As I mentioned last week, our Thanksgiving newspaper this year was produced in advance so that it could arrive in customers’ mailboxes on Wednesday. Thursday was a postal holiday, so we had to choose between Wednesday and Friday delivery.
Because the early delivery meant early deadlines, we chose a feature story about charity fundraising by Beaches Restaurant & Bar for the front page. I thought it was a perfect choice for a Thanksgiving Day paper. Holidays are good days for good news.
As our plans for that newspaper came together, I wondered what previous Columbian Thanksgiving papers were like, so I went back to our microfilm, which is available to the public (for a fee) at newspapers.com.
I looked first at the Nov. 25, 2004, edition and was struck by some of the similarities between the news then and the news today. Our top story was about an election recount in the governor’s race. After a statewide machine recount of the ballots, Republican Dino Rossi led Democrat Christine O. Gregoire by only 42 votes. (Gregoire was named the winner after a hand recount was conducted.) This year, of course, we are looking at recounts in the 18th District Senate and Clark County Council Position 4 races.
Inside, I found a story about how Vladimir Putin’s Russia was trying to take over Ukraine by rigging an election and installing pro-Kremlin leadership.
In the local news section, Ridgefield school administrators were talking about overcrowded facilities and trying to get voters to pass a bond to fund construction. Again, that story persists.
I did spot this major difference: In 2004, Video Only advertised 50-inch flat panel TVs for $5,999. In this year’s ad, they are priced as low as $219.
Thanksgiving 2014
Next I skipped ahead to 2014. The first thing that caught my eye was a front-page story about holiday shopping that seemed like it could have been written this year. Here’s how it started: “Falling gas prices. Soaring stock market. Unemployment at a six-year low. All signs point to a successful holiday shopping season. Despite the economic tail winds, though, retailers are finding themselves having to work to get shoppers into stores.”
Inside, there was a story about how University of Washington researchers were suggesting more use of naloxone to fight the state’s growing epidemic opioid addiction. According to that story, doctors were hesitant to prescribe it. A decade later, it’s available without a prescription and is even found in local vending machines.
Another story caught my eye that seemed similar to today: Puget Sound’s orcas were struggling, despite a decade of federal protection.
Thanksgiving 1924
By now I had found enough similarities with today’s news. So I went back 100 years. Newspapers were different in those days. The Wednesday Nov. 26 edition (there was no Thanksgiving paper) contained 21 front-page stories and a political cartoon. My favorite was headlined “She Never Knew Her Husband’s Business; Now He’s Dead Bandit.” It started like this:
“‘He was just a good, sympathetic pal. He never confided in me. When I would ask him questions about his business affairs he would just say, “You’re young, dear, and it would only worry you.” How I wish now that he had told me how matters really were.’
“In these few words, Mrs. I.C. Peterson, 20 and pretty, speaking in a voice whose hardened, weary tone betrayed the intense strain under which she was laboring, summed up the history of her 11-weeks marriage to Karl Peterson, 36, internationally known convict, who was killed by a Seattle detective in the Puget Sound city Monday after a running gun fight.”
