Inside The Toronto Star, 1975, mid-1980's.

CHARLES DOBIE : LOCAL HISTORY
TORONTO, ONTARIO
Photos by Charles Dobie

Toronto Star newspaper, Toronto, Ontario.

I worked at the Toronto Star for 27 years, starting in the fall of 1964. I rarely took my camera to work except the few times I covered demonstrations on my own in the hopes of getting the photos published (never happened). The first photo is of John McDonald, a sports writer, then later in the 1980's, a travel writer.

Photos 2 to 8 were taken in the composing room of the Star, and show film production and paste-up of the classified ad pages. It was an early stage in this process because they were still using punched paper tape to run the photo-typesetters rather than connecting them directly to the computer.

John McDonald, Toronto Star sports writer, 1970.

Photo 1. The late John McDonald about 1970. At that time he was a sports writer.

Composing room of the Toronto Star, mid-1980's.

Photo 2. The typesetting instructions generated by the computer were punched out on paper tape and then fed into the photo-typesetter to create black text on white film.

Composing room of the Toronto Star, mid-1980's.

Photo 3. It looks like a half page of stock exchange listings coming out of the film developer.

Composing room of the Toronto Star, mid-1980's.

Photo 4. The film from the typesetter is pasted into place and artwork applied.

Composing room of the Toronto Star, mid-1980's.

Photo 5. The film from the typesetter is pasted into place and artwork applied.

Composing room of the Toronto Star, mid-1980's.

Photo 6. George holds up a completed page of classified ads ready to be sent to the engraving department to be turned into a printing press plate.

Composing room of the Toronto Star, mid-1980's.

Photo 7. Meanwhile, the Star's front page has been revised and is locked up for the next edition. At this time, all but the classified pages and stock listings were "hot metal" type.

Composing room of the Toronto Star, mid-1980's.

Photo 8. As above.


Photographs Copyright © 1970- by Charles Dobie.


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