Erie Times-News

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Erie Times-News
The July 27, 2005 front page of the Erie Times-News
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	Times Publishing Company
Founded	1888 (as the Erie Daily Times)
Headquarters	205 West 12th Street Erie, PA 16534-0001 United States

Website: GoErie.com

The Erie Times-News is a daily morning newspaper in Erie, Pennsylvania. It has a daily circulation of about 70,000 and a Sunday circulation of about 96,000. The newspaper focuses primarily on Erie County, but also has readers in Crawford County to the south and even New York and Ohio, the states that border Erie County on the east and west respectively.

The Erie Times-News is published by the city's Times Publishing Company, not to be confused with the better-known, St. Petersburg, Florida-based Times Publishing Company.

1 The beginning
2 One company, two newspapers
3 The Times-News today
4 External link

[edit] The beginning

The newspaper that would become the Erie Times-News began as the Erie Daily Times, which was first published April 12, 1888, by nine printers involved in a labor dispute at another newspaper. One of the printers who founded the Times Publishing Company was John J. Mead Sr., who eventually bought out his partners. Mead, his wife, sons and grandchildren would head the company until 2003. The company today is still privately held by the Mead family.

[edit] One company, two newspapers

In January 1957, the Times Publishing Company bought out the rival Erie Dispatch Herald and put the respective staffs of the two newspapers in one building, but didn't merge them. On January 7, the Erie Morning News made its debut. The company continued publishing two competing newspapers, one a morning publication and the other an afternoon paper, until 2000, when the company combined the respective staffs and operations of the Morning News and Erie Daily Times into the present-day Erie Times-News. The last edition of the Erie Daily Times was published September 1, while the last Morning News was published September 29, a Friday. After the newspapers' combined Saturday and Sunday editions were published as usual, the first edition of the Erie Times-News was published October 2.

[edit] The Times-News today

Since the merger, the Meads have gradually shifted day-to-day leadership of the company and its newspaper to outside the family. In August 2003, company Vice President James E. Dible was promoted to chief executive officer, president and publisher, succeeding the retiring Michael Mead, a grandson of the company founder. At about the same time, Michael Mead's first cousin, Edward M. Mead, stepped down as editor, turning over leadership of the newsroom to Executive Editor Rick Sayers. Both Edward and Michael Mead continue to serve on the company's board of directors, the former as its chairman.

In September 2003, the Times-News was named by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Foundation as the "Newspaper of the Year."

On January 16, 2006, the paper announced it was eliminating 24 positions immediately and would eliminate another 11 by February 3, leaving the Erie Times-News with about 250 employees. The paper also killed two of its three "Neighbors" zoned editions, a move that accounted for almost half of the initial 24 job cuts. Dible cited flat revenues and rising costs as the reason for the layoffs.