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Article published Sep 21, 2008 125th Anniversary Edition scheduled for Tuesday morn
We would be remiss not to prepare readers for the 125th Daily Times Anniversary Edition which is scheduled for delivery Tuesday morning, Sept. 23.
It is a historic birthday for the newspaper and the community. The 126-page edition will contain one more page than the years The Times has been in existence. We are not totally certain why that occurred unless it was adapted from the old birthday practice of giving the honoree a lick for each year of age, plus one "to grow on!"
We will warn readers in advance that some of the pages of the 125th edition will bear the dateline of Sunday, Sept. 21. That is not an accident. We had originally planned to deliver the edition today but during the week we encountered serious mechanical problems with the press. The problem with the folder required help from a factory representative. The delay made it impossible for us to print the entire 125th Anniversary Edition in time to be delivered today. As a result, we postponed delivery until Tuesday when we can have all the sections printed.
The anniversary edition includes reproduction of numerous front pages from The Times over the years. Scanning the pages and the information will be a history lesson in itself. It also includes individual photographs of the more than 100 Daily Times employees.
It will be interesting for readers to keep in mind the reason for the great changes in the pages of the newspaper.
In the early years, the individual letters in each word, in each line in the paper was set by hand - an individual typesetter picked each letter from a California type tray and then placed the lines together in a column of type, a very slow and laborious task.
In 1886, the Linotype was invented. That permitted an operator to set a column of type a little more than 20 inches long in an hour. That was an improvement, but for many years not many newspapers could afford enough Linotype machines and operators to rapidly reproduce a newspaper.
Over the years, production improved. About the 1960s, the Linotype machines were adapted to operate from a perforated tape which could be punched much more rapidly and speed up operation of the machines. By that time, the Associated Press (AP) wires began not only sending the stories on a printer machine but they were accompanied by the automatic operation of a punched tape machine. This tape could be used to operate Linotype machines.
A few years later, newspapers moved from the often dirty operation of hot type to computers and cold type. That made it possible to set type on photographic paper. The Daily Times was the first newspaper in Tennessee to have a computer terminal for each reporter and to have a carpeted newsroom, considered a big asset by reporters.
Of course, the speed of sending and receiving stories has constantly increased, going from a then fast wire speed of 55 words per minute to thousands of words per minute, depending on the system.
And so has the ability to send and receive photographs from any place on Earth within a few seconds. In early 1949, the first Associated Press wirephoto ever transmitted from Blount County was sent from a desk in the newsroom. Dr. Bob Haralson, Meade Warren and others were involved in rescuing victims of a private plane crash near the Calderwood area of the county. They were located and air lifted out by helicopter, a rare occurrence at the time. The AP sent a person and a machine from Atlanta, Ga., to transmit photographs of the national news item made by Gene Kerr. Today, if used at all outside the East Tennessee area, it would be a rare occasion for such a story to receive national coverage.
Now with digital cameras, instant electronic availability is assured and they can be quickly added to the newspaper.
A lot of news has happened in the past 125 years and there has been increasingly improvement, not only in the timeliness but in the quality of the product.
We look forward to the edition Tuesday. We hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we have working on it.