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Stereochrome

Lucky Wrangler

PostPosted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:16 pm


.................................................................................... Ћ ɪ ω α
_________JOURNAL CONTENTS

page 1
_________ ✱ the newspaper business [ solo ]
_________ ✱ earlybird, bookworm [ prp ]
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 3:00 pm


.......SOLO.............................................................................
_________THE NEWSPAPER BUSINESS

_________ Location: Hafelle, Belrea

Hiwa’s was no ordinary household. The lights went on just a few hours after most folks climbed into bed, and the night-birds were still howling when he went to pump water for breakfast. The whole family was up and about hours before daybreak -- and they weren’t alone. Just about every member of Hiwa’s extended family clan was ready to start their morning. Their houses, clustered together around the massive printing-house out of which the Hafelle Messenger was published, were like an island of activity surrounded by an otherwise silent ocean of rooftops.

That was the newspaper business. The day’s edition had to hit the shops and street-corners by the time the rest of the city-folks started about on their business, and it took a lot of early-morning work to get that done.

In fact, just about the only people going to bed in this part of town were the reporters and editors. Many of them had been up all night penciling out and editing articles about the latest goings-on in Hafelle and Belrea at large. The finished pieces were piled high in a basket by the typesetters’ desks, and as the printing-house came to life that team worked deftly to re-build them out of tiny, mirror-cut metal letters. The letters were picked out by prentices and set in lined wooden forms by more experienced staff. When each article was done, it was carried off by couriers to the layout section.

Once there, the layout artists worked to fit all the individual articles into a puzzle-piece arrangement that would fit on the Messenger’s 4 big paper sheets. The day’s biggest headlines usually deserved some extra pop, so those were illustrated by a team of hard-working illustrators and engravers. The engraved blocks were designed to fit the spaces left by the layout artists, and usually arrived just in the nick of time.

Meanwhile, the printers were readying their part of the process. Pots of blue-black inks were stirred, diluted, thickened and tested to the correct consistency. Teams of brawny press-operators got ready at each of the four printing presses, where the final page settings were inked and squeezed, one by one, against the broadsheets. Stackers made sure the ink was dry before piling the printed pages onto a hand-cart, and collators bundled each set of four-pages into a roll for distribution.

Proofreaders poured over the first few copies to check for errors. If any were found, their prentice assistants ran through the building to communicate the necessary changes. When all was in order the presses really got going, levers and pulleys swinging, the operators whipping themselves into a sweat with the effort.

About that time the newsies started checking in. Each one collected three or four of the bundled scrolls, then scurried off to different corners of Hafelle to post them up on the city’s newsboards. Yesterday’s editions were torn down, today’s pinned up, and everything was ready in time for the rest of the city to wake and skim over the news on their way about their business. Some of the broad-sides were folded into half-sheets and sent in stacks to book-sellers, where folks could buy them had they a mind to get their own paper. Soon, everyone in Hafelle would be talking about the news published in the paper.

Oh, it was a wonderful thing!

Hiwa loved every moment of it, and although his job didn’t start until the printing run was done, he spent the first half of his morning sitting up in the rafters and watching it all go down. From up here, it looked like such wonderful chaos -- if you didn’t watch the proceedings as religiously as he did, you could easily be excused for thinking that the printers flew by the seats of their pants every day and only managed to put out a paper through sheer miracle.

You’d be wrong, though. Underneath all the spirited debates about article placements, last-minute changes and breaking news inclusions, the process whipped along as precise as clockwork. For as long as he’d lived, the Messenger’s final print run had never been delayed more than a quarter-hour (and that had a day worth remembering!). That, it was said, was what the clear benefit of keeping a business in the family -- even a family as large as this one!

Hiwa knew his cue. The presses slowed to a crawl and the operators mopped the sweat off their brows. The four type blocks were unhinged and carried over to a big worktable off to the side of the typesetters’ section.

The short-haired geianen tossed the remnants of his breakfast to the resident flock of averins, and scurried along a thick raft-beam to reach the rope ladder that would take him to the print-house floor. From there, he ducked resting workers, busy cleaners and satisfied supervisors until he joined the other three prentices at their worktable. They shook the type out of the trays and washed it off in inky water-basins, their fingers turning habitually blue-black from this activity.

They had snagged themselves a fresh copy of the the Messenger and took turns reading the articles to each other as their worked. They stopped to chitter over the juciest headlines and marvel over the most remarkable discoveries.

“No news from the ships yet,” Tula mentioned, sounding disappointed. “Thought there’d be something by now.”

Hiwa let out a low whistle. “Oh, it’ll come! And when it comes, you’ll know it. It’ll be a grand day for the paper, that’s for sure.”

_________ [ words : 928 ]

Stereochrome

Lucky Wrangler


Stereochrome

Lucky Wrangler

PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 3:04 pm


.......PRP.............................................................................
_________EARLYBIRD, BOOKWORM

_________ Hiwa & Kalanc
_________ Hafelle, Belrea

Link

_________ in progress
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