A New Year and an Old Story

By: Joe Strupp Every newspaper reporter who?s ever worked a holiday knows them well -- the stories you simply must do. One reason is tradition, the other is simpler: it?s a slow news day.

Labor Day demands the story about those who (like yourself) had to work. Memorial Day is the beach and the traffic. Thanksgiving finds you at the soup kitchens, Christmas at church, and July 4th in the midst of picnics and fireworks.

New Year's Day? Of course, the first baby.

Newspapers seem obsessed with first babies. During my 10 years at daily papers, I must have worked at least eight New Year?s Days and had to do a first-baby story for almost each. Is there anything really newsy about these births? With millions of babies born each year, one of them has to be a first, so why is that considered news?

You sometimes, sadly, get the first murder of the year. But other normal acts of life merit no mention. No first wedding, first traffic accident, or first act of charity.

But that first baby is always news. A quick Internet search on Sunday found more than 600 newspaper stories about first babies. Most were like the one in the Victorville (Ca.) Daily Press, which dutifully reported the arrival of Sosia Silva, who weighed in at 6 pounds, 9 ounces, and entered the world at 30 seconds after midnight. The paper also made sure to note that she ?arrived with what her mother Maria described as a bellowing scream.?

While most big papers could track down their news-making births within minutes of midnight, some less-populated circulation areas went hours before the first birth. For The Carlisle (Pa.) Sentinel, aptly named Sydney Young did not make her debut until 8:45 a.m., after hours of false labor, the paper reported. The Times-Standard of Eureka, Ca., had to wait until almost noon before finding Humboldt County?s first baby, who remained unidentified.

Then there were those who were lucky enough to have some news within the news. In New York, where the battle for first baby often comes down to seconds after midnight, the Daily News was required to cover the first birth, which ended in a tie between a Bronx baby and one in Queens. The news came when Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited both and offered to babysit.

The Daily Press outside Chicago was able to link its first baby of the year to the recent Tsunami devastation overseas, reporting that Alvina and Pornpat Chulanon of Schaumburg, Ill., had planned to visit Thailand two weeks ago. They cancelled the trip when the expectant mother chose not to travel because of the pregnancy. So the first baby was also the first lifesaver.

That paper also did a side story on past first babies of the year, delving into how it affects everything from their psyche to birthday parties ?- or lack of them.

The Chicago Sun-Times had a 15-year-old high school freshman as its first new mother of 2005, while the Honolulu Star-Bulletin?s first baby happened to have a link to the paper, born to Pele Lafaele, a Star-Bulletin classified department employee. You get the news where you find it.

Readers of the Daily Oakland Press in Pontiac, Mich., got a little more information about that area?s first baby than they might have needed. The paper?s coverage highlighted the fact that the new parents had conceived their newborn during a romantic trip to Hawaii nine months earlier: new meaning to the phrase ?complete coverage.?

The Charlotte Sun of Charlotte Harbor, Fla., made news with no news, reporting that no new babies had been born on New Year?s Day in Charlotte County, forcing the paper to report on New Year?s births in other nearby counties.

My favorite, however, had to be the first-baby story for the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune. An editor?s dream, young Devon Keith Lewis, who entered the world at 1:29 a.m. Saturday, was almost destined to be a New Year?s baby. His mother, Jody Lewis, was born the same day 29 years earlier.

Many papers, of course, turn the first-born story into their own contests. A number of papers, like the Lake Country Reporter of Hartland, Wis., and the Flint (Mich.) Journal, offered a prize or savings bond. Good newspaper promotion is key, you know. What?s next? A Newspapers In Education program in the maternity ward?

A few editors back in my daily newspaper days were fascinated whenever a cop delivered a baby. I must have done six or seven of them during my career. Even the police officers found them unnecessary, saying delivering babies was easy and common.

Of course, when I did the story about a women delivering a baby in a taxi who had herself been born in one, I could see the interest it would create. The truth is, after tracking murders, accidents, and boring government matters, reporting on a baby?s birth can be a welcome change. Especially if you happen to be an obit writer.