Foot in Mouth

I must confess to a basic ignorance about how social news got into the papers in the early twentieth century. The Gazette's "Local Drifts" and "General News Items" columns are full of people's visits, parties, travels, purchases, illnesses and recoveries, births and deaths, and so on. But how did such news get to the paper?

In one 1904 issue, the editor solicited news via the new telephone technology — "When you have friends visiting you, call up phone 16 and tell us about it" — as if expecting these news items to be supplied by the people to whom they happened. It just seems odd to me that if, for example, your uncle from Valpo visits you, you call up the newspaper so they can tell everyone in town about it.

A few of the Ainsworth news columns mentioned "our correspondent" as if there were someone in Ainsworth collecting local news and conveying it to the Gazette.

This speculation is inspired by a "General News Item" that appeared on Christmas Day, 1903: "Henry Nolte who lives near Ainsworth is quite sick and has been for three weeks, suffering from lung trouble."

"Lung trouble" must have been a very painful topic for Henry at the time: within the previous two years, he had lost both his teenaged daughters, at least one of them a victim of tuberculosis.

A month later, the Gazette printed this retraction: "We are informed that the report that Henry Nolte who lives near Deepriver has been suffering from lung trouble is untrue. He is said to be now enjoying good health."

So, how did they get the first report — idle gossip that they overheard at the saloon and memorialized in print? And how did they know it needed retracting? — did some better informed neighbor, perhaps, clue the editor in to what an awkward and insensitive mistake it was? Or did Henry himself write to object, or did he "call up phone 16" and give them an earful?

Sources: "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 25 Dec. 1903; 29 Jan. 1904.