It's been over a week since news broke that OPUBCO — including The Oklahoman — was being acquired by ultra-billionaire Philip Anschutz. So far, not much has changed at the Joke. The paper is still being printed, the editorial page is still conservative and Steve Lackmeyer is still obsessed with food trucks.
To mark this historical change in ownership, The Oklahoman published a series of articles that will surely get the paper some PRSA Silver Anvil award nominations. They profiled Philip Anschutz with a very nice article that went out of its way to not mention any of the wacko conservative foundations and anti-gay groups he's funded. They also didn't write a thing about him being Lee Corso's long-lost brother.
In addition to the nice news about its new owner, OPUBCO made sure everyone remembered just how important, influential and indispensable the paper and Gaylord family have been to Oklahoma society for the past 100 years or so. This was showcased in a timeline that highlighted the distinguished history of the company.
The timeline was okay, but it oddly seemed to be missing some important events in the paper's history. For example, there's no mention of the infamous 1999 Columbia Journalism Review article that named The Oklahoman the "Worst Newspaper in America." They also ignored milestones like the first Jenni Carlson article, the time in the 1980s when they started to hire minorities or when Ed Gaylord opened his own personal Grandy's in the basement of his mansion just so he could eat unlimited okra and have an old woman bring him dinner rolls with honey butter.
Anyway, since The Oklahoman's timeline seemed to be lacking, we decided to help fill in some of the blanks with our own OPUBCO timeline. It's in chronological order. The first three items are below, the rest are after the jump: