The Makings of a Modern Newspaper- the Production of 'The Daily Mail' in Wartime, London, UK, 1944 D20471

A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sport ...

. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to

Bruce Guthrie Bruce Guthrie is a senior Australian journalist and former newspaper and magazine editor. In November 2008 he was sacked as editor-in-chief of Melbourne's ''Herald-Sun'' newspaper: he sued his employer, Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd, and won: the ...

, the former editor-in-chief of the ''

Herald Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald ...

'' who began work there as a copy boy in 1972:

Reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
s typed their stories on slips of butcher's paper...then a copy boy ran the story into the neighbouring subs' sub-editor's">Copy_editing.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Copy editing">sub-editor'sroom, hence the cry of 'copy'. Each slip of the story had about six carbon copies...stapled together and it was the job of the copy boy - or girl - to separate the original and run it to the subs, and then separate the carbons for distribution.

With the advent of new publishing and printing technology the position is now almost extinct, but in the first two decades after World War II, most editors of medium and large newspapers in the US still considered their copy boys indispensable to "getting the paper out". The position was also considered to be an important entry point for aspiring journalists, many of whom got their start as copy boys.

Former copy boys

* Carl Bernstein * Charles Blackman * Jimmy Breslin * James L. Brooks * Lucien Carr * Robert Christgau * John Curtin * Larry Emdur * Tom Fitzgerald (journalist), Tom Fitzgerald * Allen Ginsberg *

Bruce Guthrie (editor), Guthrie, Bruce (2010)
''Man Bites Murdoch''
pp. 40; 64–71. Melbourne University Press *

W. A. Hewitt William Abraham Hewitt (May 15, 1875September 8, 1966) was a Canadian sports executive and journalist, also widely known as Billy Hewitt. He was secretary of the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) from 1903 to 1966, and sports editor of the ''T ...

Michael Ignatieff Michael Grant Ignatieff (; born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a histo ...

Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler (born 12 August 1949) is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Born in Scotland and raised in England, he was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits. He pursued a s ...

* Ed Koterba * Vince Leah * Claudia Levy * Ken McKenzie * Leo Monahan *

James J. Montague James Jackson Montague (April 16, 1873 – December 16, 1941) was an American journalist, satirist, and poet. Renowned as a "versifier", Montague is best known for his column "More Truth Than Poetry", which was published in a wide number ...

Andy Rooney Andrew Aitken Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011) was an American radio and television writer who was best known for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", a part of the CBS News program ''60 Minutes'' from 1978 to 2011 ...

* Francis Rosa * Robert Ruark * Maurice Smith *

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate o ...

* Robert Stone *

Gay Talese Gaetano "Gay" Talese (; born February 7, 1932) is an American writer. As a journalist for ''The New York Times'' and '' Esquire'' magazine during the 1960s, Talese helped to define contemporary literary journalism and is considered, along with ...

* Hunter S. Thompson *

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...

* Jose Antonio Vargas

Fictional copy boys

*Hap Hazard is "the demon copy boy of the Daily Star!" (

Ace Comics ''Ace Comics'' was a comic book series published by David McKay Publications between 1937 and 1949 — starting just before the Golden Age of Comic Books. The title reprinted syndicated newspaper strips owned by King Features Syndicate, followi ...

, 1940–1947) *Jerry Jones is a young copy boy at a New Jersey daily newspaper who works his way up to reporter in Josef Berger's 1938

juvenile novel Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults. The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...

''Copy Boy'' *Virgil Ambrose Jeremiah Christopher 'Scoop' Jones, played by Joe E. Brown in the 1937 film ''

Fit for a King ''Fit for a King'' is a 1937 American film starring Joe E. Brown and directed by Edward Sedgwick. Plot summary Newspaper reporter " Scoops" (Brown) is sent out on assignment, to investigate the failed assassination attempts on Archduke Julio ...

'', is a copy boy who is given his "big chance" to become a reporter. *Monty Milde, played by

Monty Banks Montague (Monty) Banks (18 July 1897 – 7 January 1950), born Mario Bianchi, was a 20th century Italian-born American comedian, film actor, director and producer who achieved success in the UK and the United States. Career Banks was born Mario ...

in the 1926 film ''Atta Boy'', is a copy boy on a large New York daily newspaper who is the butt of everyone's pranks but eventually beats the paper's star reporter at solving a kidnapping.Langman, Larry (2009)
''The Media in the Movies: A Catalog of American Journalism Films, 1900–1996''
pp. 28; 91. McFarland. *

Jimmy Olsen Jimmy Olsen is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Olsen is most often portrayed as a young photojournalist working for the '' Daily Planet''. He is close friends with Lois Lane and Clark Kent, and ...

in the 1938–1940 radio serial of '' Superman'' starts out as a copy boy at the ''

Daily Planet The ''Daily Planet'' is a fictional newspaper appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Superman. The newspaper was first mentioned in ''Action Comics'' #23 (April 1940). The ''Daily Planet'' build ...

'' before becoming a cub reporter. *Rudy Rawls is a crime-fighting copy boy on the ''Daily Herald'' who "finds out that fists talk louder than words!" (

Headline Comics ''Headline Comics (For The American Boy)'' was an American comics magazine published by Prize Comics (under the indicia titles American Boys' Comics, Inc. for 21 issues, and Headline Publications, Inc. for 26 issues) from February 1943 – Octob ...

)Headline Comics (May-June 1946)

Grand Comics Database The Grand Comics Database (GCD) is an Internet-based project to build a database of comic book information through user contributions. The GCD project catalogues information on creator credits, story details, reprints, and other information useful ...

References

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Former copy boys

Fictional copy boys

References

Further reading