Chuck Davis, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, May 05, 2008
Can it really be 41 years since the Georgia Straight appeared? The
first issue came out May 5, 1967. This radical newspaper would stir
up a great deal of attention before the city settled down and
accepted it. Here's an excerpt from What the Hell Happened?, a book
on the Straight's history:
"The Straight's first issue costs a dime. Stories include a local art
censorship bust at the Douglas Gallery, a report on the youth
movement in Amsterdam, and an article from San Francisco claiming
that hard drugs, capitalist head merchants, and corruption of young
runaways are serious problems in Haight-Ashbury. The 12-page paper is
produced out of Dan McLeod's $30-per-month apartment at 1666 West 6th
... On May 12 McLeod is taken away in a paddy wagon and jailed three
hours for 'investigation of vagrancy.' College Printers refuses to
print the second issue."
Forty-one years later, Dan McLeod is still the publisher. It's
wonderfully ironic that McLeod -- who in the Straight's earliest days
fought mayor Tom Campbell and the right wing and the police and the
prudes and was occasionally jailed for his pains -- would in 1998 win
the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award for his "contribution
to journalism in B.C."
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