Rip-and-Read News

Christopher H. Sterling

“Rip and read” is a slang phrase describing a radio station journalism practice that dates back to at least the 1940s. News agency stories, especially written for aural delivery over the air (most often those from Associated Press or United Press International), would arrive in the subscribing station's newsroom by means of a bulky teletype machine that printed the stories in purple type onto a continuing roll of light yellow paper. At many local stations, it was common practice to simply rip stories off the roll and read them over the air. (Radio network news personnel never did this—they or other staff wrote out news stories based on both news agency and reporter information.) The news teletype operated 'round the clock (unless somebody accidentally turned it off), so updated rip-and-read newscasts could repeat the process based on later agency news feeds. But ...

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