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THE UTAH NEWSPAPER HALL OF FAME tion." Typesetting had remained virtually unchanged for a half-century after the Linotype outmoded hand-set methods and made it possible to produce type from hot lead utilizing a much-more efficient keyboard. The swing to offset presses in the early 1960s was accompanied by "cold type" ~ a process by which machines reproduced characters on sensitized paper using photographic methods. It was not only cleaner, but far faster. Even early and somewhat clumsy contrivances exceeded the Linotype by a ratio of at least 8-to-l and speedier versions were rapidly developed. It was a radical change for veteran newsmen. One explained, "I used to wash my hands to eat lunch; now I wash them to go to work." Typesetters who'd mastered the keyboard format of hot-metal machines now had to learn the arrangement of a typewriter. Compositors no longer assembled advertisements and pages from metal but used scissors, knives, paper and hot wax. Once the process became a fact of life, though, production was far less tedious. Both the Innes-produced newspapers were well-edited and journalistically strong. They captured numerous writing and typographical awards in the Better Newspaper Contest of Utah Press Association and each earned the coveted Community Service plaque, Lehi in 1959 and American Fork in 1976. Following one year's announcement of contest winners, Innes wrote: "The Free Press is proud of the honors accorded it. Not so much for the recognition of efforts to give Lehi a good weekly newspaper as for the support of the people which is reflected in the awards. A newspaper can be no greater than the people who buy and read it; the public makes a paper by friendly encouragement and support." From the start as sole publisher of the Free Press, Innes demonstrated his newspaper would be a solid community supporter, phrasing it editorially in these words: "The Free Press is devoted wholly and completely to the interests of the city of Lehi and its people. It believes in the future of this community and with the aid of its citizens will continue to work for the advancement of Lehi's interests and the welfare of its people." A school bond issue which was given emphatic editorial backing carried by a substantial margin and subsequently nothing 565 |
