The Troubled Tide of Automation

New York Post Publisher Dorothy Schiff was tearfully threatening to shut down her paper unless she could save money by using a computerized typesetter. Bertram Powers, local boss of the International Typographical Union, was adamantly demanding 50% of any wage savings. Between the two, they were generating rumors that Manhattan might soon lose another daily. Then, after a week's trial run with the computer at the Post, Bert Powers went off on vacation. The paper went back to its old-fashioned Linotype machines, and Mrs. Schiff, apparently accepting at least a temporary defeat, announced the negotiations had been adjourned sine die.

Had the problem simply been kicked around until it disappeared? Hardly. New York's newspaper publishers insist that they must automate to survive. Of the town's six dailies, only the Times and the News are making money. Meanwhile, automation is either in operation or in the planning stage at newspapers across the U.S. Some 60 papers are already using the computer system that Mrs. Schiff wants to install; eventually, Powers or no, the machine is bound to invade New York in force.

Rebellious Reporters. From California to Florida, composing rooms are humming and clicking to the tune of modern electronics. No longer must a printer justify lines by hand --expanding or contracting them to fit the width of a column. Nor need he worry about hyphenating words. Instead, a typist punches out a tape that is then fed into a computer. Out comes another tape, this one justified and hyphenated, ready to be fed into an automatic high-speed typesetter.

While Mrs. Schiff and her fellow publishers bargain for the chance to introduce this kind of computer, the Los Angeles Times, for one, has already moved a step beyond. For a brief period it experimented with machines that allowed reporters to punch out their own tapes as they wrote their stories. The machines rebelled against the reporters' hunt-and-peck typing, and the reporters rebelled against the machines. Now a bank of typists makes tapes from reporters' copy.

Automation experts agree that the day is not far off when most large dailies will have electronic readers to convert reporters' copy into tape, while the computers will be able to digest editors' corrections as well. Computers, which are now used for subscription and billing, will also set blocks of advertising copy. Ultraspeed phototypesetting machines will be able to run 1,000 lines of type a minute.

Unresolved Issue. The major obstacles to the onrush of automation are almost all human. On the one hand, newspaper management has been slow to grasp the importance of the new technology; on the other, the labor unions fear that automation will cost them their jobs.

For such papers as the L.A. Times and the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot-Ledger, with non-union composing rooms, intransigent labor bosses have been no problem, and management has been able to set its own pace. When the New York Daily News ordered a typesetting computer in 1963, union reaction was swift. Bert Powers balked and threatened a work stoppage. Though the News promised not to lay off any printers and to retrain them to handle the computer, the paper was forced to return the machine. This year, in contract negotiations with the New York Publishers Association (of which the Post is not a member), Powers demanded that 63% of the savings from any new automated equipment go into a union fund; the publishers refused, and the issue was left unresolved.

Savings by Attrition. Most papers using computers do have a contract with the I.T.U., and they have generally satisfied the union by guaranteeing that no one will lose his job except through attrition--by dying, retiring, or quitting. Still, some papers already report substantial savings from a reduced work force. W. S. Morris, president of the Southeastern Newspapers Corp. (Augusta Chronicle and Herald, Savannah News and Press) finds that there has been a 15% drop in printing personnel due to attrition. Similarly, the composing-room staff of the Birmingham News has dropped from 208 to 163. Says News Vice President Victor Hanson II, "When you talk about just one man with fringe benefits, you're talking about $10,000 a year."

At some papers, no printers have lost jobs, not even through attrition. In an expanding newspaper market--unlike New York's--publishers are eager to take advantage of increased printer productivity. Using a computer, the Miami Herald was able to increase its work load by 10% without dropping any of its 250-man composing room crew.

Reluctant to Retrain. The I.T.U. has demanded jurisdiction over all jobs connected with typesetting computers and the retraining of its members to fill such jobs. For the most part, management has complied, even though a high-school graduate can be taught to use the computers at less than half the wage of a journeyman printer. Sometimes, however, printers are reluctant to be retrained. The Denver Catholic Register, which has a weekly press run of 875,000 in 34 different editions, failed to persuade its printers to convert to tape punching; the paper simply hired girls to do the job.

In New York, where most of the papers are in financial straits, I.T.U. demands are excessive. Referring to the publishers' failure to stand firm on automation in this year's contract, a Houston newspaper executive remarked sadly: "They have given away their birth right." Says an editor at the St. Petersburg Times: "Most of us think this modernization has to come if newspapers are going to stay alive. It's got to happen, and it sure looks from here as if Bert Powers is just standing down on the beach trying to tell the tide not to come in."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.