Wednesday, August 18, 2021

The Hot Line Joins the Sunday Journal – August 1971


As someone who spends a lot of time looking at 1960s and 70s editions of the Journal on microfilm, I’m often reminded of all the great little features that made the newspaper special back then. These include “Today’s Chuckle,” “Tell Me Why,” “Dick Shull’s TV Mailbag,” “Mahoney’s Memos,” and perhaps the most important of all, “The Hot Line.”
“The Hot Line” was a popular column designed to help Journal readers get solutions to a variety of problems. It might be as simple as providing an answer to a question like, “Was there ever a place called Gore Orphanage in this area?” or as complicated as interceding on behalf of a reader to try and cut through some government red tape.
The column had first appeared in the paper in January 1966. Joanne Deubel began writing it in February 1969.
Anyway, as noted in the article below from August 8, 1971, the Journal decided to include “The Hot Line” in its Sunday Journal edition. (It was already appearing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.) 
If I was the Editor of the Morning Journal today, I’d bring back this feature. There are a lot of seniors in our area who aren’t internet-savvy who would probably welcome a helping hand in solving some problem. Readers who remember the original column would enjoy its comeback, and it would be one more component to differentiate the Morning Journal from its competitors.

2 comments:

  1. I guess this is going to sound "politically uncorrect".And I might get "cancelled".But Joanne was a very nice looking woman.I can see why they called it the "Hot Line".But people from Joanne's generation aren't as uptight about life like the modern day libtard snowflakes are!And Joanne probably would take my remark as a compliment instead of some sexual harrassment remark.I was doing a little research on Joanne and she moved to New Mexico in 1998.But sadly she passed in 2003.She was only 70 years old.Another silent generation member who passed away before her time.

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  2. "The Hot Line" was a must-read feature for me; always interesting, informative, sometimes even funny.

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