tho typo aud presses it upon sheets of papor. Ho does not dream of tho offices in London, where men keep watch to send cabled reports through tho lands and seas; or of tho correspondents in all localities; tho •telegraphs ccaselossly clicking near and far through tho darkness; tho Hying pencils of the reporters who after a day's viligant chasing and racing aro turning events and specch into written words; tho editor and sub-editors, busy and stixious, sorting out tho news, trimming, arranging, condensing, writing; tho.flat clatter of the linotypes, the tapping. of the .keyboards, aud tho droning hum of tho motors; the scurrying along passages.; tho revising and correcting of proofs; the increased haste as the night advances, tho arrangement of tho pages, tho foundry where the plates aro cast, and the roaring of tho printing machine that crowns tho hours of inteuse industry and at last casts out tho storm of printed papers boioro the cock crows, and the weary staff goes homo.

That is what happens every night —tiint great mass of industry and effort of buzzing brains and machinery. Tho paper is cool and neat, bearing as few traces of the pangs of its creation as tho pin's head of radium that emerges after many daj'3 and great chemical processes from tho ton Oi pitchblende. And as the man-iti-thc-slipper's conception is to the reality of production, so tho actual production of an established newspiper is to the great labour of founding a new daily journal. THE INITIATION.' Tin; Dominion is at last published. Jo its publishing wont months of labour of many brains and hands— anxiety, cscitomcnt, worry, drudgoiy, .iiul yet a good deal of pleasure. It "ii'i nob a mere, wattui of-ink and »>:rpar, and a little sudden bustle in a corner. Months ago it was dou.\!a! that Wellington required a now warning journal, of. an iip-to-djiioacss in Vcopiji/; wich tho •--.ipitaj City, and after naioh thought iUiti ari'. r iit f .';e;;iont tho V. oliiijgtou Pub(Joi'jpauy ivas fonneu. This v.'.i:; urjo.it-joii that was to set the

Rtaohaiury in motion, and, tho decision huviii:; been made, sufficient capital '.uUfivibcd, and tho die finally cast, * b;.tTjno necessary to think of a home_ for tho new vo.-itu:u. Ilio question of a site was a troublesome r jue—of courso the ideal sit would bavo been an aero block on, say, Lainbton Quay, something worth a round million sterling. Difficulties ofono kind and another attached to suitable sites, and it was finally decided to occupy tho place in which wo are located at Plimmer's Stops. To prepare the site, irregular and rambling, a good deal of excavation was required, but tho building had first to bo'designed. .

A newspaper office cannot be built just anyhow—it must be carefully planned, so that the different departments should fit into each othor with the greatest efficiency. The literary department must not bo far from tho linotypes; the linotypes must abut on the department where tho typo is arranged into pages; this department must be closo to the stereotypers, who cast the curved page-plates; and the stereotypers, in their turn, must be less than half 'a street away' from the printing maphine that receives . tho plates. Tho publisher's department niv.st be easy of access from the printing press. Special machinery means specially strong floors. It' will be seen that a newspaper office is a very special kind of building. This kind of building was designed, and tho excavations wero begun, for the slope had to be chopped into shape and plumbed for the reception of foundations that sank deep through the earth below the level of Lambton Quay. MEN AND MACHINES. The picks and shovels began work', and the Company had then to consider tho problem of plant-, and would it bo English or American? How much money would be spent? How many papers an hour should bo provided for, 20,000 or 30,000? All this' necessitated very careful thought, for ono cannot go into the shop on the corner and ask for a linotypo. Orders, wero at last sent- Homo for the linotypes and a largo printing machine, together with tho countless picees of mechanism necessary to complete tho plant. Beforo the linotypes could bo ordered, a decision had to bo mado concerning the typo to bo used in the paper. There are thousands of kinds of typo,_ and millions" of possible combinations and permutations. The orders wero at last sent abroad. '

This was spade-work—the provision of tho dead material, and tho problem then aroso: What staff shall we have? |Editors, it was found, were not easy to discover, and tho final appointment was not mado until after protracted negotiations. Tho Editor's worries Ibogan forthwith. In his mind's (?yo he saw tho paper ho wanted, j Tho question was to find tho writers ncccssary to carry out his ideal • Journalism nowadays is not a fiijld for easy success by anybody chosen at. random. Like everything else, it has come under the heel of an ago that needs exports to keep pace with it. Competent men were plentiful,- but what was required was a staff of writers who would each fill a definite place in an organised group. "Specialists" wero sought after, and over-'apping—and consequent wastefulness—was not wanted. The colony was rakod over, and tho staff was gathered in ono by one. It arrived one by ofto, and early in August took up its ! temporary quarters in Plimmer's Ark, where it is at present housed, ilt was complete, and in full work, just' beforo tho end of last month.

In the:intervals the sta ff—somo of tho UiCinliors of which were nativos'of other citics than Wellington—had to get into touch with the people that make up tiio sources fron which news is to be gathered, and s;,Kjir.! articles had to bo thought of and new [oatures.: LINOTIT.GS AND PRESSES. All tiiis time the bricklnj-crs laid been going ahead rapidly, and towards the end of August tho machinery section o[ t'v.i new building v.ms completed, and the excavations for t'lo front portion of the promises were proceeding. AH day there wn.i a thunderous bumping of bricks and soil, and a jarring and grinding of huge eases dragged down from lSoulcort- Street. Uuutvpes r.rrivwi in sections and were quickly pinc-d in position. The emergency-printing machine was oreete:! Ity tlie end of August, and the Inrtt* i-'osutr machine,

which can turn out (print and fold) 24,00 twelve-page papers por hour, arrived at tho beginning of September, and began to bo installed. SPECIALISTS. In tho meantime it was necessary to foster public interest, in the country as well as in tho city, and" whilo tho managerial department had to appoint agents, and mako arrangements for the supply of papers to all parts of tho province, tho editorial department had to appoint correspondents all over both islands, in Australia, in England, and in America.. And the actual work, after this had been done, bad not fairly started. At first it had been decided to call the journal the "Now Zealand -News," but a second thought arrived, and tho name was changed to The Dominion. —a happy choice, it quickly becamo apparent, for tho public took to the namo as naturally as a child takes to milk. Having secured his staff, and appointed correspondents abroad, the Editor had time to arrange a plan of campaign. It was agreed that thero should bo a good deal of specialising, and "outside" specialists were en-gagod—-men eminent in their own spheres of work.

Offers began to pour in from all kinds of people who were willing to write special articles, or regular contributions—articles ranging from a weekly _satiric.il survey of affairs to a v/ocldy jeremiad over the dark sido of things—from poems to sermons. And the staff sadly suspected that " Pro Bono Publico " and tho host of notorious . scribes , who bombard an editor with letters wore buying great bottles of ink and big bales of paper. But thero was no time to dwell. on this sorrow. Thero was plenty to do for editors, sub-editors, reporters, tho lady editor, etc. Tho affairs of feminine interest have been treated inadequately by tho daily papers of New Zealand, and The Dominion has mado a new departuro in appointing to the staff a lady who will give hor whole time to looking after tho interests of hor. sex. LITERARY PRELIMINARIES. Tho staff found itself in baro rooms, and out of tho bareness thero had to cor.io an armoury equal to that in tho offices of newspapers established for years. Journalists are no't omniscient; and a newspaper office without a library and an organised system of records and references, wido enough to enable the shedding of explanatory light on every event that takes place in the world, is liko a ship without a compass. There wore books to bo bought, with an eye to tho impropriety of allowing tho ieador of tho opposition in Montenegro to bo killed in the cables without accompanying biographical details, and with an eyo also to the necessity for ex--plaining the signiiicaueo of what would look like a common platitudo from a British M.P. One cannot storo up all tho knowledge in tho world, but one can accumulate clues that will put the staff on the track. Biographies were to bo written for use as "obituary notices," and tho list of people who would require tile pomp of type at their death turned out to bo appalling. A rough draft showed 3(55 literary men, 517 politicians and publicists, enough kings to mako up a ;public meeting, and judges, athletes, admirals, presidents, soldiers, actors, priests, lawyers, and millionaires without end. Tho ono gleam of comfort was tho fact that there was only one l?opo.

Tlio English papers began to arrive, and tiieso camo under tho mill of the indexers. Tho files and records grew buLky very quiokly. politics and general politics had also to bo' recorded and arranged. Questions likely to crop up in' the future, and questions already cropped up, had to be investigated, and their histories placed on record.

The machinery includes some of the most up-to-dato appliances yet used in a Now Zealand printing office: The day when tho written word was transformed into standing metal typo by a hand - worker (compositor), who snatched up separate type-letters and, after use, laboriously dropped them back again' in their compartments' of keeping, has of course gone by, as far as, fast daily typo-sotting is concerned. The linotypo not only puts the lotter-moulds (matrices) together, and subsequently returns them to their places, but actually manufactures its own metal typo, starting with the raw material in tho melting pot and converting it in tho .twinkling of. an oye into a solid lino, warmer than a hot cross bun.

Tho words which are now being written will—if tho sub-editor passes them —be handed in manuscript to a cunning workman who play 3 upon tho koyboard of tho linotypo, whose deft soft touch will bring down, from the magazine 'in the upper part of tho machino, the 'matrix or, mould bearing the letter corresponding to the key touched. ' As ho practises his m—a —g —i—c see those letters cliaso •each other down into tho- assembler.

By this time m —a —g —i —c is cast typo, not single and movable as the hand-sot types are, but part of amanu 7 facturod metal line, shaved, trimmed and adjusted by knives which must not vary by even half a thousandth of an inch. Tlio wizard of the key-board averages at least a line ahead of his casting. Tho effect of the manipulation of the key-board is limited to assembling tho matrices, after which tho operator, by lever action, stjts in motion tho purely automatic processes of tho machine— justification of tho matrices, casting of the line,' and subsequent return of the matrices to the magazine. FIRST ENGLISH MACHINE. All this is wonderful enough; but linotypo ingenuity is even yet unexhausted, and The Dominion has been ablo to secure a very notable improvement —tho " doublc-dcckor " —which hns two magazines, and which can sot from them four kinds of typo. Previously tho "dupley" could sot two sorts of type from two magazines, and the "doublc-deckcr" could produeo two varieties of type from tho same magazine, but tho "doublc-dcckor" combining their virtues also enables the operator to solect any of tho four kinds of typo in tho matter of a second, whereas changes on tho earlier machines consumed one to five minutes. Although machines of tho "double-decker" typo havo beon manufactured in America, tho one now in The Dominion ofDoo is the first turned out by an English firm. A wools after its compiotion tho majors shipped the socond to tho order of tho Lfovernment Printing Office of Victoria. Tho English machino is mado on lines entirely diiforent and, it is claimed, superior to tho American.

So quickly do tho matrices perform their duties, and roturn to tho magazine, that tho latter does not need to carry more than twenty for any one letter, and this number is sufficient to allow an operator to attain— if ho can—a speed of 20,000 ens an hour, which is equal to 2i columns of Tub Domrnow. Tho avcrago speed of an operator works out at about one column ail' hour, which is equal to the output of about four compositors in hanrlsetting, or five if distributing labour is countcd in. Each of The Dominion linotypes is equipped with a linometcr. an American invention, by means of which each lino that is cast on tho machino is registered on a dial somewhat similar tn that of ;»■ clock, so that at any time, day or night,, tho quantity of matter sot can lie readily ascertained. The Dominion is t!\p. first office in the colony to employ tliia i'iv,'ice.

The hratd now type, frosh from tbo regiment of ni.icliim.i.s—uino iu oil—is nnralia'W "in order nf coiujniu" on

tho "stono," and bound into pages (" formes ") within'iroii "frames ("chases"). "Stono'-'. is archaic, for the imposing surfaces used nowadays are no longer made of that material, but of steel or iroii. From tho "stones" tho formes pass to tho stereo foundry, where an impression or mould is taken from them; for tho actual type-surfaces which print theso pages are not tho "linotype product, but metal plates cast from it and curved to lit tho cylinders of the printing machine. The letters' which derived tlieir character from the matrices merely pass it-on-through, the mediumship of the stcreotyper; and tho division of labour is complete:-TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND AN HOUR. Tho "Foster" three-decker' web printing and folding machine, which lias, as mentioned, a speed of 24,000 copies per hour in respect of a twelvepago, a ten-, an eight-, a six-, or a four-page paper,. can also print and fold sixteen-, twenty-,, or twonty-four-pagc papers at 12,000 copies per hour. Tho motive power is a directly coupled electric. motor, with a'gas-engine as auxiliary. The patent motor, now seen for tho first time in this colony, consists of two motors, a smaller and alarger one, each", working under the most economical:,; ■conditions.--- Stop pushes are conveniently .located aboutthe machine, the mere pressure of any one of which causes stopping ir. case of emergency. ...This "Foster" printing press„c'qp\prises ; .tjie Jatpsi, and most perfect results of experience and invention.- .C

Reporter, editor, sub-editor, fore-man-printer, linotype operator, proofreader, ' stoned.;liand, stcreotyper, printer, publisher',' runner-boy — the whole chain is ,no, stronger than the weakest link. That is to say, every link must be strpng; and every link must fit its companion as tho glove fits tho hand. - - A TRANSFORMATION. An interesting featuro in connoc : tion with the establishment -of Tnii Dominion* newspaper is -tha -site 011 which the printing-house " stands. Plimmer's stops "and the lianre'O.f the lato.. John ' Plimnier are ;■ indissolubl.v connected with-the history of local affairs, and it,is tho former property or that gentleman": which now pro•vides tho birth-place' of The Dominion. Tho stately old garden with its shady walks, its.great fruit trees' (thatused to' overhang, tho "stejjs")','; and nodding emblems-of: spring-time) that Mr. Plinuner succeeded in preserving in the very hoaft'.'bf.'the.' city'up till his death, is no!v.:.co.vered. by, extensive brick _ premises, a : hum... with.:'mpdcrnmachinery, and_ even; the-.rold; family residence,- familiarly-known• as "The Ark," has beeii "pressed' into,"sbrvi.ee and is tho temporary- Quarters . of the literary staff of-this-journal -: : ,

From the office- ono'coiild toss a biscuit on .Jo the .spot, .knovrh to old residents-' as- . 'Fiagstalf ' Hill, where sisty years : - ago a-stout staff would sport glad.jags.-.on..the.:arrival in tho harbour"" of'thp old'"linicjuicors" with . six-inonths-old ' mails under their hatches... From'that Hui a stono could be-thrown'iiit'o the seh, but the stout arm does'not exjst.'that. could impel it . tiio.. distance, which now separates-, tho ■ : old--flagstalfi-site. from our modern-, ''far-flung- Vivater front. Tho hilfr.'bcbihd the.'Sschango, Buildings wcro.,np,t always,-so sheer ,a drop as they are -at- present—indeed; the geuises of reclamation in .'Wellington was _ attributable'.!,to' tli'e' late3liC John Pliinmer, ~)yliQ..initiated' the fill-iug-in of the beach-where the; Bank of Now Zealand and the Wellington Building and Ihvcstment.'.Cp.'s.',,premises now. stand, ;,tO mako -tho : -"terra". moro "firma" round about' house that he erected.:; .over... :: thc stranded barque Inconstant, • a place of business that- ' beoamo "■ locally famous'as "The Ark'," .

A quarter of;; i most important', fire-bell'-in- the 'city was perched on thccliff'edge "quite close to our machine room.""Thd bell,which rejoiced''in./ the'.naino *o£!.Big' Ben, was dismounted nearly twenty yoars ago, but'its'career was'far-from; en,ded,_ for it stiH"Hangs, sile'nt-ton-gu'cd, in the tower..'., at .the/outer:, end of the- Queen's' -.Wharf; ' Old "John' Plimmer's garden-was-one of t^thg; last bits of primitive'• -Wellington; to' remain oxposed td'th'o.suri and tho. raiit, but the transformation's" hd'jy 'complete, for pansy ""plots have" given place to corrugated iron- roofs,--and-wherc, a few weeks ago,. tho-vagrant bee carried tho'jjcfllefi' Ab'outi'/theVlinof types are chattering in'lead the nmys from the ends of-'the-'earth.--