Oct 28, 2024 - News
"Black Tuesday" didn't sound so dark at first
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Salt Lake Telegram, Tuesday Evening, Oct. 29, 1929. Image via Utah Digital Newspapers, the University of Utah
If you aren't convinced that journalism is "the first rough draft of history," take a look at the headlines that poured into Utah 95 years ago this week.
- That's when the stock market crashed in 1929.
This is Old News, our weekly 20-20 hindsight view of the past's rose colored glasses.
Here's what Utahns learned on Black Tuesday and the days that followed:
Why it mattered: The stock market crash of 1929 turned out to be the overture to the Great Depression.
The intrigue: The headlines and accompanying stories weren't wrong.
- That was the latest news: A catastrophic day ended in a slight upturn, and the market seemed to recover somewhat the next day.
- Then stock values began to fall again. It took about a week for reality to set in.
The bottom line: I've written a few stories that looked off-the-mark in retrospect, too.
- It's all part of publishing a "first draft" you can't edit until the next edition.