Newspapers

There was a time when New York City had a bunch of newspapers, in the morning, afternoon, early evening and late editions. In the morning we had The Daily News, The Daily Mirror, The Post. Of course there was the New York Times and The Herald Tribune. On Long Island we had the Star Journal and the Long Island Press which was an afternoon paper. Other afternoon papers were The Journal American, The World telegram and Sun. There were ethnic newspapers in Italian, Spanish and Jewish (Yiddish?).

The News had an edition call Night Owl which came out in the early evening a later edition and of course the morning issue. The Daily Mirror came out in the morning and was great for the horse players among us. They had a single frame comic called Joe and Asbestos which were two touts one white and the other black. It had the racing results and the races for the day as did the news. The News and the Mirror had great sport sections with Dan Parker the dean of the Mirror and Jimmy Powers the top News sports columnist. The cost of these papers were a couple of pennies in the 1940's up to a nickel then 15 cents in the 1950's. They carried gossip as well as editorials which were generally conservative. The Post back then was a leftist leaning newspaper and considered by some to favor communism despite the fact that Alexander Hamilton started the paper in 1801. Today it is more conservative that the Conservative party ever thought it would be.

The Times and The Herald Tribune were the serious papers then as they are now. The Trib. is published in France I believe and everyone know The Times as a beacon of Progressive thought which to this day stays away from the gossip and reports and analyzes. The Times and The Tribune didn't have comics but the other papers did and great ones like Dick Tracey, Smiling' Jack, Terry and The Pirates. Price Valiant which appears in The Sunday News today was a feature of the Journal American. I believe the great sports columnist, Jimmy Cannon wrote for The Journal American.

Many of these papers were formed by mergers The Journal American were two papers, The Journal and The American. The World Telegram and Sun were three papers, The World, The Telegram and the Sun. Even though we had radio the Newspapers were the main source of news. all news. With the advent of TV, Cable News Today and instant communication by the time the news gets published it is old news. There is nothing as dead as "old news". Newspapers today are trying to find their place in the world of the Internet and Digital copies so that the digital issues of the papers actually have the news way before it can be published and put out on the street. There may come a time in the not so far future that hard copies of Newspapers will be a thing of the past. We will still have the great reporters, columnists and analyzers of the events as they unfold but not in the form we have become accustomed to.

I sort of miss the days when one would go to the candy store and wait for the Night Owl edition of the Daily News to be delivered so we could see the news in print that we had missed during our workday. The quick look at the track results to see if we won, the report of the day's games and if Brooklyn Dodgers lost again. Then Jimmy Powers column to see what manager was being fired, eventually turn to the front for the hard news and then the Editorial section. Of course The Inquiring Photographer was always looked at. This was a column where six or so were asked a question and they would give a short answer which would appear next to their picture. Hey it was a big deal to get you picture in The Daily News in those days.