Making the top page when a person of significance passes away is one of the biggest delights of being a newspaper editor. Sounds ominous? But it’s not. The work entails all of this. Every beginning journalist fantasizes about performing this responsibility as soon as he can stand in the editor’s shoes. More times than I can recall, I created front pages for the Australian newspaper “The Sun” commemorating Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s passing on January 11, 1966. It would be like a roll call of deceased Indian leaders if I thought back. Death frequently happens after the edition has been finished. Suddenly, and without warning. What follows in the newsroom then is like a Station alert when someone dials the Fire Brigade. All hands are on deck when everyone stops what they are doing. This is referred to as a “STOP PRESS” moment. The press is really stopped from rolling while a fresh front page is quickly made breaking the news and carrying the dead person’s obituary.
A STOP PRESS is only ordered for momentous news. I have had several experiences. Not just for fatalities but also for natural disasters. Like air crashes, earthquakes, fires, bomb blasts, riots, house collapses, and the 2004 Tsunami. The ones for Indira Gandhi’s murder, the Bhopal Gas Disaster, the bombing of Air India Flight 182, and the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 are the ones I won’t forget. and the Bombay serial blasts of 1993. Communication satellites weren’t in and editors relied on the wire services of news agencies like PTI and UNI from India and Reuters, AP, TASS (Russian), Xinhua (Chinese), and AFP from around the world for news. Teleprinters that kept spewing out copy all through the day with a clacking racket like an AK47 firing, would ominously go silent. Then an alarm bell would ring. Making the newsroom look up. The STOP PRESS news would then break. The news often meant nobody would go home that night.
Today, a WhatsApp message shares the news worldwide in real-time. With a video. It is what is called MoJo. Or Mobile Journalism. It eliminates the excitement a newsroom editor feels when they make the front page. The news is well disseminated by the time the newspaper is published. We old-school hacks also had another routine that was very macabre. A front page would be ready in advance to go to print when the VVIP passed away if they were seriously ill and on the verge of death. When Amitabh Bachchan’s life in 1982 hung in the balance, it was done for him. And for Balasaheb Thackeray and Dhirubhai Ambani. Also for Dilip Kumar each time the actor visited a hospital. But he cheated the ‘STOP PRESS’ edition each time till he quietly and uneventfully passed away early one morning in 2021 of a prolonged illness.
About Mark Manuel
The above thoughts/content has been proudly copied from the wall of Sir Mark Manuel. Being interviewing almost every role model of this country and going stronger each day. Mark Manuel is a respected Mumbai editor, writer, and columnist.
With over three decades of journalism in leading publications. This includes the Free Press Journal, Times, Dainik Bhaskar, Mid-Day, and Afternoon. He is famous for his brilliant pen interviews. He himself is a TEDx speaker.
Further
His interviews have been featured in several leading media houses. They include the Hindustan Times, Huffington Post, BBC, and Network 18. Almost every famous person has been interviewed by him in the country from Mother Teresa to Muhammad Ali. His first book is just out. It’s titled Moryaa Re! It is a crime thriller that is perhaps the country’s first police procedural. He began his career covering crime. And in a tribute to his experience and knowledge of this beat.
Several distinguished officers of the Mumbai Police and its Crime Branch collaborated with him to make this book possible. Amitabh Bachchan wrote the forward in a statement of friendship for Mark Manuel and admiration for his work.
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