30 September 1911: Amazing News in Pictures

On this day in 1911, the Athens Banner reported that "the newest thing in motion pictures" would surely lead to news that wasn't in the newspaper but available with the 

press of a button at the head of his bed and in a frame over the mantel there will appear in motion pictures of natural color the gleanings of the happenings of the day before recorded by the photo-reporter.

 (click to enlarge image)

At the time, photographs were not common in the Athens newspapers. There may be a reproduced publicity photo to promote a play or film coming to town, but rarely were local people or events depicted in the paper as anything other than text. Photographs of local people and places appeared only in special issues about the city's progress, and even then, these were portraits of people and unoccupied photographs of rooms or buildings. The "action shot" was not part of local journalism, so a moving picture was a huge change from what even the most devoted Athens news junkie might encounter.

Newsreels were quite popular in the coming decades, though newspapers did not go out of business even when one could push a button and watch "natural color" news from one's own bed.  Several different companies would create the news reels, with Athens especially excited by one in 1913 that featured the UGA Freshman-Sophomore Pushball game.

The Elite theater was on Lumpkin Street, and was later renamed the Georgia Theatre. 

Learn More:

• Athens Banner, Jul. 1911 - Nov. 1911 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection in the Digital Library of Georgia.
• The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick in the New Books collection.
• 150 Years of Photo Journalism from the Hulton Getty Picture Collection in the general collection.
• Muckraking! The Journalism that Changed America by Judith and William Serrin in the general collection.
• Careers in Focus: Journalism by the J. F. Ferguson Publishing Company in the general collection.
• The Edward R. Murrow Collection in the DVD collection.
• My Paper Chase: A True Story of Vanished Times by Harold Evans in the biography collection.
• City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics by Jeff Hecht in the general collection. 
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson in the New Books collection.
• The Newsreel Archive website.
• Universal Newsreels on Internet Archive website.