The newsroom crew at the New Smyrna Beach Observer in the late 1980s. Standing are Billy Bruce, Rob Stamp, Cohn Barnes, Jim Jones and Gerri Bauer. I’m seated.
Some wistful memories from Jim Camden in the Spokesman-Review today about the “old days” and newspaper security. I worked in small-town newspapers in Texas when people could (and did) walk in off the street and be in the newsroom, from mentally unbalanced people to gubernatorial and congressional candidates. In New Smyrna Beach, Florida, people could (and did) walk unfettered in the back door, which was right across the street from the ABC Liquor store.
If you didn’t want to show your ID badge to security at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, you could enter undetected past the designated smoking area by the loading dock. In Daytona the newsroom was on the second floor, and thankfully we had the advertising department on the first floor as our first line of defense.
As Jim says in his piece, “I’ll miss the old open newsroom, but I won’t ever say a negative word about the new one.”
Florida Refugee 