Are newspapers history? (From Times Series)

Are newspapers history?

11:30am Tuesday 23rd September 2008 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

One of the finest characters I’ve come across in my travels around the borough is an elderly fellow by the name of John Frost.

The first time I spoke to John was shortly before his collection of newspapers spanning the last 100-plus years was used in an exhibition called Churchill and the Press at the Cabinet War Rooms in London.

From a very early age John was fascinated by newspapers. He had an eye for a headline and collected cuttings, taking great care to make sure they lasted. Because, of course, the paper that news is printed on is fragile. Fragile because it is cheap and also because it doesn’t need to last. News is a commodity with a very short shelf-life, hence the disparaging expressions ‘yesterday’s news’ and ‘old news.’

But, after a time, that old news starts to recover some value. When we gain some perspective of the more distant past, old newspapers can offer us a sense of how events were presented and viewed at the time.

After I wrote my first piece on John, he gave me a copy of the front page of the Telegraph from the day after Pearl Harbour was bombed. It’s one thing to consider the impact that the event had on history from a 21st Century vantage point, quite another to look at the newspaper and imagine how that news might have been digested with your meagre war-time breakfast.

There’s also a sense of uncertainty because of the fact that, at the time of writing, they didn’t know how it would all pan out.

Last week the story of Jeff Grout and his father Phillip, the former murder detective, brought this to mind. Jeff is writing a book about the first murder case his father investigated, back in post-war Edgware.

While they have a lot of clues, including the case notes from the time, Jeff and his writing team want to have a look through our archived Hendon Times papers from 1949 and 1950, respectively when the crime took place and when the perpetrator was hanged.

It’s said that news is the first draft of history. It’s reassuring, in a way, to think that the humble Hendon & Finchley Times - albeit in more auspicious times for local papers - can be just that in this case.