Newspaper reporters used to end their stories with the number 30. I suppose it was an arbitrary thing that everyone knew to mean “Hey! This story’s done!” I’ve even seen headlines in small papers over old editors’ obituaries that say things like “30 for Times editor Smith.”
My query: Where does 30 come from? Does it mean anything? Thanks, folks.
Hmmm, a trivial but true answer. I am not sure where it started, but in the old days when newspapers got their wire service feeds on teletype machines, at the end of each transmission would either be 30 meaning the story was complete, or no 30 meaning that followups and additions would be sent shortly. From this I am guessing it was probably adapted from the codes used by telegraph operators of an earlier day, but that is just a WAG.
“You can be smart or pleasant. For years I was smart.
I recommend pleasant.”
Elwood P. Dowd
Proofreader markings for linotypesetters.
Then we’ll turn our tommy guns
on the screaming ravaged nuns
and the peoples voice will be the only sound.
-P. Sky
Thirty at the end of the story
-30-
is indeed what we typed to signify the end of the story.
What Pundit said above was what an old typesetter named Joe Young (no relation to the gorilla, even if he looked like one) also told me.
Everybody seems to remember their first really big breaking story. Joe remembered the people at his Oklahoma City paper putting a cot in the telegraph room so their operator (they only had one) would be there when the AP sent down the word that WWI was over.
-30- came about because, in the old days, multiple stories would be printed in consecutive order on sheets of paper. The break between stories would be indicated by these characters:
– X X X –
Some funny guy realized this was 30 in Roman numerals, and started referring to it as such.
I believe either Unca Cece did a piece on this once upon a time or the subject matter was covered in another thread.
- 30 -I’m on an e-mail subscription list from the White House and occasionally I’ll get a press release that has “-30-” at the very bottom of it. I never knew what that meant either, I guess I do now.
Here’s mud in yer eye,
UncleBeer
There is a legend that, sometime around the turn of the century, one of the star reporters on the old Baltimore Sun was a notorious lush.
Sometimes he would be working on a story, but the thirst would overtake him, and he would decide to visit the nearest bar. He would call out “I’ll be back in 30 minutes. Gotta go get something to eat.”
After a while, his co-workers and editors wised up. When he left, they marked 30 on the bottom of his copy and handed it in.
The explanation I was given in J-school was that back in the days of Linotype, you ended a story with 30 ems of blank space(an “em” is a unit of length used by printers). 30 was written on copy as a signal to the typesetters that the story was over and to insert that additional space.
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars.
Apparently, the OP never saw the Jack Webb film classic “30”.
At the end of this incredibly lame film (which features Ricky Nelson singing the hit song “Copy Boy!”), a title appears on the screen that reads “-30- That means the end.”
I hope no one minds me shifting the topic a bit, but why do I often see two apostrophes where it is obvious that a quote mark is more appropriate?
FYI, -30- is still in use to a certain extent today.
I’m a reporter out at a bureau away from the newspaper’s main office, and I have to modem my stories in to the mother ship.
On the particular program we use, I have to put -30- at the end of my stories for this program they use to recognize it as a complete story and put everything in the appropriate styles for the newspaper.
“You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment.” - Bill Hicks