I now am involved in the production of the print paper by laying out pages for print.
The new duties draw on my experience in the field going back to my roots in Southern Maryland where I was a reporter, photographer and then feature editor of The Enterprise in the 1970s.
As a small paper, I was able to see or take part in, all the phases of newspaper production. That included the layout of the paper. At that time in the evolution of newspaper technology, print outs of columns of text were glued to the page with headlines created in a separate machine, affixed to the top. All was on a full-sized broadsheet page that would be turned into a huge negative and burned onto a metal plate that went onto the press.
Twenty years later, much is the same--only now all the steps leading up to the creating of the plate are done on computer. Every desk now has a computer that are used for various facets of the process.
Now it is important to know how to manipulate the digital pieces to make them fit together in newspaper form.
Newspaper style hasn't changed much. There is much more color, but headline sizes, type styles, etc. are much the same. Knowing how to maneuver them on a computer screen to look proper does take some knowledge.
My duties now do not require me to go out in the field and gather stories, pictures or videos. I sit at a computer. I do take advantage of my one time to keep my video skills (as they are) from going stale. I have Friday's free so I have shot video at several high school football games. I will try to do that most free Fridays.
