Typewriter Dispatch From Washington
Trying an old thing in a new way.
On June 1, I bought a 1960s Brother De Luxe typewriter with free shipping on Poshmark for $105. As soon as it arrived, I hopped on the five decade old work horse right away, typing journal entries and interview pitches to old senators who remembered the rhythmic clack and tap the Age of Typewriters, a music in every newsroom a century. Letterhead to type on is every authority and jurisdiction at the Capitol where I had been collecting it for years.
Old typewriters don’t have a delete key, let alone autocorrect, so frequent typos are a stunning reminder of how much I lean on AI tools. Autocorrect is lowkey artificial intelligence. Generative AI is hitting the news workforce in a slow boil. Everyone uses it. Few would ever admit to it. Tagging your news with an AI assist is a bad look. Many institutional newsrooms include prohibitions that give an old guard a convenient excuse to not engage with the tools newer reporters leverage intuitively in secret.
Not AI
Typewriting forces me to engage with a deeper intelligence as far from AI and the internet and the infernal screens burn our eyes and rot away so much of what makes us human in the real world. For example, this dispatch from tonight: