TODAY, WHEN I WALKED OUT THE DOOR into frigid 65o(F) weather I discovered a copy of the Sun -Sentinel, a newspaper published in nearby Fort Lauderdale, lying on the driveway.
It reminded me of the tactic Gannett used to introduce its first Today newspaper, Florida Today.
- In order to lure customers from the reigning newspapers, the Orlando Sentinel-Star and, to a lesser degree, the Miami Herald, Gannett blanketed Brevard County — EVERY residence in the county received a free copy of Today for two weeks.
TRUTH IN BLOGGING. I worked as a printer for both Orlando and Cocoa newspapers and was part of the first Today’s first edition. How I got to Cocoa is another story. I eventually worked for another Gannett newspaper, the Titusville Star-Advocate in editorial.
All the papers for which I worked, with the exception of Gannett’s Eau Gallie Courier, were full size “broadsheet” operations. The Courier, an overtime job for me in Cocoa, was a tabloid. (I also worked on quarter-folds — tv magazines ‐ for Gannett.)
As a printer and later working in editorial, one of the “perks” was a free copy of the paper on which I worked. Back in the day (when we had AP, UP, and INS) I think the dailies sold for either 10¢ or 25¢; Sundays were 50¢ to $1.25. (The last time I touched a pica pole was 1972, so I don’’t trust my memory 100%.) I got my start with newspapering pitching the Miami News; don’t ask when THAT was.
ANYWAY, “back in the day,” almost all newspapers included comics.
Black and white during the week (except for Today which ran color comics every day). Interestingly, the Fort Lauderdale paper — delivered today — DOES have a comics page and the comics are in color! The Wednesday edition had a news stand price of "only" $2.34 (strange price).
Sunday comics were in color. They also were pre-printed and inserted into the rest of the paper.
Once again, “back in the day,” color images were rarely seen outside of Central Florida. The Clearwater Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, and Florida Today — from the west side of I-4 to the east side of the coast-to-coast road was where papers were most colorful.
- Not only was color ink more expensive, the entire process was complicated.
ANYWAY, back to the paper on the driveway
The paper I found on my driveway was “almost” a broadsheet.
Narrower by what looks like 1.5 inches. The length also seems shorter. Not a lot, but noticeable to the eye and touch of an old hot type printer.
The paper came double wrapped in a slow-to-decompose material. (Rain threatened.) I don’t know if the motor route paper pitcher had to “bag” the papers. When I pitched papers from a three-speed Western Auto bicycle we hated bagging papers, especially the fat Sunday editions.
I brought the “gift” into the house and, once the two slow-to-decompose bags were removed, I started looking at the freebie.
Naturally I looked first for the Sunday funnies.
Not there, ergo this rant.
ON THE OTHER HAND, several local articles were well written. Leeds (leads) were short as they should be. My mentor told me to keep the leed to 10 words or less.
The imported articles not so much.
Both the Sun-Sentinel, the one I found on my driveway, and the Orlando Sentinel — once owned by Martin “Spell my name right or your fired!” Andersen, my one time boss — are owned by the Tribune Company. (The Tribune Company, according to a Sun-Sentinel article that probably ran in all the Tribune newspapers, owns the
- Baltimore Sun
(Annapolis, Md.) Capital Gazette
Chicago Tribune
(Newport News, Va.) Daily Press
Hartford Courant
(Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call
New York Daily News
(Norfolk, Va.) Virginian-Pilot
Orlando Sentinel)
- An aside. Leed (lead) and hed (head) are two newspaper spellings. There was other “newspaper-ese” — “mtk” for example meant “more to come.”
Interestingly, many articles in the Sun-Sentinel went sans credit. The paper is an Associated Press member so probably the copy was from the AP. Tribune Company properties were identified.
- Thinking about Martin Andersen and the Sentinel-Star brings back many memories, most of them pleasant. Some may find their way into a future blog effort.
The Sun-Sentinel’s classified was pitiful. What once was a newspapers’ “bread and butter” — the Orlando and Cocoa papers each had, depending on the day, 5 to 10 pages for classifieds and legal notices, the latter being the main reason a publication wanted to be the “paper of record” for the counties in its circulation area; “easy money.”
The Fort Lauderdale paper was replete with display advertisements, many full page and in color. There even were a few “double truck” (two facing pages) advertisements.
The editorial page was there with a too long editorial that buried the point way down in the copy. The “op ed” page was essentially a “person in the street” interview with strictly selected real and imagined movers and shakers.
- It would be interesting to compare the Fort Lauderdale paper with the Miami Herald in area circulation and advertising ratio, especially in the classifieds. The Herald fancies itself the Florida’s newspaper and circulates throughout the state. I would like to dispute that, but having worked for several competitors, I know the Herald is the closest thing there is — or at least USED TO BE — to an “all-Florida” newspaper.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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