Charting the course

A CHEMIST by training, a shovel engineer by vocation and a manager by desperation.”

That is how Thomas Edward Crosbie — better known as Ted to friends, colleagues and family — once famously described himself.

Such self deprecation belies the skills of a man who steered the Examiner group of newspapers through some of the most fundamental changes in how the newspaper is produced since its foundation in 1841.

“On the first of September I will be officially associated with the Examiner for 62 years, but I have been around the place since 1945,” says Ted, who is vice-chairman of Thomas Crosbie Holdings.

Being “around the place” for him meant spending summer holidays in the bowels of The Cork Examiner office where he gained a fascination with how the printing presses and linotype machines worked. He learned the business from the ground up, especially from the fitters, whose ingenuity was taxed keeping the linotype machines functioning in the absence of parts during and shortly after the Second World War.

He soon realised, however, that the days of hot metal printing were numbered so in the 1970s, as technical director, Ted began the process of designing, commissioning and training for the changeover to the new era of web offset printing. This came smoothly into service in May 1976, placing the Examiner group at the cutting edge of the industry.

A decade later the Examiner was the first Irish paper to have full colour printing and Examiner journalists became the first in Ireland to input stories directly into a computer system in 1986. Ted led the group through major developments as chief executive from the early 1980s until 1993, when he was succeeded by his cousin Alan.

It isn’t blood that flows through Ted Crosbie’s veins, but ink. He is the great grandson of Thomas Crosbie, who joined The Cork Examiner as a reporter in 1842 at the age of 15, becoming editor and later proprietor.

Thomas often sailed out in a boat to pick up news from ships calling at Cork harbour. It was in this way he got his famous “scoop” by learning from the crew of a US vessel that the American Civil War had ended.

“It is hard to comprehend the difference in communications between that era and the present day,” says Ted. “In 1847 he and a colleague covered the trial of Thomas Francis Meagher, the Young Irelander. The pair left Cork by pony and trap early every morning for Clonmel, where the trial was held. They returned to Cork every evening by the same method, filed their copy and returned the next day by the same means to attend the continuing trial, content that their copy was in that morning’s paper.

“This was all done at a time where there was no telegraph, telephones had not been invented and satellite communication would be a ridiculous pipe-dream.”

He has great respect not only for his great-grandfather, but for the newspaper’s founder, John Francis Maguire. “He was a fascinating character and also a busy bee, founding both the Cork Flax Mills in Blackpool on the site of Sunbeam Wolseley and the Cork Gas Company around the same period.

“He was also a great friend of Fr Theobald Mathew, the temperance priest, with unfortunate results commercially for Maguire’s previous publishing endeavour. Persuaded by Fr Mathew, he published a weekly paper called, I think, the Cork Temperance, a subject not overwhelmingly popular at the time and, for some reason, neither the breweries nor the distilleries could be persuaded to advertise in it. It lasted 28 weeks, ceasing mid-July 1841, followed on August 30 of that year by The Cork Examiner.”

As a nationalist paper, the Examiner did not have it easy. “In the 1880s, the Coercion Act tried to control news and our head printer was imprisoned. In 1919, The Cork Examiner printed Michael Collins’ advertisement seeking £250,000 to finance the Sinn Féin state and the Examiner was suppressed for two days by the British. During the Christmas of 1920 when Patrick Street was smouldering, we printed Bishop Daniel Coughlan’s excommunication of the IRA and Michael Collins and company came in and tried to blow up our press, I am glad to say rather incompetently.

“During the Civil War of 1922 when the Irregulars were retreating from Cork city, they came in on August 8 with sledge hammers and broke up the printing offices of both the Examiner and the Cork Constitution. The Cork Examiner was back on the streets in four days, thanks to Guy & Company’s printing office, but the Constitution never appeared again.”

He retains a fascination with news gathering and is conscious of journalism’s historical antecedents.

“Back in the 11th century it took a monk working at his easel two years to produce one beautiful illustrated journal, under the control of his editor, the abbot. It was another 400 years or so before Gutenberg invented moveable type whereby a sweating young man on a hand press could produce 200 copies in 24 hours, under the control of his editor. Nowadays, our presses can produce 70,000 copies in an hour, but the copy is still the responsibility of the editor.”

One aspect of modern times he does not favour is so-called citizen journalism, preferring to use the biblical term Babel (from the Hebrew word “balal”, meaning to jumble) to describe these “cranky messages to five billion readers with no editorial or abbot control”.

He retains the greatest admiration for what he calls the “forgotten generation” of his family. “They were the third generation — Commander George Crosbie and Tom, my father, in particular. That generation did not have it easy. First, World War I, the War of Independence, the Civil War, the Great Depression of 1930, de Valera’s Economic War of the Mid-Thirties and World War II.”

Despite tough economic times, he feels that such resilience will manifest itself again and that the Examiner has a bright future.

“Our group is suffering, but solvent, our staffs are superb, our technology is up to date. We have come through much since 1841 and we will come through this.”