Back when newspapering in Indianapolis was fun

This is me being a makeup editor at The Indianapolis News on Dec. 21, 1968. That’s the front page chronicling the launch of Apollo 8, the first mission to the moon in which astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders completed 10 orbits of the moon before returning to earth.

Those were the days when newspapers were created in composing rooms to the clatter of Linotype machines cranking out thousands of lines of type on lead slugs.

I spent a couple of years of my 34-year newspaper career as a makeup editor, most of the time designing all of the inside pages of Indiana’s largest evening daily and then supervising the printers who put them together. I learned quickly to read upside down and backwards because it was usually necessary to edit stories in the page – it took too long to pull a proof for editing. I also learned how to properly “lead out” a story from the bottom up and how to cut a story in md-sentence by having the printer cut the tail off of a comma.

I went from the composing room to the state-suburban desk as a reporter and became chief of a suburban bureau when the paper went to zoned editions in March, 1985. I jumped at the chance to get out of the downtown office because a martinet city editor, fortunately not in my immediate chain of command, was making all of my city desk friends miserable and I couldn’t bear to watch it.

I had, in my judgment anyway, the best of the three suburban zones and spent my days and nights covering the two fastest-growing counties in Indiana. It was exhilarating and fun because there was always something interesting going on.

In the meantime, the paper was losing circulation – partly because of the the nationwide trend of decreasing interest in evening newspapers, but also in great measure because the circulation department promoted our morning sister paper, The Indianapolis Star, over The News and bungled what News promotions they did do. I know because I shared an office with circulation district managers and heard their conversations and saw their numbers.

My bureau got folded into a three-county operation when The News was merged with The Star in the autumn of 1995 and even though the new metro editor favored me for chief of the new bureau, she was overruled by the managing editor who had to find a place for his predecessor’s city editor.

So I became the bureau education writer, covering about a dozen school districts in three counties. I also wrote feature stories on a variety of topics, shot photos to illustrate most of my stories, and pitched in on breaking news stories. The work was still fun, but being subjected to annual job performance reviews by the guy I trained as bureau chief and having to create stories to suit the uninformed whims of downtown editors had a corrosive effect on my enthusiasm.

I think it was sometime in late 1999 when I was sitting in my bureau chief’s office discussing the latest ridiculous demand from downtown that I opined, “You know, we don’t have to do this. We can always go do something else for a living.”

He shot me a horrified look that told me he found my suggestion incomprehensibly scary.

But I was at a point where I really meant it.

By this time, The News had been chloroformed and we all worked exclusively for The Star. I never liked The Star. I felt it lacked the friendly personality and familiar style of The News. In my opinion, newspapering in Indianapolis died in 1995 with the merger of the staffs. From that day on, we were just going through the motions.

Gannett bought the paper in early 2000 and, with their bottom-line management style, sucked the last bit of fun out of our jobs.

So when my mother died on Oct. 5, 2000 and left me a golden parachute, I didn’t hesitate. My first day back at work after the funeral, I walked into the bureau, picked up the phone and called Human Resources to announce I was quitting.

Since I had turned 55 a few months early, I was able to take early retirement with a reduced pension. All the better. I cleaned out my desk and was gone by noon.

That was nine years ago yesterday. I have never regretted my decision. Not for a second.

I like to think my departure triggered the exodus that followed. Within a couple of years, all of my reporter friends in the bureau had retired or flat-out quit and the bureau chief bailed out to take a public relations job.

Fellow Newsie Art Harris retired and is a member of the town council in his rapidly growing suburban hometown. Police reporter Diane Frederick quit and is now a supremely talented artist. Scott Miley left to do public relations for an Indianapolis school corporation. Paraprofessional Pattie Doty went to a great job with Aspen Education Corp.

I’m sure we all share a nostalgia for how things were before Gannett, but we’re all happier with our lives today.