Newspaper Reporter

March 22, 2001

by Kasey Groce

This is an interview with Ms. Florence Irving (FI), formerly a writer for the Democrat Chronicle in Rochester, NY. This interview is being conducted on March 22nd, 2001 at the Ruskin Public Library. The interviewer is Kasey Groce (KG).

Kasey Groce: What years were you a reporter? From…

Florence Irving: From 1937, well, that doesn't sound like long, til November 1940, and I had to leave my job because I got married and they didn't want married women to work 'cause they wanted to have the openings for men.

KG: Yeah.

FI: But, right after that, then I did public relations for a school in Rochester, NY, which is now called the Rochester Institute of Technology. And I worked for a little while for the Traveler's Aid Society. And then later, after my children were a little grown, I went to work for a small town weekly in New Jersey, northern New Jersey. And that meant that I went to the council meetings and covered that. I went to the Board of Education meetings and reported on that and took in whatever news that people sent in, and tried to use it in the paper. So I wasn't a, I was a full time reporter twelve years is what it amounted to. And then I was a full time editor for about five years, much later in my life and from time to time I did the newsletter for my town's board of education, which had to explain the budget and what was going on with the school. And I did a lot of little side things, like sometimes volunteer and sometimes for money.

KG: Um, you said that you had to quit your job when you were married? Well, what other difficulties did you face being a woman reporter?

FI: Well, there was some discrimination but as a reporter I didn't have any trouble. But sometimes, y'know how you earn a byline if you write a good story? Well, sometimes the city editor wouldn't use my whole name and he would just use my initials. So that it looked as though a man had the story and because of that, when the Junior Chamber of Commerce was starting, this is from Rochester, NY, I got invited to join because they saw my various stories in the morning newspaper. So I filled out the application and was accepted. And then all of a sudden they discovered that I was not a man and they would not allow me to the Chamber of Commerce. Now this is before WWII and I did write an indignant letter about that, but I never made any particular public protest. If they had known what my first name was, they never would have asked me to join. But that would never happen in these days, in fact many groups of the Chamber of Commerce are headed by women and they're the driving force of them. So that's very different. But as far as the newspaper itself, I didn't have any problems. I was competing with other reporters, male and female, but it's part of the daily competitive atmosphere.

KG: Um, when you worked the Democrat Chronicle, what types of stories did you write? What did you write about?

FI: Well, I was called a general news reporter, so every day, depending on what was happening, they would send me out, often if prominent people were coming into town for a one night appearance or something, I would have to interview them. I always wanted , I was a cub reporter, so I didn't get all the best assignments. And then I sometimes had to cover the school superintendent's office and then you had to really dig at it to find out what was going on [laugh]; they didn't always want you to know.

And they had several big festivals up there when the weather was good that I used to cover. It was more of breaking news or visiting celebrities. I started out, not in the city, I was covering one county, so every day I had to go to the sheriff's office and the Board of Supervisors and the County Clerk to find out what was going on.

And some of the things that I learned and researched, the paper wouldn't print and I'll give you one example. It's like it's so different now, the paper just print everything about anybody, (laughter)

KG: More than they should –

FI: There was a school in my area that I was covering, there was a school for the retarded people of all ages. And it was quite a big institution in a farm ( ), but I learned through my friend in the County Clerk's Office, who had the papers that I could verify that they allowed an 18-year-old inmate at this school for the retarded to give an enema to a younger child who was retarded and he did not, never stop. He let the water flow and flow into the child and killed him. And I had all the death certificates and all the information, but the paper would not print it.

Now, if that happened today, there would've been a huge uproar, and an investigation at the school and why the authorities let this happen and the parents of the poor child that died would be suing somebody. That's one way that journalism is quite different today than it was in my day. And the editors had a lot more authority about what would be printed in the paper and what wouldn't. And it summarized due to influence when people didn't want things in the paper and I hope since that happened to me, now judging by what I do read in the paper. So that was one episode that was quite different.

KG: Why do you suppose they wouldn't report that or let you print that article?

FI: Well, I think partly because, well, I don't know, they just didn't print that type of thing in those days. There was probably pressure from the management of that floor, which was a state institution. But they didn't want anybody from the general public to know that such a thing would happen. I'm sure there was pressure there. But my guess would be that the city editors realized there would be pressure and decided not to, they did think about it, but the editorial board decided not to. These days, I don't think they would even consider such things if you could verify they would just print it.

So it was a funny thing because about three months later then that same school, that I still sorta kept track of, the head of the school fell down a flight of stairs, you know how three or four stories, the stairwell is all open? And he fell down from the top to the bottom and was killed. Well that was never investigated. And I just thought at the time, maybe somebody pushed him, but, well, the police didn't do anything about it. That's the way journalism is quite different now and in some ways, subject to criticism, because they do print practically everything. That anything happens or they speculate on why something had happened or who caused it. But in those days, it was much more genteel, I'd say.

So I used to cover ( ). One time I was in a, a race with the police and a sidecar of a motorcycle, to see if they could get through traffic quicker than a pedestrian and actually they couldn't [laugh]. So silly things like that, well the newer reporters, they used to give us things like that to do.

KG: How would you compare the ethics of journalism between the way you wrote in, you know, the ethics of what they write about and who?

FI: Well, I think that then it was, well of course, I don't know because I haven't worked on a daily paper in a long, long time. I think then they were more subject to pressure. Pressures and advertisers for more space. They were more careful not to offend anybody. And I don't think the papers particularly think about that now. But I do think that they are very careful, except for the, the trashy papers like the Star and the Globe and so forth, to verify the facts. But the normal daily newspapers, I think, are very careful to verify what they print. And they're much bolder in exposing things and investigating things that they didn't do that so much. And I know there were plenty of episodes in the history of journalism where they did expose all kinds of wrong-doing, not just my particular newspaper, but lots of newspapers. But now there are loads of things go on that we wouldn't know anything about if it weren't for the investigative reporters on the newspaper.

KG: How would you say, were there any technologies, so to speak back then, that helped you, and guided you?

FI: No [laughter] We had these great big old typewriters. Well, they weren't old then but, [laughter] no they were new then. And then in another room where they, the dispatches came in from the Associated Press and United Press. And you could hear that clicking away and actually sometimes that was even in morse code, but there was another machine to interpret that. So things are so different now. There's instantaneous outreach to all over the world. But there we were limited to the telephone and to the, well they called it the wire service. The fact that the press came over the wire, into our office. And we were in a great big open room with all kinds of typewriters, everybody all together. But I think that's still pretty true though, in the city room of any newspaper.

KG: Do you think if you had had, would you have wanted to have the technology, such as computers and internet and stuff like that, when you wrote? Would that have made things a lot easier or…?

FI: No, I think it's still very dependent on the personal contact with the people that you're, that you're writing about. I guess they reach their sources quicker and better than we could.

KG: But then that is more personal, isn't it?

FI: Yes, yeah, I think so, yeah.

KG: Aside from, you said , what kind of improvement in technology have you seen that you use that you're glad we have? What sorts of things are you glad that have advanced in technology ( )?

FI: Well, of course, we didn't even have television. Before World War I, nobody thought in terms of television. Everybody had a radio and people were more geared to getting their news from the newspaper. I don't really remember much, of getting much news from the radio. Although during the war, of course, we did. But now, you can just turn on television any minute you want and you get a summary of the day's headlines. So, people sort of have a superficial idea of what's going on but they really need a newspaper to get the details of why things happen or what the different sources are for causing these different news events.

KG: So you think you'd rather read the newspaper than to watch a news program?

FI: Well, I do read the newspaper quite carefully every single day and there are a lot more details there… A half hour news program just skim over a whole lot of things and if you really want to know what happened you have to read the newspaper, or the news magazines and we had them in those days too.

KG: What would you say you missed most about being a reporter?

FI: Hmm?

KG: What would you say you missed the most about being a reporter, and about that time?

FI: Well, at this point, I don't know ( ) [laugh]…What I enjoyed more than being on the daily newspaper. In fact, I had to work from two o'clock in the afternoon to eleven o'clock at night, that was the shift to get out the morning newspaper. That's when you worked. I often worked weekends and had one or two weekdays off. But I got more satisfaction out of the weekly newspaper that I ran later, because I knew everything that was going on in this small town. As far as what the local council was planning for the town and what the Board of Education was planning for the school, so that was much more interesting and I had to keep on top of that week after week. And of course when you do everything like that, you do get criticism, from one side or the other, particularly if there is a controversy.

KG: You mentioned before about The Star and The Globe, did any other type of newspaper or magazines like that when you were –

FI: No, I don't know of anything like that but the Hearst newspapers were considered "yellow journalism" and the New York Daily News was uh, looked down upon by people who read the New York Times and so forth, but I don't remember any publications like the Enquirer or any of those?

KG: People wanted the truth more than?

FI: Well, I don't know, maybe nobody had the money to start a thing like that and keep it up. I don't know how it evolved.

KG: It seems that today most people are only interested in the juicy gossip than the true facts that are relevant.

FI: Well, that's probably true but in the old days, I guess juicy gossip was verbal rather than printed [laugh]. You never really knew…there were movie magazines and so forth in those days that printed all kinds of gossip. But now, actually, The Enquirer has dug up a few things such as the regular newspapers carry further and investigated. So they're earning a little stature now, because they're doing a better job. Well, I think, long ago, there was more covering up there was more influence used to keep things out of the paper, if people wanted that. I don't think that would work with any reputable newspaper these days. They wouldn't go in for that kind of influence, but I don't really know for sure.

KG: Of all the things that you covered, as far as the parties and the public functions and school board, what was your favorite to cover, the types of stories?

FI: Well, I liked interviewing—

[someone else enters the room; exchange hellos]

[recorder is turned off and then back on]

KG: Of all the different stories that you had to cover, like stories of public events and school board, what do you think was probably your favorite to cover? Which did you find the most interesting to write about?

FI: The ( ) celebrities now. They probably wouldn't be celebrities to you but I did interview Alexander Wolcott.

KG: What was his name?

FI: He was very rude. And Jane Powell came through once. [laugh] Edward Everett Horton. I remember him. That was more fun, and ….a famous musician, I can't think of his name now but he later became very, very famous in classical music. But that was sort of fun, to find out about their personal life or what they said about different things and of course they were all geared to say something that looked good in the newspaper. I think reporters today do a much better job of describing celebrities and learning more about them and what they think. But I really had limited, limited experience.

KG: Was there any type of story you didn't like to write about?

FI: Well some of it was pretty boring, every Sunday somebody had to cover the churches and I was usually the one who had to do that. Try to find a minister that said something interesting. But some of them did say something interesting, and in those days, there was definitely segregation, and some of them were starting to talk about that. So once in a while I got a good story out of what the minister had to say.

KG: Besides technology in reporting, what kinds of changes have you seen over your life that you are glad happened and aren't very glad?

FI: Well see, as far as the newspaper, I don't think technology has affected it much at all. You have get the information and then write it up. And you have to get it by talking to people. Well, everything works a little bit better and of course, television is, exposes a lot of things to lots of people that they never knew anything about before. So I guess that's the biggest improvement. Well, especially the way they cover public events and public figures. I think there's a lot of stuff on TV that we could live without. [laughter]

KG: A lot.

FI: [laugh] But when something major is happening they do a good job, in covering it. And I don't know where all these reporters come from. All of a sudden there's dozens of them.

KG: Too many.

FI: [laugh] Especially blond young women. [laugh] And they're all pretty good.

KG: It's strange how you phrased it, a woman was sort of very rare but nowadays like seems to be the majority. And men are the minority.

FI: Yes, especially on live TV.

KG: You mentioned segregation and how that was then. How, would you say affected life back then, life in general? Because I mean, I heard it was very hard times and ( ) everybody.

FI: Well, an awful lot of people, including me, didn't even think about it very much until somebody made an issue about it and then you would say, just in general, well it's wrong. But nobody, there wasn't much action. Of course, up in the north I think it was a little different than it would've been down in the South. The average person didn't really think of it as a problem that I knew. And then of course World War II interrupted everybody's life and changed a lot of thinking then. But if you're supposed to emphasize the technical changes, the newspaper field wasn't a very good one [laugh].

KG: It's not just about technology, it's about your life in general and how you've seen changes throughout your life and what's good and bad to have society and stuff. Not just—

FI: Well, of course now, if anybody's gonna go any place, they think, "Well, I'll call up an airline and see when there's a flight." But even after World War II, people didn't think in those terms, at all. The first time I went up in a plane was a plane owned by this newspaper, which was a small one, and the pilot knew it was my first flight so he did a loop-di-loo. [laughter] But most people that I knew never thought in terms of flying to get any place. You would go on the pullman train. You've probably never even seen a pullman car. So travel is certainly a lot different. But you probably don't want to hear all about this. Change in prices.

KG: I'm very interested in all of it.

FI: [laugh] A friend put in 25 cents worth of gasoline in her car.

KG: It costs a dollar fifty a gallon. It takes me twenty-five dollars to fill my car up.

FI: So those are the main differences, not technology. It's not just cost, and how you got around. If you had a car, you would expect to have a flat tire almost any time you went any place. In fact, I knew how to change a flat tire when I was in high school. You don't think in those terms anymore. Well I did bring something along that I wrote a few years ago about discrimination. I didn't realize this was all gonna be verbal. But I don't know whether you think this is work in at all, with what you have to do. Now I guess I told you most of this. [papers rustling] No, I think I mentioned most of this.

KG: If there's any of it, you just read it and tell us.

FI: No, I talked about most of it. Well, I didn't tell you that… [laughter] the sheriff, did I? In fact, I had to check his office every single day to see what was going on and then, in the process, I did interview a murderer once, who was in the county jail. Sort of a dumb country boy, that lost his temper but…I had go to the sheriff's office every day to find out what was going on. And he, after I'd gone to him a few times, he pulled me down to his lap and started stroking me and I got out of there as quickly as I could. But I had nobody to complain to and nobody did complain in those days. Now these days it would've been a lawsuit right away, sexual harassment. I did tell the state troopers about it and they said they knew he was that kind of a person but they couldn't do anything about it. So there I was and I had to go back every day to try to get news from him. So, I think these days, the situation is very different. So that was sorta one of the handicaps of being a young girl reporter. That had nothing to do with technology [laugh].

KG: ( ).

FI: [laugh]

KG: How was life, not technology now, how was life during, like, World War II? How was your life changed during that time?

FI: Well, for one thing, when my husband went in the army, his pay of $28 a month—

[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]

KG: Um, you were talking about your husband in World War II and when he joined…( )

FI: Oh, yeah he wasn't in very long ( ). He was in Officer's Candidate School, but he got undulant fever from drinking unpasteurized milk down in South Carolina, Camp Coral (?), so he was discharged. But while he was in, a monthly income of $28 [laugh] a month. We had one child, so I went home and lived with my parents. No, we had coupons for everything, for gasoline and shoes. In fact, my young son couldn't go to my sister's wedding because didn't have a coupon to buy him a pair of shoes. [laugh] You couldn't buy a pair of shoes unless you had the coupon. But everybody was in the same boat so… During the war, there was no butter and that was my introduction to oleo, which is a very common thing these days, but in those days… It was a mass of white stuff in a plastic bag. And you put a little bit of orange coloring in it and then you had to squeeze it to make it, to color it yourself. And then you ended up with this lump of oleo.

[slight pause]

KG: What would you say was the greatest change in your life at that time?

FI: Well, sort of, you woke up to reality because… Several of my high school friends were killed in the war. Even then my college friends were…so that was difficult, even if you weren't particularly close to them at the time, but just thinking about …that. And of course, gasoline was rationed. You just couldn't go off where ever you wanted to go. In fact, a lot of food was, particularly meat was rationed during the war, so when it was all over, you were very appreciative of the routine things.

KG: What did you think when the war was finally over?

FI: Hmm?

KG: What did you think when the war was finally over? I mean, what, what came across your mind, your mind?

FI: Oh, in a way, we were very lucky, in a way, 'cause my husband was discharged from the army before the war was over because of his undulant fever. And when they got that under control, we started up in Rochester, New York and he was a photographer on the papers where I was fired from. And he realized that television was probably going to become the coming thing. So he went to NBC in New York City. And they eagerly hired him for television, 'cause the war was not over and there weren't that many people around that weren't men, naturally, that weren't threatened by, to have to go in the service, and his was finished. So he started then with NBC television before they were even on the air regularly. And then when V-E Day came along and they had this huge celebration in Times Square, he was there on an NBC camera to cover that.

And he stayed with NBC television all through its development and ended up as a technical director for NBC television. He worked on all the pioneer big shows. They used to have live dramas. They didn't have tape then, well they might have, but they didn't use much. Everything was live, so…. You didn't want to have any mistakes. So that was a big change.

And you talk about – we had first TV set on our street, courtesy of RCA, so all the kids would flock to our house to watch Howdy-Doody. [laughter] That was the most drastic change in social life, the introduction of television.

KG: You said you have a computer yourself?

FI: Um hmm…

KG: What, do you use on-line, or different programs like that, with your computer, or…?

FI: Well, I am still a frustrated novice. I use it for e-mail and I am on AOL. Sometimes when they say on TV, vote for this, that, or the other on the computer, I try to do that once in a while. And I've done some research on it, but some… I've failed miserably. I can't get what I want or somebody else can come along, use my computer and find it, so…

KG: It's a very tricky thing.

FI: Yes, it is and it's just maddening.

KG: We got AOL about a year and a half ago and it's taken a lot of patience to learn how to do that stuff. It's definitely very difficult.

FI: So, I can't say that I'm enamored of the computer. It keeps you too confined in your house. I'd rather be out.

KG: 'Cause you can do ( )

FI: Yeah, most people just sit for hours and hours and hours at their computer, but they're not really accomplishing much. And it is amazing what you can't find.

KG: It is definitely…

FI: But once in a while, when I look at the TV news and they refer to something, I can go on the computer and find out more detail. They do reprint the whole story. I think the newspaper writers today are much, much better than they used to be. But they have more leeway they can try to color things more than we were allowed to. We had to be very matter-of-fact and…not show whether anybody was rude or exceptionally nice, or … But now they have more leeway in the way they write. [small pause] Do you have a school newspaper?

KG: We used to but we lost the sponsor, so we no longer have it.

FI: Why was that?

KG: We, the sponsor who used to be at school, at East Bay, ended up getting married and leaving the school. And no one else took it over.

FI: Oh. So you can't have it unless you have an advisor?

KG: Yep, only if you have an advisor and no one wants the job so… It'd be nice if we did.

FI: So how is that going to be printed? Did you put it on the computer?

KG: Um, basically, we typed it up on the computer and then we sent it, I'm not sure, somewhere in Tampa, and they print it up and …

FI: Oh, oh. How does the yearbook work?

KG: Ummm. We get our articles and ummm, pictures and everything lined up ourselves and get them on the layout. And then we send them a company called ______ in Tampa. So actually..I'm not sure of it. But we send it down there and they get it all ready for us. Then we look at the proofs and send it back.

FI: Oh, mm hmm..

KG: Basically we put it together.

FI: So you're responsible, put the right face with the right name and ( ) [laugh]

KG: That's the biggest problem, the right names…

FI: Oh yes.

KG: We have to put their grade, their names, and make sure we spell it right…

FI: Oh yeah, that would be terrible if you made a mistake there.

KG: It's funny, when you get back the proof and you have a guy's name with a girl's picture and you have to get it all turned around.

FI: [laugh] Is it a hard cover?

KG: Mm hmm.

FI: Mm hmm. Well, is it coming out pretty soon, or?

KG: Umm, I think it comes April 28th.

FI: Hmm hmm.

KG: And we have to distribute it and everything. They're really expensive. I think now they're about $70.

FI: Yeah, yeah.

KG: Could you have ever guessed that computers and technology would have advanced they way they do now?

FI: Oh no, no [laugh]. No, I think about, I think about what's going to come next. We have no conception of what's gonna be the next thing. Well, a little bit, by being in on the early days of television…how things would change. 'Cause in the early days, they had to drive around the table all over the place, wherever they were going. At the first baseball game, but now all the stadiums have all of the electronic equipment plugged into them.

KG: What is your view on, um, technological advances in baseball games and things like that?

FI: Well, it's pretty amazing. I just read the other day that somebody's claiming that they didn't really go to the moon. Did you see that in the paper?

KG: Oh, I saw that. There was a TV special last night but I only caught the last few minutes of it…

FI: Oh, oh.

KG: I wanted to see it…

FI: I guess I must have read…

KG: I know it was in the newspaper that it was supposed to be airing…

FI: Oh, I forgot about that…

KG: So that's like ( )

FI: Well, that doesn't seem possible, though… Did you see the end?

KG: All I saw was when they were just closing…they didn't really give any information…( )

FI: How could they possibly say something like that?

KG: Yeah, I love watching the..

FI: Hmm?

KG: I love watching the space shuttles go up.

FI: Mm hmm….

KG: I used to watch them all the time.

FI: Well, in fact I saw the one that blew up from my backyard.

KG: Oh, I heard about that.

FI: That was terrible.

KG: That is very sad.

FI: But Neil Armstrong, who walked on the moon, was a friend of one of my relatives. And I'm sure he wouldn't be a hoax. In fact there were too many people involved they couldn't possibly cover up.

KG: I don't see how they could ever fake it. I mean, ( ). I just can't comprehend how they could ever do that. I believe it happened. I can't anyone would ever actually do that. It's amazing.

FI: No, we used to think the telephone was wonderful. You pick it up and the operator asks you what number you want and the operator gets the number. [laughter]

KG: I'm still fascinated by that. Or even the tape recorder like this. I never understood how yo can get this to work. [slight pause] How do you see the space program advancing in the next few years?

FI: Oh, I think we'll get to Mars. But I don't know if I know enough about the climate there, whether if somebody from earth could survive.

KG: Oh, I know.

FI: But then I think maybe they should be using that money for the people here….that need help.

KG: I've thought that too.

FI: It's, I guess it's true that there is much more contrast now between the rich and the poor, which is not good in the long run. But the newspapers keep talking about that. I read the newspaper, and pinpointing social problems and trying to make people think about them.

KG: I agree that, that you could definitely be spending it on, y'know, more recent things here.

FI: Is your high school overcrowded?

KG: Very.

FI: Oh is it? ( ) When I was covering the Board of Education, when I was on the Board of Education. That wasn't one of our problems and the discipline was not a major problem.

KG: It's a very big problem now. When my high school got overcrowded, opened the one in Riverview. And now East Bay and Riverview are both overcrowded. So I think they should build another high school.

FI: Mmm.

KG: There's a lot of people.

FI: Where do all the folks work? Do they drive to Tampa?

KG: Oh, I guess.

FI: Mmm.

KG: ( )

FI: I think Florida's growing faster than almost every other state.

KG: hmm… If you look at growth compared to Brandon, its moving too fast.

FI: Mmm hmm…

KG: Based on ( )

[both laugh]

FI: Well, I don't know how a newcomer ever decides where to settle. Someone says they have to live in Brandon. I don't know how they decide where to live. There are so many different kinds of places. So, do you live in Riverview or what?

KG: Me, I live in Ruskin. Do you know where that cemetery is?

FI: Hmm??

KG: Do you know where that cemetery in Ruskin is?

FI: No.

KG: It's probably about three miles, three to three to five miles south. I used to live right around the corner but we moved last summer. Hmm hmm…The bad thing is this town is kind of falling apart. I've been down to Brandon and Tampa and Riverview, nothing ( ).

FI: Well, I have to admit I'd never heard of John Ruskin until we moved down here.

KG: Yeah.

FI: I guess he was quite a thinker, a philosopher, in his day, he was really well known.. Is that 41 right there? Is it?

KG: ( ) coming from California and New York and end up in Ruskin. I always wonder how. Of all the places in the country to go, this ( ). There's not much left here.

FI: Well, it's sorta isolated from reality and so its truly a retirement place. So it isn't an operating town at all, and in some ways that isn't good.. So is there anything else? I don't see how I'm contributing much to you.

KG: If there's anything you'd like to add, I mean. I'm not really sure what to ask [laugh].

FI: [laugh]

KG: Is there anything that you'd like to add, about your life or technology? Anything…

FI: No, nothing in particular. I'm not too sure about what your general approach is gonna be. I do think that women have come an awful long way since I was….

KG: I know. I mean, we still have some problems with discrimination and males and females.

FI: Uh huh.

KG: I still think there's a lot of discrimination towards women, though…

FI: Oh, I'm sure it is. It still exists but it's probably better than it used to be. I think it is troublesome that families think they need two incomes to get along, now that's too bad. I think that's tough on the smaller kids.

KG: Yeah.

FI: But they ( ) out of it. But there are many opportunities for women now, I'm sure of it, than, than in my day.

KG: But I never understood how someone could discriminate against someone else by their religion or race or anything. I never understood why. I still don't.

FI: Well, that's slowly getting better. But it wasn't too long ago, y'know when they said "It's a man's world" it was a man's world. You have to try and everything. Women are still having a hard time…to get above a certain level if they want to. (short pause) Well, I've never seen this view before.

KG: ( )

FI: From the library. Well, I've never been back in this room.

KG: I've been here before but I only think for, like, book fair. I've never really been here to do anything.

FI: How many people are doing these interviews?

KG: Um, there's five and then, and this is ( ).

FI: Umm, ahh, any boys involved in it?

KG: Um, there's one guy and three other girls.

[recorder turned off and then back on]

FI: Oh I guess I thought that you were only interviewing women. I didn't realize that , ah, mmm hmm…(flipping of paper). Oh yeah, well, I bet anything that the newspaper is a field where, has done least of technical changes, exchange of information, transfer of information, or just the actual printing of the newspaper. In my day, if you wanted to see how they were printing up your pa--, your story, you had to be able to read backwards on the news type or the setup on the linotype machine. Do you know what a linotype machine is?

KG: Um, I think I pretty much know ( ).

FI: Letter by letter, you would go in the press room and the printers union would even not let you touch anything. If you would see something that should obviously should be moved, you had to tell one of them. But I'm not really up on the newest ways of printing, who dominates that process.

KG: I know with the yearbook and the school newspaper we have that it was pretty much done by computer.

FI: Yeah that is, but as far as actually seeking out the news and writing it, technology hasn't had much to do with that at all.

KG: ( )

FI: You have to be in touch with the person, you have to be almost, usually face to face or at least on the phone and then you have to write it, either on a typewriter or a computer So…that hasn't changed but the production of the newspaper has changed. But supplying the news, I don't think it's changed much at all.

KG: The only thing that changes is how people get it, or how people actually read it and do it.

[flipping of pages]

KG: Can I see your book?

FI: [laugh] I think that's just probably about everything I had in mind, but I wasn't thinking in terms of technology at all…

KG: I think mainly it's just…supposed to get people to interact within different generations I mean, I think, I think last year the topic was World War II. I'd never even heard of this program until they asked me to do it.

FI: Yeah, so I think it's nice.

KG: ( )

FI: Yeah, I'll finish off my water, so you can take the glass back.

KG: ( )

FI: Well, I hope I've given you a little bit…

KG: Thank you for your time. It's so much appreciated.

FI: You don't find out where you're going to college, do you?

KG: No, ma'am, I'm planning on going to study with computers and web design and things like that…

FI: Uh huh. Let me write down your full name, I'll try to keep track of you. Kasey?

KG: Kasey. K-A-S-E-Y G-R-O-C-E

FI: G?

KG: R-O-C-E

FI: Oh, okay. And you're at East Bay.

KG: Um hmm. I can give you the web site ( ).

[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]

[END OF INTERVIEW]