The
Tribune's own version of the story of the most (in)famous election headline ever. Blame the women and that damn union. And what the heck, 90.9 percent of the editions got it right.
How Tribune jumped the gun and Truman got the last laugh Quote:
The printers union, the workers who set the type, had been out on strike at the Tribune and the city's five other daily newspapers for nearly a year. In that time, the newspaper had adjusted its deadlines and production methods to make up for the striking typesetters, but it still was severely hampered covering late-breaking news. And on that November evening, it meant managing editor Pat Maloney had to publish his first edition before receiving any real results. So began a nightmarish odyssey by Tribune editors desperately trying to come to grips with a news story that refused to unfold as they expected. They would churn through 11 editions and numerous banner headlines, all but one of which is forgotten.
It appears one of the first editions that night was the safe but boring "HEAVY VOTE! FIRST RETURNS." It is unclear how many of the 11 editions preceded "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN," but it was rolling on the press and being trucked to points across the Midwest when the news coming in by radio and wire reports started making Maloney and other editors nervous. Henning stood by his earlier predictions. Dewey's support would come from the rural areas where the results were always slow in coming, he argued. So the Trib stood pat.
The headline wasn't the only problem with the page, which is a typographic mess. Lines and type are askew. It is a mishmash of type styles, and much of the page looks like it was produced on a typewriter, which it in effect was. The strike work-around meant dozens of women were hired to type out the stories, and typos were corrected by simply hitting the key until the correct letter was darker. And in the second paragraph of the lead story, five lines of type ran upside down.
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