Lance Turner points me to this interesting story in Editor & Publisher about the increase in the use of technology at newspapers allowing reporters to spend less time in newsrooms and more time in the field.  Turner offers his own perspective too.

As I mentioned below, I buzzed up to New York this weekend.  I took former New York Times reporter and book author Gay Talese’s memoir “A Writer’s Life” with me.  I was intrigued by this passage, which I believe to be relevant to the article above and Mr. Turner’s comments:

“But changes occurred slowly at the [New York] Times, he [Turner Catledge] once told me, adding that the paper often reminded him of an elephant.  It was huge, reliable, and stubborn.  It was slow to learn new tricks and was clumsy.  If it was expected to dance, it had better dance well; otherwise, it could look mighty foolish in public.  He therefore knew that a considerable amount of practice, patience, and time would be necessary to make an impression on the tradition-bound mind-set existing within the paper’s nerve center, which was its sprawling block-long newsroom occupying the third floor of the fourteen-story Times building on West Forty-third Street.”