1888:

Amongst little fanfare, Vancouver’s media landscape is altered with the introduction of the city’s second daily newspaper, the Vancouver Daily World.

“It is always customary in the first issue of a newspaper to define briefly but emphatically the lines upon which it is to be managed,” reads the opening editorial, “the policies which it intends to pursue, and the general tone which is to characterize it. The Vancouver World will not, in these regards at least, prove an exception to the general rule.”

Front page articles in the first edition include “Our Water Works”, “People We Talk About”, and “The Manly Arts”, and, among the paper’s goals are to “obtain a truthful record of record of every day’s doings,” to “discuss issues from an independent standpoint, giving praise where praise is due, and blame where it is deserved,” and to to “be thoroughly British Columbian.”

“This journal believes that there is an opening on the mainland for a live evening paper,” the editorial continues, “and enters the field with feelings of the sincerest friendship and goodwill towards the contemporary press which has in the past proved itself to be deserving of public sympathy and support.”

The paper’s circulation will remain modest through the turn of the century, however, following the death of editor John McLagan, the paper will be bought by businessman (and later Vancouver mayor) Louis D. Taylor, who will transform the paper from a modest daily into a circulation giant able to challenge The Province. The World will become one of the city’s major newspapers - even launching its own radio station, and its headquarters, the World Building, will briefly be the tallest building in the British Empire. However, by the 1920s, the paper will have fallen on hard times, and, by 1924, it will stop its presses forever.

The World’s assets will be sold to longtime rival The Vancouver Sun, and, within weeks, the publication will move into the World Building itself, renaming it The Sun Tower.

 

IMAGE: Press Room at the Vancouver Daily World, circa 1913. Image Courtesy of the Vancouver Archives.