Tools of the trade

Talk about a technology whiplash...

I was walking past a copy editor yesterday when I looked down at her desk and spotted this artifact of a bygone era.

"Laurie, is this yours?" I asked. "I haven't seen one of these in years -- no, decades. Wow!"

She said no, she'd found it in a drawer when she changed desks last year and had just hung onto it.

I immediately proposed a "test" and walked over to where our twenty-something social media coordinator was sitting at her computer, looking at multiple columns of the latest tweets from Twitter.

"Ali, do you know what this is?"

She looked at it, puzzled. "An eraser? With a tail?"

Sue, a veteran editor sitting nearby, smiled in recognition. "A typewriter eraser!" She said her mom was a school teacher and used them all the time.

Any journalist or secretary who used a manual typewriter back in the day would have used one, in combination with erasable bond paper, to correct errors and whisk away the eraser crumbs and paper dust. Wikipedia actually has a paragraph on "correction methods" in its entry on the typewriter:

"The traditional erasing method involved the use of a special typewriter eraser made of hard rubber that contained an abrasive material. Some were thin, flat disks, pink or gray, approximately 2 in (50 mm) in diameter by 1/8 in (3 mm) thick, with a brush attached from the center, while others looked like pink pencils, with a sharpenable eraser at the "lead" end and a stiff nylon brush at the other end. Either way, these tools made possible erasure of individual typed letters. Business letters were typed on heavyweight, high-rag-content bond paper, not merely to provide a luxurious appearance, but also to stand up to erasure. Typewriter eraser brushes were necessary for clearing eraser crumbs and paper dust, and using the brush properly was an important element of typewriting skill; if erasure detritus fell into the typewriter, a small buildup could cause the typebars to jam in their narrow supporting grooves."

Why bring this up?

Because two hours later, I was packing up my bag with a video camera, tripod and wireless microphone for an interview with the head of a Portland nonprofit that specializes in programs to help runaway and homeless youth. If all goes as planned, you'll see that video later this month on OregonLive.com.

I started in journalism as a high school junior, using a pen and notebook and typing my stories onto plain office paper using a manual typewriter, then an electric one, where moving paragraphs literally meant cutting and pasting. I still use a pen and notebook; but these days, more often than not I'm wearing a headset and typing my notes onto a computer screen while doing a phone interview. Stories now are composed on laptops as easily as desktop monitors and even smart phones. We upload photos, videos and PDFs from any remote location that connects with our servers, and moving small or huge blocks of copy is as simple as copy-and-paste.

So, yeah, it was a kick to see that typewriter eraser -- a newsroom museum piece. And, yes, it's trite to say but, damn, we've come a long, long, long way with the technology, haven't we?