BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Frank, at the Journal News, working the slot on the news desk.

I am part of an ever-growing fraternity – former newspaper journalists. It has been sad to see the industry implode over the last three decades. Like most people who have worked in newspapers, I wish I was still doing it. But the combination of poor pay, anti-social working hours, and an industry that has been slowly going out of business for a generation, has produced a diaspora of journalists. My journey from newspaperman to lawyer/blogger is typical.

In my junior year of college, I started writing for the college newspaper. I loved it so much that I arranged an internship with the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Massachusetts for my senior year. Over the summer before my senior year, I worked on a local weekly in my hometown. This was back in the days when newspapers were printed using linotype machines. These now-extinct machines consisted of a keyboard that created lines of type (similar to the striking keys on a typewriter) out of molten lead. As might be expected by the last two words of the previous sentence, this machine threw off a lot of heat – hence the term “hot type.”

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