but what about #9323?
far less complicated.
Yes, but still . . .
The report of births would have come in (by either mail or messenger) from Vital Statistics, typed neatly on whatever form they used. Keep in mind that everything was still done by typewriter, with carbon paper, back then.
Being that this report of births probably ran every week, there was likely a “hole” waiting for it. Newsroom would likely not have re-typed it, but rather it would have gone straight to the copy desk where editors would have just marked it up (formatted, type size, page and column where it goes, etc.) in pencil and sent that same piece of paper to the backshop where the linotype operators would have set it in type.
In other words, the whole thing was probably on a single sheet of paper that didn’t pass through many hands. It would have taken some serious jiggering to change it.
Been there, done that. I’m speaking from experience.
It would have taken a serious conspiracy to get Barry O in the paper in that way, I doubt it could have been done, and I don’t think it would have been worth the effort.
If there was any fraud involved in 1961, it probably involved whoever typed the weekly report at the Vital Statistics office.
But the bigger question is whether that newspaper notice actually every ran or not.