Labor Saving Devices

So I was watching old reruns of “Lou Grant” on TV the other day. You remember that show? It was a weird, semi-serious spin-off to the old “Mary Tyler Moore” sitcom.I remember watching it when I was a kid, back in ye olden days of the late seventies/early eighties. “Lou Grant” was a newspaper drama. I can't say it made a huge impact on me at first viewing. I was a kid, after all. It was just a thing to watch, back before 2,000 cable channels and a bazillion internet streaming video services. I needed something to do when I didn't have enough quarters for the video arcade. Ms. Pac Man was a greedy mistress.Today, of course, I'm a grown up (sort of) newspaper guy, so the show holds a bit more meaning to me now.I watched several episodes in a row. Binge watching is another thing that wasn't an option back then. Anyway, something caught my attention during the opening credits. The show lasted for five seasons. The opening always showed scenes from the newsroom, which looked similar to the newsroom scenes in a lot of old newspaper movies, most notably, “All the President's Men.” The camera would scan across the room, showing reporters yapping on the phone and tapping away at their typewriters, like reporters do. That was the first couple of seasons. Starting with season three, the opening looked almost exactly the same, except the typewriters were all replaced with computers.Actually, those big, video monitors with dark screens attached to clacky, clunky keyboards were called VDT's, or Visual Display Terminals.It was an interesting moment, a changing industry, captured in real time.So, why am I talking about an old TV show, anyway? The show received a lot of critical acclaim for an accurate portrayal of the newspaper business. Not just among TV critics, but actual journalists liked it. The show didn't just focus on the big stories, the crimes and conspiracies and huge social issues and all that. They also showed a lot of the little irritations that bedevil reporters. For example, when the show switched from typewriters to computers, they showed the breakdowns and the blackouts that would grind a newsroom to a halt.Again, why am I talking about this old show? Because, while the industry has changed drastically since “Lou Grant” aired, in more ways than I could possibly recount in a little column like this, many things remain the same. For example, as I write this column, I have no idea when I'm going to be able to put it on the page and publish today's issue because the dang server is down.I wrote a bunch of stories and took a bunch of pictures for today's papers and, at this moment, I can't access any of them.I don't have to explain the frustration I feel, of course. Pretty much every working person today knows what I'm talking about because you've all been through it. Even when your job doesn't require you to work on a computer directly, you've probably been delayed or had to start over, no matter what you do, thanks to some server or computer or electronic gadget somewhere, that needs to be rebooted.Obviously, if you are reading this column, the problem has been fixed (for now) and the paper has been published, but I bet I'm still fuming about it.

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