News writing is not only one honest to goodness public service occupation, most of all, it is genuine love of work. However, the job is less fortunate if the material proceeds gained from it is lower compared to the income derived from regular jobs.
But the traveling and the people encountered at the time of nosing for news are heavenly. And the feeling of satisfaction is great when the first pages come out of the rollers of the printing machine very early at dawn. By this time, the plant boss can now swig his last and crash while the machine operators and news writers have yet to open their first bottle.
I am recalling and retelling a personal experience, particularly at a time when trying to run a weekly newspaper was likened to steering an old provincial bus with a driver who is unsure if his passengers will reach their destinations safely.
The comparison is very close. Just like the bus that is powered by an old diesel machine that gets stuck in the middle of the trip, the printing press could also break down and should be fixed right away so the newspapers hit the sidewalks early Sunday morning.
If the driver and his assistant are able to restart their antiquated bus, their passengers happily reach their destinations. Same thing with offset newspaper printers. If the machine operator is able to make the printer roll, newspaper readers will see the headlines by Sunday.
At night, the sound of printing machines and buses have a reverse effect on plant managers and bus drivers, respectively. The newspaper boss could snore well as long as the printing machine is singing “piso-piso-piso-piso-piso” endlessly.
For the bus driver, he could steer his old bus smoothly as long as he hears the machine that goes, “diyes-diyes-diyes-diyes-diyes” continuously, until it is interrupted by a passenger who shouts “Para! Para! Para!”
It is quite odd to notice on several instances that the newspaper boss is awakened every time the printing machine stops, becomes silent and still. The monotonous sound of a machine that is running is indeed music to the ears of a newspaper manager and a bus driver.
I did have extraordinary encounters as the manager of a local weekly. A few days after the 1990 earthquake, the newspaper office was flooded with requests for obituary spaces. The boss, who had difficulty with his eyes and ears, asked me to face the newspaper’s loyal readers.
The problem that dawned on me was not how the publication could refuse the obituary ads but how it could publish them at a time when there was no power to run the printers because of the killer earthquake that shutdown the Binga and Ambuklao electric plants.
Talking about obituary ads, one funny experience was when one of the boys in the stripping room mistakenly interchanged the names of the living and the dead. The following Monday, a lolo in his 70s barged into the office shouting in bad language that the newspaper “killed” his brother and that the newspaper had to correct the wrong info; otherwise, he would sue us for libel.
Within minutes, I found myself apologizing profusely, explaining that it was not the first time that news items got inadvertently mixed up because the workers did not have enough sleep since the July 16, 1990 earthquake.
The lolo understood and I promised that everything would be corrected in the next issue. I served him pancit and lugaw that was being prepared at a soup kitchen the newspaper management put up for earthquake victims. I guess Auntie Cecil’s coffee calmed the complainant’s senses down.
The managers who came one after the other to steer the newspaper since it was born on April 28, 1947 saw how obituaries were published first as unpaid news items in the 1950s, then as one-liners or milestone items in the 1960s.
Later in the 1970s, the obituaries were published as one-inch column ads, then 1/32 and 1/16 page ads before these were printed with corresponding photos in wider spaces in the 1980s, until the Baguio Midland Courier had its last hard copy last Sunday.
Like the names on the obits and the dates indicating the birth and death of the client, the 77-year old Midland, the longest running local newspaper in the country, could have published its own obit.
But it could not because it had its last hard copy publication on July 21, 2024 and no publication would be printed the following Sunday. The Midland could not publish its obituary – the obit that never was. Maybe it still lives.