|
Newspapers have been published in the modern world for about four hundred years. Most of the newspapers printed today are read in Europe and North America. However, soon they may be read in all parts of the world, thanks to the new inventions that are changing the techniques of newspaper publishing. Electronics and automation have made it possible to produce pictures and text far more quickly than before. Photographic reproduction eliminates the need for type and printing presses. And fewer specialists, such as type-setters, are needed to produce a paper or magazine by the photo-offset method. Therefore, the publishing of newspapers and magazines becomes more economical. Furthermore, photo-copies can be sent over great distances now by means of television channels and satellites such as Telstar. Thus, pictures can be brought to the public more quickly than previously. Machines that prepare printed texts for photo-copies are being used a great deal today. Thousands of letters and figures of different sizes and thicknesses can now be arranged on a black glass disc that is only eight inches in diameter, to be printed in negative form. The disc on the machine turns constantly at the rate of ten revolutions a second. A beam of light from a slroboscopic lamp shines on the desired letters and figures for about I wo-millionths of a second. Then the image of the letters and figures that were illuminated is projected onto a film through lenses. The section of film is large enough to hold the equivalent of a page of text. There is a keyboard in front of the machine that is similar to the keyboard of a typewriter, and the machine operator has only to strike the proper keys for the image of the corresponding letters to be immediately transferred to the film. The negative image on the film can quickly be transferred onto paper. This method makes it as easy to reproduce photographs and illustrations as it is to reproduce the text itself. | 
