Writing - All writing was done on manual typewriters. When we were out getting the story on a evolving event and needed to get the information to a copywriter or an editor, we had to find a phone booth and some coins to call the story in from our notes. There were no computers, cell phones or tablets.
Today, urgent stories are emailed directly from tablet or cell phone to home office computers. If person to person discussion is needed, cell phones are used from wherever the reporter is working.
Photography - All photos were taken on cameras using film. After 36 shots, you had to change film. Just imagine how inefficient this was covering sporting events or events with lots of changing activity happening in rapid succession.
Covering protests or riots were difficult and you had to learn to change film in the camera very fast (I often carried two cameras so I could get 72 photos).
There were no digital cameras with huge memory cards...
Back at the shop, the film had to be developed and images printed in a dark room (a time-consuming activity). Today the digital images can be quickly edited (or in a real emergency used with no editing). I worked evening shift as a photographer for a Gannet newspaper (right after college) and I remember leaving two hours later than my shift ended due to the darkroom work.
Printing newspapers for distribution - I worked for the school newspaper at SIU.
The school newspaper published four days a week (we skipped Saturday, Sunday
and Monday). Each day, around 4 to 5 pm, we would paste up each page of the newspaper by hand. We used printed text and individual photos to create the layout, using a standard template. This involved a rubbery glue and rollers!
then the paste-ups were delivered to the printer and the newspapers were delivered to us early next morning for distribution. Today the entire newspaper is made on computers using digital photos and text and sent directly to the printing operation.
I graduated in 1974. By the early 90's, these new technologies were changing
nearly every aspect of capturing the news and creating the newspapers. That's less than 20 years after my training.