For the next year, this column will mark The Western Producer’s 100th anniversary by taking a deep dive every week into a past issue of the paper.
Forgive this old newspaperman’s obsession with the lack of art on the front pages of the early Western Producers — you might be hearing more about it in the weeks ahead.
In the paper’s first issue from Aug. 27, 1923, which I wrote about last week, I noticed that three headshots were the only art on the front page.
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That was bad enough, but the front page of the Aug. 27, 1925, issue had no art at all.
This is a far cry from modern newspaper practice, where those of the more graphical persuasion seem convinced readers won’t give a page the time of day if the photos aren’t big enough.
The Aug. 27, 1927, front page may have had no photos, but I bet all the stories were read just as thoroughly — if not more — than today’s newspaper stories with their flashy photos and fancy info-graphics.
And were there ever a lot of stories on that front page — I counted 15 headlines.
Two of the stories shared a few similarities.
For starters, they both were about stories that had run in other newspapers.
One ran in the Saskatoon Daily Star about a push for the formation of a new Western Party distinct from the Liberals, Conservatives and Progressives.
The other was from the Winnipeg Free Press about efforts by “interests not inimical to the farmers of Western Canada” to increase the price of wheat by delaying a large portion of the 2025 crop from reaching market.
The two stories also sported headlines that had a particular word in common: “Peculiar development in the political situation crops up in Saskatchewan” and “Winnipeg Free Press publishes peculiar story on wheat prices.”
The headline writer appears to have had a “peculiar” word obsession that week.
