A significant amount of the information on this blog comes from the microfilm of newspapers from the period. They can be rich sources of information, but today's reader must remember that a newspaper is for-profit enterprise and that there usually were at most a handful of staff generating its content. They did not have a perceived civic duty to report the news objectively.
Eric Burns, in his book, Infamous Scribblers, wrote of the newspapers operated by the founding fathers in the 18th century that saw “His newspaper was a business, and the news to him was the same thing that silver was to Paul Revere or glass to Henry William Stiegel – which is to say a product of his own manufacture, to be molded into whatever shape he thought would be most pleasing to his customers and thus most profitable to him.”
The local Pike County newspaper was known at one time or another as The News or The Pike County News. Its exact beginning is not known, but only a few issues before 1925 have survived. It was a weekly paper published in Pikeville, but carried news from throughout southeastern Kentucky. Much of the local news was found on the front page, and consisted of civic matters, crime, deaths, and marriages. But there was also a personals section inside that contained short statements about recent visitors to town and activities of local people who would otherwise never have their names in print. These entries were obviously submitted by the persons involved or someone close to them, but they still said much about them. They established their existence at a time and place and sometimes identified whom they associated with, what they did for a living, or what their interests were. They imply that they were literate and were attached to a social structure in the community. These are a few actual example entries:
- Mrs. Linton Trivette was elected Vice Regent of the DAR chapter
- Frank Trivette, Whitley Smith and others went hunting
- Linton Trivette was a visitor to Jonancy last week
- Arthur and Ella Trivette of Jonancy were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. M. L. Sowards Sunday
A related section of the newspaper was community news. Here one could read information about goings-on in numerous rural areas throughout the county. The information sometimes rose barely above the level of gossip and appeared to be provided by unnamed individuals who were the social gadflies of their communities. These communities included, among many others, Jonancy, Vi, Greasy Creek, and Mouthcard.
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