How reporting the news at Christmas has completely changed

Once news audiences weren’t so well served during the holiday, but nowadays the news never stops – not even for turkey

For a long time, newspaper readers were not well-served over the Christmas holidays.

As far back as 1912, a publisher of The Times decided not to print a Christmas Day edition – a move supposedly intended to give delivery boys a day off, and one followed by other publications. Many did not bother with Boxing Day editions either, until Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun from 1981 to 1994, started publishing on the day, effectively persuading others to follow suit, and forcing grumbling journalists to show up for work on 25 December.

Whether or not everybody wants to be reading the news in between unwrapping gifts, or combating bouts of indigestion, there’s no doubt a lot of news happens over the holidays.

Some remember the Christmas Day execution by firing squad of Romania’s communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena in 1989. Two years later, on 25 December 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev declared that he was standing down as president of the Soviet Union.

More recently, the Indian Ocean tsunami that would leave at least 225,000 people dead was triggered on Boxing Day 2004.

For other generations, news was made by events such as the death of comedian Charlie Chaplin on Christmas Day, 1977, or the Christmas Day truce by First World War troops in 1914.

In the United States, President Andrew Johnson used a Christmas Day address in 1868 to grant an amnesty to all confederate soldiers, while a century earlier, George Washington and his soldiers crossed the Delaware river on that day in 1776, surprising troops loyal to the British, and helping his eventual victory five years later, when Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.

Much of what journalists do today – reporting the facts as accurately and fairly as possible – remains unchanged. But the way we bring that information to readers has undergone an enormous and rapid transformation.

Readers of The Independent can, with a click or a swipe, access the latest news from the corridors of Westminster, the committee rooms of Capitol Hill, or the front lines in the Middle East, whenever they wish.

At Christmas, some people like a break from reading the news; for others, reading the news can be a welcome break from Christmas.

Whichever category you are in, here’s wishing everyone a healthy and hopeful 2020.

Yours,

Andrew Buncombe

Chief US correspondent