City in Sound; Tribune Sunday Room

This is Jim Herbert, listening with you to the myriad voices that add up to the city and sound. Tonight, a voice that while it seldom heard outside the planet which is created makes an important impact on the lives of over a million people in what the creators of the voice are pleased to refer to as Chicago land, the sound of a Sunday newspaper magazine section in the making. How much does go into the creation of a Sunday magazine? Plenty. Ask the man who do the creating. Your Lloyd went, the Sunday editor of the tribute, right? That's right, Jim, and welcome aboard here at the tribute, and it's nice to be here, and it's a busy place even on a weekday when you're putting out a Sunday magazine. That's true, Jim. We have to do a lot of advanced planning, as a matter of fact, now we're looking ahead to the early spring issues, our fashion editor, for example, is making arrangements for the fashions in the spring. We're planning quite specifically for the February 8th issue. We are actually putting together the January 11th issue at this time, and we'll be able to show you some of the

parts of that process. But we turn out three magazines, and sometimes four at one time. We're working on advanced planning on one, on color layouts, on one, on black and white layouts, on one, and doing the final revisions on our blueprints on another one. When we look at the Sunday magazine when it's delivered to our home, Lloyd, we see a thing that's in color, a lot of pictures, a lot of the spirited writing, a lot of interesting writing. Does all of this come about independent one part from the other, or is there a coordination of the color phase of the picture phase and the writing of the book? Well, there's a complete coordination. All the editors work together, all the writers and the photographers, the director of photography. And there are frequent conferences and conversations about our plans. And then we change, as time goes on, we change not only to balance the individual magazine, but to balance

within a month and within a year so that, you know what, Jim, we reach about four million readers or more, and they come from all age groups and all economic groups and all educational groups. And so we have to have a wide variety to appeal to them all and still it has to balance off so that they feel they've had something of personal interest to them and something worthwhile after they've read it for a certain time. How do you decide the things that will be interesting and entertaining to this diverse group? Well, I'd like to take a magazine that we're just putting together now, the January 11 issue, in some of the stories, we do quite a bit of entertainment because we feel on Sunday people want to relax, they want to be entertained, they want a certain amount of escapism, yet in this issue, one of the stories that I've just handled myself is inspirational rather than entertainment. It's about Mama and Papa Crawl, a Polish family in Chicago who have brought up nine children to be nine of the finest youngsters or now their adults in the United States. It's a heartwarming story

that makes you proud to be a Chicago and proud to be an American. Proud of our foreign boy who've come here, along with that, we'll have picture stories, stories about entertainment and one particular story that we think will be one of the most widely read I'd like to have Walter Simmons, a assistant Sunday editor, tell you about because he's handling it himself and perhaps if it's agreeable with you, we could go around and talk to the various members of staff about specific stories that they're handling. I think that would be wonderful, I think that would be the best way to see a Sunday magazine section being put together, to talk to people who are engaged in doing just that. Yes, that's right, you bet. Walter, I hate to break in, I know when you're so busy on a day making ready for your Sunday advertisement, I'd like to talk about this article, it's going to be in the January 11th Sunday magazine. Okay, Jim. Let's go back to the background, what did you get to lead on this story and what does it cover?

Well, we consider all kinds of ideas that come to us from a great many sources and this was one that was brought to our attention, we heard of it and we went out and got it, we paid more for it than we have for anything we've got for a long time, we're very excited about it. Can't tell us something about it, would you, Walter? This is the real life story of Mary Astor. Mary, of course, has been in pictures for a number of years and now you see her almost every week on TV. She has two movies coming out. After a really unusual lifetime, this woman has sat herself down and written her own story of her life. Did she really write it herself or is it ghosted for her by somebody else who picks up her thoughts and puts them into readable shape? Most of these stories, of course, are written by ghost writers but this one isn't,

it's refreshingly different in that way. The assistant Sunday editor has more to do with all than just this one I had to call when getting a book together on a Sunday. Oh, yes, that's right. What are some of the other things you have to worry about? Well, Larry Walters caught on to the TV coming a little while ago saying in the executive and even somebody they hired to talk to visitors so that the regular help can get their work done. You know, I pondered over this, that's a little bit. Being a visitor in here, is that why I'm talking to you? I don't think so. Now, after the Mary Astor article is in type, does it come back to your desk? Yes, it'll come back to my desk until Lides and we'll go over the proofs of it and we go over the thing, anything like that so many times before it finally gets in print. Is there going to be art connected with the article, of course, there will be? Yes, we have an arm wall of her own pictures, so she'll use plus any other so

we can dig out. And of course, that's a part of the job, too. Is that in which pictures will best fit the article on a particular week? Yes, it won't probably weigh out dozens or maybe hundreds of pictures far off the road. Al Madsen is a director of photography of the Sunday magazine. You've got a lot of problems, but it seems to me that one of the great achievements of the Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine are the color photographs. And that's a big part of your doing isn't it? We're mindy proud of it and we're making great strides in color, although I still think it's in its infancy. We've got a lot to go yet. Well, the Tribune was one of the first newspapers in the country to use color pictures, wasn't it? That's right, it was. And we've made many of accomplishments. We've covered the King and Queen when they were here visiting with President Roosevelt. And we've made any number of preets and color and we're still progressing on it.

Well, every once in a while, it doesn't happen very often, Al, but I imagine it caused a major headache when you stand down a great color picture and the magazine comes out of a little bit out of register. That is upsetting to the photographer and myself, yes. However, I realize, and I'm sure all the other photographers realize, in the mechanical field, they have many problems also. After all, we do have, I think, and I believe we have the fastest presses in the world and our presses go so fast. It's quite a problem for our mechanical man to keep it in register. And it is a little disheartening, but then, again, you go and get another edition and you come up with one that's perfect and we're when you have many, many that are perfect and, oh, what would you say looking back on many issues of the Sunday magazine? What would you say was the greatest color picture you've ever had in the book? I think one of the greatest feats that the Tribune down here was done by the late Eddie Johnson when he went over and

covered the coronation of the Queen and England. I think that was fabulous. He done a marvelous job on that and a reproduction in the Tribune was beautiful. Ed Berry, I hate to tell you this, but I'm looking over your shoulder and I see you've got the magazine open to the family living section. Is that your particular responsibility? Yes, that's what I work on most of the time. Well, that's an important part of the Sunday magazine for as many readers. I know what goes into it. Primarily, articles on care of the home, child care, domestic articles that bear on domestic happiness, anything at all that will make home life pleasunder and more profitable and smoother and so on. And the letters from the readers indicate that this is a popular section of the book, right? Oh, yes, there's no doubt about it and every survey has proved that people are interested more in their own homes and in other people's homes that they can compare with their own than in almost any other subject. Generally speaking, what's

coming up in the January 11th issue? Well, the lead article in the family living section is called what about nagging husbands and it's a perfect example almost of what we're trying to find for this section. That is, it's entertaining, we think. It certainly involves the reader, or at least every reader who has ever had an argument. And also, it has some substance, it has a value that we think will stay with the reader longer than the 10 minutes it takes him to read it. What else are you interested in in commissioning articles for the book? Well, almost anything that has to do with problems are some approach to a solution of the problems. Whatever interests are amuses, our exasperates, our annoys, people, we're interested in. We'll be interested in that article on nagging husbands, of course. We know they're not

talking about you and about me. It must be the other fellow. Oh, certainly. John, can I interrupt you a moment? Certainly, Jim. I've known your bi -line for a great many years. John Beck, I think, has known to millions of people literally in the Midwest. Tell me something about what you're putting together for this January 11th issue. Well, I'm at in the January 11th, Jim. We're working a little farther ahead than that. It's kind of surprising to people, but on the Sunday magazine, we usually work about six weeks ahead. I'm working another article in our Marriage Problems of Today series. It's a series of articles we started last summer, and we've had so much response from what that it keeps going on and on. The general theme is that while marriage is better and stronger than ever before, marriage today also faces a lot of problems that we haven't had before. Boys and girls are getting married at the youngest ages in our history, even younger than they did a hundred years ago, and the problems they face are much different. They're living conditions are different the way they're raising children are different, the kind of money they have and how they handle it is different, and it makes for very fascinating series of articles.

First, you yourself for married, aren't you? Yes, I've been married well ever since I got out of college. Have two children of your own? I have a six -year -old boy, Christopher, and a three -year -old girl, Melinda. How do you first get your assignment, John, to do a thing at this start? Well, a lot of my ideas. I will admit they had to come for my own experience with my own family, but you start thinking it's something that you're concerned about for some reason, or that something that is a problem in your life, and you think, no, maybe somebody else has a sort of problem, then you ask around and be sure that it's really a good story, and then we talk it over with editors down here, and if they say, okay, fine, then we go out and make an effort to find the best authorities and experts we can on the subject. Actually, then, it isn't a matter of assignment. It's a matter of making us suggest to yourself and being a subject of your own. Although we do get assignments directly from the editors. During the war, and I go back to World War II, there were a great many women working on newspapers, and since the war, perhaps not as many, but do you think that the newspaper business is a good field for a woman? I think

it's a wonderful field for a woman, a particularly woman who wants to be married and have children, as I do. The tribute is very understanding, and I do most of my work at home, and so it works out, it combines very well with marriage, because I can take care of my children the day time and write it in the evenings. Billy, the further to you around here is Bill Leonard, and I've known you for a long time as Will Leonard. Generally, I will, yes. You are the same winner, yes, sir. William Leonard and the Sunday Magazine and Will on the nightclub column, and Bill in the corner I understand that you're working quite a bit ahead right now on a pretty interesting article. Well, I like the other people on the magazine that Lloyd told you about, you're generally working on several at a time. I've got a desk here, it's full of clips about Krabaisen and a couple of color transparencies of Marilyn Monroe and a biography of Edgar Allan Paul and some stuff on the Valentine's Day Massacre too, so. On a story like the same Valentine's Day Massacre, you've got to do a lot of digging,

don't you? Yes, as well. You should know that, Jim. It's the same kind of work that you do. It's sort of feature reporting. It's not the kind of a pad and paper work that the boys out in the newsroom do. It's a slow motion interviews and looking at things up in the clips and going around and finding the survivors. What do you think makes a story like this shooting about seven guys on St. Valentine's Day in 1929, an important story? Well, I think now that we're going to probably treat it, if we're going to have to approach it with the realization that it has become a piece of Americana, like the Janstown flood at the San Francisco earthquake that Chicago's just going to has learned to live with. I think our conscience has earned his guilty about it as they were for down near a generation now. People in Janstown can't deny the flood took place in rotten San Francisco. I guess some of them do deny that the earthquake took place, but we have this thing used to be in our conscience and now it's something that we are looked back on as a wild out that Chicago sowed in its wilder days. When will

this be in the magazine? Well, I imagine it'll be the Sunday before Valentine's Day. They generally work, this will be the 30th anniversary incident. They say you see where older than we realize to have the message. It's right. And I recall the first hand is probably you do, too. And it's not working on it, but hearing about it about this horrible thing that took place in that garage up on Clark Street. We've got horrible things taking place these days. At least some of us do them as rather horrible things, some of the things that are coming under the heading generally of the beat generation. You've got an article on that. And this... We finished a series of three on that, and that was one of the interesting things that was the response we got to that. When we started looking into it, several people around the staff here said, well, who cares about it? And I didn't have an answer for that, but we found out there was a great deal of interest in it, quite a volume of mail, both pro and con, and it set off a

series of forums and panel shows and follow up phases in different fronts around town. And the strange part about it was that the attitude of our story was almost entirely negative. One of the men on the paper kidded me a little about that. He said, that's the first time I ever saw an assignment where the reporter came back and said, there's no such thing and then made it last for three installments. We're in the, we're in the Tribune rural plant right now to talk to audience, but other member of the editorial staff, one of those problems concerned production. You're John Menor, and you're the associate editor in charge of production, right? That's correct. John, you're not a newcomer to this business. Oh no, I've been in it since we started the magazine. How long ago was that? That was 28 years ago. Is that so? I want to get into the business. Of course, we've changed the name of it a couple of times, but that basically was the original magazine. Last production editor, what are your worries? A little bit of everything. What does everything include?

Well, I have to generally clear the pages that go to the Rotor -Crovier plant. That is most of them I do. I do a lot of editing of pages and help the artist to lay out the pages with the illustrations. I see that the printers get the copy from which they set the time. I follow it through until the pages come back to me. Each page has come to us separately in proof form. The proof reader in the composing room reads the proof for errors, and then two of us in the editorial department also reads the page proof for errors. So we have a triple check, and in that way we have very few errors

in the pages. Of course, I think that's a great American pastime, checking every page to see if they can find an error. Yes, we do find them once in a while, one slips through, but they're not very frequent. Who do you talk to over here at the Rotor -Crovier plant? Well, I talk to Mr. Moss sometimes, the more frequently to Dell Eastman. Well, right now, I want to get over and talk to Mr. Moss, who seems to be concerned with some problem out here on the shop floor. You're Harold Moss, right? That's right. I was just talking to John Menno, he told me that he talks to you on the phone a good deal about what goes on over here in the Rotor -Crovier plant. Yes, he does quite often. That's your big responsibility. You're the Rotor -Manager. That is correct. First of all, would you tell me, Harold, just what is, in very general terms, what is Rotor -Gravier? How is that different from what other farms of printing? Rotor -Gravier is printed by an

integral process. By integral, we mean beneath or under the surface. Printing has done in your regular newspaper is done with plates or type that are etched above the surface and you print from the top of the plates. We get our impressions are printing from etched underneath the surface of the cylinder. In other words, you put acids on this plate and etches out the impression and the ink stays in those little holes that are in the plate. That is true. Very broadly speaking. Is there a difference between Rotor -Gravier and photo engraving? Yes. Photo engraving is primarily in the letter press field or as Rotor -Gravier is in the strictly an integral process. Another question then, is there a different process used in the Sunday magazine and in the comics section? Definitely. The comics is a regular photo engraving process. And this is strictly Rotor -Gravier. Why is this process used to turn out the Sunday magazine section? We use this process

because we feel and we do get a greater brilliance in Rotor -Gravier than we do letter press. We are able to use a finer screen to get a better texture, better detail and engraver. There is no limitation to the amount of ink that you can pile on a sheet of paper. Consequently, the more ink you pile up on the sheet of paper, the greater brilliance and depth of reproduction you obtain. How long do you work on an individual issue from the time it gets here until the time it comes out in that pile of finished magazines at the end of the press? Approximately one month. A month. That's right. It's a long painstaking job. That is true. There's an awful lot that goes into it to give the advertisers the best fidelity reproduction that we can and also to get pleasing editorial contents of the readers. And you hope the readers spend not as much time, but certainly what is much into the reading of it as you put into the preparation. I certainly hope so.

Your Mr. Harold Gramos, is that correct, sir? That's correct, sir. And you're the production manager. I am production manager, the whole Tribune organization, yes. Now we're talking specifically about the Sunday magazine section and what happens when the time all this copy comes over to editorial side over here to the roto plant that gets it into the final form that we see when we get our Sunday newspaper out on the front step. Well, we have we have two sets of copy. One is your editorial news copy and the other is your advertising copy. And they come together in the roto etching department and what we call a makeup division. And at that point, your pages are assembled and made up into positives and put on to a cylinder. Then they run off on these graveyard presses out here. How many presses are there in operation here in the plant? We have three ten unit presses. And actually, as I see the paper fed in from these big rolls at one side and look across to the other

side of the plant floor, I noticed that the pages actually come out all together as a magazine. What happens in that process? Well, these presses are what we call five page wide. And by a series of leads over various bars and bringing them in over folders, we fold them and stitch them and have the finished product as just as you get it in your Sunday paper. Actually, instead of the press just printing the pages, it folds them together, binds them, cuts them, staples them, and you pick it up right there at the end of the press and you've got the finished magazine. That's right. What happens to it from here? Where does it go next? From here the magazines are tracked over to the mailing room at the Tribune Tower, and there they're inserted along with the comic section of the other Sunday parts sections into our Sunday paper. And then as each edition comes out, they're delivered out to the areas to the neighborhood areas. Yes, they start delivering to the suburban dealers and the distant dealers

about Wednesday or Thursday. Then on Sunday morning, a little boy comes by and puts it down in the farthest corner of my yard out in the snow and I go out and get it. That's right. I'm an old carrier boy myself and I really isn't true. Our boy puts it right up in front of the door. And that's the city and sound with reporter Jim Herbert holding the microphone, an engineer George Wilson at the controls. Next week an intriguing sound, the sound of the rock.