| Description |
Foreword In truth, the story of Utah Press Association is a sidebar. Should a non-newspaper type stray into this volume, a moment's consultation with Webster would reveal the definition of a sidebar is "a short auxiliary news story that is printed alongside a longer article and typically presents additional, contrasting or late-breaking news." The longer story beside which Utah Press Association rests is the history of Utah's newspapers. That report pre-dates UPA by nearly half-a-century. And without it there would be no UPA. The story of journalism in Utah is a good deal more important in the state's history than is the sidebar about the 103-year old trade association those newspapers created. For three-quarters of a century, until the first radio stations began transmitting voices, musical sounds and considerable static, there was no other way for Utahns to get news, opinions, advice of pending legal matters or the price of a pound of butter than by scrutinizing the pages of the many newspapers which dotted the Territory -- and then the State - from north to south and east to west. Television arrived nearly four decades after those first scratchy radio transmissions. Each of those newspapers is a story in itself. And in more than one instance, a book or a collegiate thesis has been written about a specific paper. It's not within the scope of this volume to review all that might be said about individual newspapers, however. In point of fact, each of the long-existing publications is itself the most complete history ever compiled of the town or the area in which it has been published. So it might be said with more than a smattering of accuracy, that this is a rather dry historical treatise, more informative than entertaining. A substantial portion of the book is simply designed to focus upon the progression of dates and names that create a skeletonized history of the papers them- |
