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Anniversary ‘dig’ turns up newsroom artifacts
It’s not exactly Jurassic Park, but enterprising amateur archaeologists can find plenty of interesting artifacts if they take the time to excavate the newsroom of a paper that’s been around for 80 years.
On a recent gloomy Thursday, an expedition that began as a search for more “Then and Now” photos turned into a journey back in time for Nick and me.
After removing the dust from the box on the lowest shelf, we opened it and struck pay dirt almost immediately – a forgotten stash of pictures from the 1950s and ’60s. They included shots of the National Guard Armory under construction and the Sossamon Furniture Main Street scene that featured three car dealers. Woody Hampton, the Ford dealer in that picture turned up with former WRGC owner Jimmy Childress in a second photo from that period (right), which caught Nick’s eye immediately. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the girl had received a “photo head transplant” – one head had been covered with a head cut from another picture.
“Early Photoshop!” Nick proclaimed, demonstrating how he could lift the top head to reveal the problem an early editor (possibly J.A. Gray, father of current Herald Publisher Jim Gray) had taken such pains to correct: the girl’s eyes were closed. Another treasure we unearthed that day was an advertising rate card that went into effect almost exactly 52 years ago, on March 1, 1954.
The newspaper specifications listed on it were pretty much Greek to us. According to the rate card, The Herald could take “mats” (subsequent research – we asked Jim – revealed that mats were prefabricated advertisements) of up to six columns. “Cuts” made from photographs were charged at “prevailing rates.” We felt a little more encouraged in that at least we understood the term “cut,” which refers to the metal plates that were etched – cut – with the photograph so that the likeness could be used in the paper. Even after the paper switched to offset printing, which eliminated metal type and individual plates for each image, in 1974, there continued to be a photo charge, especially for society – wedding and engagement pictures – which tended to be large and expensive to reproduce. Reproductions by then were in the form of PMTs (photo-mechanical transfers) that were made by taking a picture of the photograph with a process camera. Chemicals and paper were expensive, which led to the persistence of the per-picture charge.
With the advent of our computerized newsroom and graphics department, those charges became a part of Herald history, and we no longer charge to include photos with any society announcement or story.
Deadlines were later back then. Advertisements for a given week’s paper weren’t due in The Herald office until Tuesday night as opposed to the current Tuesday noon deadline, and the newspaper made “no guarantee of publishing any (news) copy received after 10 a.m. Wednesday.”
Turning our attention to advertising rates, we learn that in 1954 a classified word ad cost 50 cents for the first 35 words and 1 cent for each additional word. Five decades later, the rate is $5.75 for 20 words and 20 cents per word after that.
Display advertising, which now sells for $9 per column inch, was just 50 cents an inch – the same price as a classifed – in those days.
A lot of county history has been recorded during The Herald’s 80 years, but there are still some mysteries. One of those is the identity of the young woman between Hampton and Childress in the prehistoric version of Photoshop. If you know her name, call us at 586-2611 or e-mail us at news@thesylvaherald.com, and we’ll report that discovery next week.
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