![]() |
RANDY STAPILUS Idaho |
Annually, newspapers around the country list the top local and regional news stories of the year, lists often begging the difference between “big news†and “actually important.†Sometimes the two overlap; often, they don't.
The Idaho Statesman at Boise, on occasion of its 150th anniversary since its first edition, has this year run a series of articles about the top stories in its pages during that century and a half. They've been good reading, useful for anyone who wants to understand a little more about the sweep of Idaho history. They only occasionally reflect what was perceived as big news at the time.
Mostly, you can't blame the paper for that. One article for example was about the opening of the first store Joe Albertson launched, at Boise, in 1939. Back in the day it made the paper in a brief notice on page 21 (about what the opening of a new grocery store might, were it lucky, get today). Who could have known what would blossom, decades later, from that one little store?
It's an example of why newspapers offer just a first draft of history; time makes many events look different in hindsight.
Or sometimes not, at least to many people. Last week the Statesman was promoting selections, made by its readers (not the editors), of choices for the biggest story in Idaho's (or, the Statesman's) history, and released the identity of the final four.
One, dating to 1890, is understandable both as an event and as a matter of significance: The achievement of statehood. Not a terrible choice; if you bundle that in with adoption of the state constitution (though I wouldn't), it was both a big deal at the time, much debated and much written about, and still significant with the passage of time.
Here are the other three:
The Teton Dam collapse in 1976.
The opening of the Boise Latter Day Saints temple in 1984.
Boise State University's win in the 2007 Fiesta bowl.
Really? True, they all generated big Statesman headlines at the time. But did any of them fundamentally change Idaho? The Teton Dam did great local damage, but repairs happened quickly, and the reverberations have been subtle. The opening of the Boise LDS temple was personally significant to the local church faithful, but it had little effect on others. And a Boise State football victory? Really? (more…)