No More Phoning It In at the Times

December 6, 2007 8:34 AM

[archaic tech filter] Foreign correspondents and reporters in the field at the New York Times say goodbye to the paper of record's recording room.
posted by digaman (9 comments total)

.

?

naw...
posted by spish at 9:11 AM on December 6, 2007

Thanks, that's an interesting story.
posted by languagehat at 9:13 AM on December 6, 2007

Nice piece.

Not that archaic a technology, though - I last phoned in a review about six months ago (believe it or not, there are still places in the world with no WiFi and not enough mobile signal to get a data connection.).

Most papers have long-since ditched in-house copytaking services, though. It's a shame: when I last used them regularly, doing overnight reviews of gigs in the 1990s, it made me feel like a real proper journalist with a trilby on, like Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. You don't get that with email.
posted by jack_mo at 9:31 AM on December 6, 2007

it made me feel like a real proper journalist with a trilby on, like Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. You don't get that with email.

Indeed. I love being a self-contained global mobile unit, but the thought of a "recording room" operator listening attentively for the next comma is the romance of journalism itself.
posted by digaman at 9:37 AM on December 6, 2007

Like Jack says, we got rid of ours years ago. Replaced with a Press Association service somewhere in deepest England. The comedy that results from English typists trying to understand things like "Sauchiehall street" in a guttural Scots accent is priceless.
posted by bonaldi at 10:28 AM on December 6, 2007

The comedy that results from English typists trying to understand things like "Sauchiehall street" in a guttural Scots accent is priceless.

The prim old dears who used to take copy for the Scotsman were in a league of their own when it came to pricelessness - one once told me I was a 'horrible, bitter young man' when I referred to Daniel O'Donnell as a 'sinister asexual imp'.

One last reminiscipackage: I narrowly avoided a severe kicking in a 'phone box near the Barrowlands from a gang of Judas Priest fans who had been listening as I shouted a complete pasting of the band down a dodgy line. I escaped by very bravely pretending to call the police.

(God, I had to review some absolute shite in those days...)
posted by jack_mo at 12:02 PM on December 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

You guys could tell stories all day and I wouldn't mind, though they probably sounds even better in person.
posted by digaman at 1:37 PM on December 6, 2007

*sound
posted by digaman at 1:37 PM on December 6, 2007

Heh, shades of the comedically verbose fax scene from Almost Famous. 18 minutes per page!
posted by dhartung at 3:03 PM on December 6, 2007