news-record.com

One hundred years ago today, the big stories in the Greensboro Daily News were:

• Pellagra was on the wane in Durham.
• A local group had been organized to help fight tuberculosis.
• The local baseball team, the Champions, suffered its first defeat in weeks.

Even 100 years ago, a story datelined Tehran was on the front page. At that time, Tehran was located in Persia. (The country’s name wasn’t changed to Iran until 1935.)

I don’t have room to list the rest of the news; there were 13 stories on the front page alone. In the scheme of things, none of those stories matters today.

I bring it up because on July 18, 1909, the first edition of the Greensboro Daily News was published.

The Daily News is the younger of the News & Record’s two parents. The other, the Greensboro Record, celebrated its 100th birthday in 1990. The Daily News bought the Record in 1930, and the two merged to form the News & Record in 1982.

The first edition of the Daily News is fun to look at. I wish I could reprint the front page here, but the type is small and has smudged over the years. (You can view it at news-record.com.)

The editors didn’t lack for confidence. A notation at the top of the page reads “North Carolina’s Best Newspaper.” After just one day!

A headline across the bottom of the page reads: “The Greensboro Daily News has more than 2,000 subscribers in the city of Greensboro alone.” The paper could make that claim on its first day because it had bought out another local newspaper.

Inside the paper a notice announced a meeting about a proposed “automobile highway” between New York and Jacksonville, Fla., that might pass near Fayetteville.

Also inside, an advertisement for the American Motor Co. said “The Automobile Has Come to Stay.” They were selling a Willys Six for $2,350 and a Reo one-cylinder for $575.

Prefer the comfort of a train? Southern Railway would sell you a round-trip ticket to Richmond for $3.50.

For perspective, the paper cost a nickel.

Still, the Daily News got off to a rocky start. It encountered financial trouble and, in 1911, was sold to the Crater-Hildebrand Co. out of Asheville. That same year E.B. Jeffress became part owner and business manager, which is significant because the Jeffress family would be involved with the newspaper through its sale in 1965 to what would become Landmark Communications.

E.B. Jeffress was more than a newspaperman. He was mayor of Greensboro, served in the state legislature and was a leader in the establishment of the airport.

His son Carl O. Jeffress later served as general manager, managing editor and president of the company.

The newspaper also owned and operated WFMY-TV at its founding in 1949.

Over the past 100 years, we have published well more than a million stories. I couldn’t even guess the number of words that have run through our presses. As with everything else, the newspaper has changed.

We’ve seen the invention of radio, television and the Internet. We don’t rely on the telegraph. Telephones not only connect people now, but they deliver news and take photos. The cicadalike clattering of typewriters is gone, as are the cigarettes and cigars. (Shouting editors? Still around.)

You have changed, too, in how you get and use us. You get a newspaper delivered or buy one on the street. You read news updates throughout the day at news-record.com and log onto GoTriad.com to find out what’s going on.

You talk with us — and others — on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. We’re working on mobile applications for you, too.

Our newspaper company was for sale last year but was pulled off the market as the financial markets faltered. Like most businesses, the downturn in the economy has caused us to tighten our operation, but our commitment to you remains strong.

That’s not all that hasn’t changed. While we aren’t writing about pellagra or tuberculosis, we are writing about swine flu and toxic mold. And there is still Iran.

Despite misinformed predictions of imminent newspaper doom, I’m confident our journalistic ancestors will celebrate our 200th birthday. We may not be published on paper, but the News & Record will live on in whatever means are appropriate in the year 2109.

Back on July 18, 1909, an editorial in the Greensboro Daily News, Vol. 1, No. 1, read: “In a word, our constant effort will be to publish a clean, reliable, comprehensive newspaper in fact as well as in name — such a paper as a man can depend upon to give him an account of all important current events, with special attention to North Carolina happenings, and at the same time such a paper as a man may feel safe in carrying to his family and his home.”

Aside from the fact that we extend the same effort to women, that promise hasn’t changed.

John Robinson is editor of the News & Record and has been around for a quarter of the life of the Daily News. Contact him at John.Robinson@news-record.com or 373-7051. Join him in a conversation about journalism at The Editor’s Log at news-record.com.