NEWSBOY

Description

Newsboy or newsgirl (Oxford dictionary):
A boy or girl who delivers or sells newspapers

Does author Bill Fairbairn fit the definition? He was a newsboy at age eight. Today, at 80, he still delivers newspapers. Everything in between includes journalism on 14 weekly and daily papers in three continents as printer, reporter, photo editor, desk editor and now editor emeritus of the Riverview Park Review in Ottawa.

Bill also wrote for the CBC’s Radio Canada International in Montreal and he covered veteran stories in Italy and other parts of the world for Legion Magazine of Ottawa.

His fifth book takes readers through the past century of lead typefaces locked on a flat-bedprinting machine to today’s press-of-a-computer-button that electronically sends newspaper pages to the printer and rotary press like magic.

Modern computer writing and editing techniques left some older newspaper journalists sidelined. Bill surrendered his now ancient 26 soldiers of lead type and with his wife Janina’s help as newsgirl took on the rough and tumble newspaper world of today. He did what Sir Ernest Shackleton had advised: “Man must shape himself a new mark directly the old one goes to ground.”