A copy of the York (Pa.) Daily Record front page from almost 37 years ago tells about Tropical Storm Agnes' fury. The newspapers look, or design, has changed dramatically since then. (To get a look at the new look to be unveiled Thursday, see photo below.) Background posts: This all appeared in The (York, Pa.) Gazette and Daily on June 1, 1949 and In the shadow of disaster: York County and its newspaper tested 30 years ago and Suicide story: York hotel proprietor 'found a package that had contained about a quarter of a pound of Paris green'.
A newspaper's appearance can go out of style, just like clothes.
So about once a decade, as it turns out, the York Daily Record has made style changes, called a redesign.
The newspaper will make such a change in Thursday's edition, as I explain in a York Daily Record/Sunday News column today. That column begins: ... .
A prototype of a redesigned front page of the York Daily Record/Sunday News.
The York Daily Record's East King Street office was undoubtedly in disarray in October 1973.Just months before, the newspaper had shut down its unprofitable Sunday publication.
Now, new owner Jimmy D. Scoggins was moving the newspaper from its 72-year home in York's downtown to a new plant at 1750 Industrial Highway in Springettsbury Township.
There, a new offset printing press awaited.
"We leave it with fond memories, but with open arms and jubilation for the new," an unnamed columnist wrote. "Farewell, old friend. Farewell."
That press would be put to immediate use soon after the moving vans pulled up.
Writing in these new digs one week later, the columnist foreshadowed more changes: "And speaking of gowns, reminds us that the Record will have a new look on Monday. So just like the wife when she gets a new dress, we're anxious to see how we look. See you then."
The Daily Record came out on Monday, Oct. 23, in a full-size format, abandoning the distinctive tabloid size used since those days of paper shortages in World War II.
Its front page was marked with a large four-color photo printed on that new press.
It was the first color photograph published on the Daily Record's, or its predecessor Gazette and Daily's, front page.
Such use of color photos only occasionally appeared on the newspaper's front page until the 1990s.
To read more, click here.
Related posts: Newspaper's founding date hard to pin down and 1874 York Daily: Is it worth anything? and York cartoonist's work helps celebrate peace activism.
Okay, Mr. Jim, now that your newspaper redesign is finished how about a revamping of carrier stupidity.
I was in Pittsburgh Friday and Saturday and while gone a neighbor, I'm supposing, placed Saturday's paper on my front porch. From there, upon my return late Saturday, it went unread into the recycle bin. Why?
Because it was saturated with rain water in spite of being rolled up tight like a cigar. (Does the newspaper have former Red Lion cigar rollers on staff to train newspaper delivery people how to make a newspaper very difficult to read?) Not only was it rolled up tight and soaked, it was tied together with a rubber band and in a plastic bag tied shut, no less.
Here's where the stupid part comes into play, not that the previous mentioned items are not. Several years ago, after non-delivery nearly every morning, the newspaper got the absolutely brilliant idea to place one of its very bright yellow boxes in hopes that any delivery person who managed to leave York city and find my address would have a clue as to where to place that newspaper. It still took a couple of years, mind you, for anyone to place a newspaper in that bright yellow box on a regular schedule--meaning EVERY MORNING, but it finally happened about a year ago. But, alas, that miracle was short-lived.
For about the past six months or so the newspaper can be found almost anywhere--outside that bright yellow box. On the lawn, in the bushes, even, mind you, in the driveway. But NEVER in that bright yellow box. I might--just might--understand this act of deviance if that BYB did not have the name of the newspaper printed on its side. But then, I think, maybe the deliver person cannot read and/or understand the English language.
A few weeks ago, and yet another morning of not finding any newspaper I just read Consumers Report with my breakfast. Later in the week it stopped raining long enough to trim a shrub at the foot to the driveway and as I bent down to begin trimming, lo and behold, there was that missing newspaper from several days ago. Up tight and snug against the base of the shrub. Great aim, I thought.
Aside from not being able to locate a newspaper some mornings, when I do it almost certainly is going to be wet, if not saturated and totally unreadable. I suppose the newspaper and delivery people think that damn plastic bag tied shut over that cigar-rolled newspaper is going to protect it and keep it dry. NOt!
In case you're wondering, I stopped calling the newspaper about non-delivery, soaked papers and rolled, rubber-banded newspapers a long time ago. Nothing ever changed when I did or it did for--maybe a few days. I figure after nine years of putting up with incredibly lousy service no one at the newspaper cared enough to make the necessary changes. And anyway, it's too damn early in the morning to be nasty on the phone!