Fly Swatting Time Has Arrived, Do it Now!

May 3, 1916

The Daily Telegram had been founded about ten years earlier in 1905 by a group of temperance minded citizens who thought The Tribune did not represent their views.
The Anti-Saloon League folks were probably correct since the Trib was founded upstairs from the Chicago Brewery.
When the Telegram’s founders ran out of cash they sold the paper to C.L. Day who transformed the paper into a competitive tabloid.
He had a few keys to success.  The paper would often have a story that dovetailed with the advertising as seen here with screen ads under an article on fly swatting. He devoted lots of newsprint to entertainment at the local theaters (also good advertisers) but not so much to local sports. California Polytechnic won a baseball game against Paso Robles High School 5-2. Coverage consisted of three sentences plus a headline.
The national fly swatting champion, Dr. Jean Dawson, got a photo, two other graphics and two stories.

In the days before video games fly swatting could actually be a championship level game. My wife’s grandmother once related a story from her childhood. When the family had barbecues swarms of yellow jackets would attack the butcher’s paper the meat was delivered in. She and her brother would compete to see how many insects they could disable with one smack of a swatter. The danger was that an errant swing would anger the bugs so unlike today’s video games there was a real risk of pain. Kids were tougher then.
Relentlessly self promotional, as seen in this 1924 house ad, the paper touted stories from wire services and lively illustrations, not so much was spent on local reporting but the combination was a success. By 1922 The Telegram was the dominant paper with a circulation of 2,000 while the Tribune limped along with 600. By 1925 the papers were under the same ownership. In 1939 the papers merged and became the Telegram-Tribune.

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