Yesterday And Today, A Salute to Blyth's 125th Anniversary, 2002-07-31, Page 21longest term, but he may have
created the biggest legend of all the
newspaper's editors before he sold in
1938.
Robinson was notoriously
slipshod in his production and in the
days of hand-set type, the paper was
often a sight to behold. Doug
Whitmore recalls that at one time a
copy of Robinson's Standard
mounted
on the wall
of The
Globe and
Mail press
room in
Toronto as
a hilarious
example of
how not to
produce a
newspaper.
Unfort-
unately,
not much J.H.R. Elliott ran
evidence The Standard from
remains of 1910 to 1934.
the Rob-
inson era. Not only did he not keep
files of the copies he produced, but
he destroyed many of the copies
produced before he had bought the
paper.
In 1938 Robinson sold the
newspaper to Ken and Gladys
Whitmore.
The Whitmores rebuilt the
reputation of The Standard. Unlike
Robinson, many recall Ken
Whitmore fondly.
When his parents arrived, Doug
Whitmore says, the newspaper was
still being typeset by hand. They
installed the first Linotype to
automatically set the metal type.
Ken Whitmore's Standard was a
small-town friendly newspaper,
often with a sense of humour. In the
Feb. 11, 1948 issue, for instance, he
tells the story of fireman Harvey
McCallum who mistook the 7 a.m. •
ringing of the town bell with the fire
bell and lept out of bed and raced to
the fire hall to start the engine of the
fire truck.
In 1958 Ken Whitmore died and
his son Doug joined his mother in
keeping the newspaper going. When
she died in 1971, Doug and his wife
Lorna decided to sell the newspaper
and concentrate on commercial
printing.
In the early 1970s a revolution was
going through the newspaper and
printing industries. Traditionally
newspapers combined publishing
and printing operations. The
equipment used in printing the
newspaper in the early part of the
week, was used for printing flyers,
letterhead, etc. the rest of the week.
But printing a newspaper was a
complicated, time-consuming effort
with type assembled from a
Linotype machine which poured
molten lead into moulds to create
lines of type. The newspaper would
be printed two pages on one side of
the sheet of paper, then turned over
and two more pages would be
printed on the back.
The late 1960s brought the "web"
press to small newspapers with one
central printing press printing all the
newspapers. Instead of taking days
to print an eight page newspaper, a
24 page newspaper could be printed
in hours.
What's more, instead of hard type,
a photographic process was used
•which meant anything on paper
could be photographed and put on
the press.
In November 1971 this technology
came to Blyth with the purchase of
The Standard by Jill and Keith
Roulston. The new offset printing
process allowed more use of
photographs in the newspaper,
something that was difficult in the
old "lead" days. In 1975 new
computerized typesetting equipment
improved the look of the paper.
The Roulstons sold the newspaper
late in 1977 to A. Y. McLean of
McLean Brothers Publishing in
Seaforth who also operated The
Huron Expositor and The Brussels
Post. He and his daughter Susan
eattplatufatiatto,
2tvtli aft put
125th
anniaettaaty.
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Invest in yourself
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Kelly Clark
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Certified Estheticians
Upper Level
211 Dinsley St., Blyth
523-4793
Specialized foot, facial & body care
& home care products available
a, 4 114 ..,.., 90.
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on your 125' Anniversary
jllrs .5 Ja5lrisr,,IThoe
Mrs. B's Baskets & More
commenced business in April
1993 when Sears downsized
its Catalogue operation. 11 Ath
Baxter had worked for Sears
Canada Inc. for twenty yeas
when this opportunity
presented itself to open a
new store and become a
Sears Catalogue Merchant.
The store began wil.n the
regular Sears customers and
grew substantially over the
nine years, now employing
four staff. Gift baskets
continue to bet popular item
with customers choosing
specialty foods and items
from the shelves to
personalize their baskets.
Mrs. B's Baskets & More
offers quality oiftware. Blue
Mountain, Carols Garden and
Debbie Mumm Greeting
Cards, Exley Books, Accent
lamps and tables, Prints,
Gund Plush, Udderwize
lotions, Crabtree & Evelyn,
Pineridge calendars,
Candles, Helium balloons,
Mill Creek and Rogers
Chocolates, Gourrriei Foods,
Company's Con-ling Cook
Books, and a new line of
V',,nrc decor items.
For those special
occasions, we offer table
linens and wine goblets to
rent.
Come and visit Ruth Baxter
and her staff where you will
find unique items for your
home and something for
everyone. Always free
giftwrapping on regular
priced items.
t i)rvlels
Wingham Shopping Plaza
Wingham 357-4390
THE CITIZEN, YESTERDAY and TODAY, WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2002. PAGE 21.
The Citizen latest in long line of newspapers in Blyth
Huron Bay
CO-OPERATIVE INC
WALKERTON
881-2021
1-888-671-3378
From your complete farm store
The Citizen, the newspaper that
now serves as Blyth's hometown
paper (shared with Brussels). is at
least the fifth newspaper to serve the
community in the last 125 years.
Still, the paper has a history all its
own, being one of the few
community-owned newspapers in
the country.
The Citizen was born from the
ashes of The Standard, the longest-
running of Blyth's newspapers.
beginning in 1892 and continuing
until 1982 when it was amalgamated
with The Clinton News-Record.
The Standard had in turn been
built from the ashes of a number of
previous newspapers some of which
went on to become more successful
in other county communities.
According to research contained in
Blyth: A Village Portrait , Blyth's
first newspaper was The Review
which was founded in January 1877
by M.L. Aldrich. The newspaper
only lasted until March when it was
shut down. Aldrich managed to get it
going again in August of 1879. By
then he had competition with The
Huron Record being founded in
1878.
These were colourful free-
wheeling days in the newspaper
business and apparently the
publisher of The Record, a Mr.
Wighton and his editor R. Phillips,
were found guilty of slandering
Aldrich.
The Review won the battle of
attrition when The Record ceased
publication in November 1880 with
the equipment being moved to
Clinton to print the Clinton .Record.
By then Aldrich had moved on to
the Goderich Signal in October
1879, leaving J. T. Mitchell to
publish The Review. By 1884 The
Review has ceased publication and
the equipment was moved to
Wingham to publish The Vidette.
Next came The Advocate in 1884
which lasted until January 1887
when the equipment was moved
south to Exeter. Shortly thereafter,
the equipment of another defunct
newspaper in Exeter was moved
north to Blyth and The Standard was
born.
There was a string of editors in a
short period of time until J. H. R.
Elliott bought it in October 1910.
He ran the paper until 1934 when he
turned it over to his assistant, Albert
"Shorty" Robinson. Robinson may
not have been the best editor and
publisher and he certainly wasn't the
OWEN SOUND TEESWATER
376-5110 392-6862
1-800-461-2667
White operated the three papers until
1982 when they were sold to Signal-
Star Publishing in Goderich. The
Post became part of The Huron
Expositor and The Standard part of
The Clinton News-Record.
But over the next three years
people in Blyth and Brussels missed
having newspapers of their own and
in 1985 nearly 50 shareholders came
together to finance North Huron
Publishing Company Inc.. which
published the first issue of The
Citizen on Oct. 23, 1985. With two
villages of nearly-equal size to
support it, the newspaper has been
successful since.
Publisher during that time has
been Keith Roulston, aided by his
wife Jill. Roulston served as the first
editor until turning that job over to
Bonnie Gropp in 1991.
In 1991 the company also acquired
the farm publication The Rural Voice
which had been started in Blyth in
1975. The two, publications give the
company nine full-time and five
part-time employees.
In recent years another wave of
technology has overtaken the
newspaper industry. Today
newspapers are completely created
on computers. Photos are taken
digitally with cameras that use no
film, then loaded directly into the
computer. Full pages of type, photos
and illustrations are printed from a
computer printer which are
photographed and taken to the
printing plant (many other
newspapers have "imagesetters that
print film straight from the
computer.)
The big advance of technology is
that now The Citizen, and other
community newspapers, can afford
to have editors and writers dedicated
to covering news and taking photos
instead of waiting for the news to
come to them as often happened in
the days when the work of printing
a newspaper was enough to keep the
entire staff busy.
MILDNIAY
367-2657
MARTON
534-1840
1-800-387-8987
- 24 Hour Towing -
Blyth 523-9474
1-800-350-6993
ti*viends and Go oil 7 .
Congratulations /440 trs
HURON BAY
CO-OPERATIVE INC.
P.O. Box 39, Teeswater, ON NOG 2S0
Tel.: (519) 392-6862 • Fax: (519) 392-6846
LIB
DO
Blyth on 125 Years
* Don't forget to stop by and enter
our backyard BBQ contest until August 2, 2002
AUBURN BELGRAVE CHESLEY MARKDALE
526-7262 357-2711 363-2017 986-2031
1-800-267-2667 1-800-268-4625 1-800-553-5606