What Would Old Editor Say of Technology?

Over my shoulder a backward glance to the late Herald Editor Joe Zelnik. He sat in this office and instilled a blend of fear and respect. His reach was felt not only in the newsroom but amongst legions of the politically-connected whose actions and antics he chronicled. Zelnik was old school journalist all the way. Compromise was not one of his strong suits. The command that “employe” must be spelled with but a single “e” was among the first facts of life learned at the Herald. That was the way it was spelled at the (Philadelphia) Evening Bulletin and that was good enough for him.
Zelnik was raised with a manual typewriter somehow glued to his side, or so it seemed. He cast a wary eye toward new-fangled gadgets that imitated what a typewriter did, but did not go “click, clack, click clack…throw the carriage return over at the end of each line.” He finally made a delicate peace with computers, but there was more than one time when he threatened to open the window of his second-floor office and toss his computer out. We’ve all had similar instances.
He freely used a tiny tape recorder to make vocal notes for column ideas. And he cast a similarly wary eye toward a cellular telephone, which he used, but not often. He took copious notes when he interviewed anyone on the telephone, which he cocked on his shoulder with one of those cushion devices. He must have regularly visited a chiropractor, or else suffered in silence with a crooked neck.
He freely dubbed himself a “geezer,” and loved to irk various people by sporting his infamous collection of T-shirts, many of which he frequently wore in the office. One of his favorites was “I’m a Senior Citizen. Give Me My Damn Discount.” Another one that Jack Fichter was willed, “Trust me, I’m a reporter.”
New technology was not something Joe easily grasped. I used to wonder how a guy, editing a popular weekly newspaper, who could send chills up and down a politician’s spine by a mere mention in his weekly column, could be, well, hard-headed about change.
Fast forward to the present. Joe’s probably enjoying his senior discounts to the max. He and the editing angels probably agree they’re better off by far where they are than where they previously sat.
He and St. Pete must chuckle at us from up above especially on Mondays when our dedicated corps labors to put together that week’s print edition. The website, although he knew it was the “wave of the future,” was a somewhat scary prospect to him. He felt far more comfortable watching that “wave” from the beach.
I wonder what Mr. Zelnik would say about things today with so many advanced technological gadgets and gimmicks. Imagining Joe seated in his usual chair at a freeholders’ meeting with an iPad taking notes is a tad beyond my comprehension. For those who never met him, he was an avowed note taker who used skinny reporter notebooks that can easily slip into one’s inner jacket pocket. I can almost see the strange look on his face on hearing that this gadget that resembles a hot plate could not only take notes and send them but also take photos and videos.
Thus to pretend that he would be comfortable using an iPhone to scan prices in ShopRite or calculate the mileage from Gowanda, N.Y. (his hometown) to Stone Harbor would truly be a stretch of one’s imagination. If he were told he could read his beloved Herald on that tiny telephone, surely his jaw would drop to the floor.
Virtually visiting his family, seeing his grandson, or his cousin in Ohio via Skype over the Internet would surely have brought an incredulous smile to his weathered face. Learning that his precious news stories were being transmitted to the printing plant (uploaded in a PDF) would make him shake his head. I mean, here was an editor who still filed stories on a “spike.” It looked like a shank that could kill a man if he fell on it, yet that is where dead stories were filed. In a way, it was 18th century technology that never really went out of style. In its place, I use plastic vertical file holders, certainly not the same.
Since confession is good for the soul, there must be something in that editor’s office that stirs pessimism in a man. I find myself taking his same jaded view of many people and things. I doubt he could grasp today’s strange news philosophy. To Zelnik, an exclusive story was something jealously guarded, certainly not to be shared early with the world via the Internet. To him, a great story was like fine wine, not to be “sipped” until Wednesday morning when hot hands grabbed for his cherished printed word in a copy of the Herald.
Today, if a story happens at 4:55 p.m. on Wednesday, it’s likely the world will be reading it in a matter of minutes. Who cares if the competition reads it? As long as we get it up on the web, the news beast has been fed another morsel, and today’s terrific exclusive story is relegated to “other news” in six hours or less. A story with a video clip attached taken with a tiny camera? That would be absolutely unthinkable to the man who fussed about commas and could, with a few disarming questions, shred what we thought were air-tight stories.
We reporters lived in dread of his admonition, “Make one phone call…” We knew full well that meant to check some fact, and routinely commenced a seemingly endless “game” of phone tag with one bureaucrat or another. Try to make “one call” to check facts on a story with any government agency. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
I shudder as I look through Sunday advertisements for gizmos and gadgets in electronics stores. Frankly, I find myself thinking like Joe. “Why in creation would you ever need one of those?” Worse, as time ticks away, I believe the train has left me at the station. I cannot grasp the difference between a tablet, nook, pad, or netbook. People with gadgets in their ear who go around store talking to themselves puzzles me.
That I should consider storing precious data in a “cloud” remains nebulous and, frankly, scary. Nor can I get my brain to understand how photographs, hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, can be smashed together on a tiny piece of plastic and metal smaller than a postage stamp and come out looking absolutely lovely.
Daily, I empathize with the guy who used to sit in my office. His woes are now mine. Each day, sometimes more than once a day, I can understand a little bit better why he viewed life and people as he did. I never thought I’d admit it.