Word: copydesker
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...weekly radio feature on WJAS, Harold Cohen, local drama critic, commented that ex-Copydesk Assistant Whitehurst of the Palm Beach Post-Times undoubtedly told the truth about New Year's Eve in his city and in most other American cities; and, instead of being fired, he should have had his salary doubled, and should be recommended for a Pulitzer prize...
Because New Year's Eve was his boss's night off, a copydesk assistant named D. L. Whitehurst was in charge of putting the Palm Beach Post-Times to bed. Instead of merely editing the last-minute news, he felt like making some of his own. He banged out a 650-word article and slapped it on Page One. Sample: "Half-drunk women heard their drunker men tell why this bloody mess, so far, far away would be over before another New Year. . . . They had been in combat-with their draft boards. . . . They had their stripes-deferment stripes...
...Herald in the 1920s was a newspaperman's alcoholic dream. The pay was not much ($40 a week was top) and the turnover was fast, but the work was easy and two big staffs (afternoon and night) of rewrite and copydesk men could spend half their time in the bistro on the corner or playing cards on the copy desk. The Herald was published in an old building in the Rue du Louvre, adequately covered by insurance, and it was considered all right to light fires in the wastebaskets and put them out with imitation champagne. Only permanent fixtures...