Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph
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The Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, founded by William Brown (c.1737-1789) as the Quebec Gazette on June 21, 1764, claims to be the oldest newspaper in North America. A bilingual (French/English) publication, in 1873 the Quebec Gazette joined the Morning Chronicle to become the Quebec Chronicle and Quebec Gazette.
Published today as a weekly from offices at 3484 Chemin Ste-Foy, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, the newspaper is a descendant of several newspapers published during the past three centuries. Until 1842, the newspaper published editions in both French and English. It started as a weekly, but in May 1832, it began appearing in English on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and in French on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
In 1925 another merger occurred, with the Quebec Daily Telegraph and the paper was published under the banner of the Chronicle-Telegraph until 1934, when it added Quebec at the front of its name where it remains to this day.
In 1959, the paper was sold to the Thomson Group, owned by Canadian media mogul Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet, and in 1972 went from being a daily to its current weekly edition. The paper was sold again in 1979 and, on January 1, 1993, was purchased by its current owners, Karen Macdonald and François Vézina.
Its ISSN is 0226-9252.
[edit] Claims of seniority
The Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph is one of many North-American newspapers to claim some form of seniority. The Maryland Gazette began publication in 1727 and is now published twice a week. The New Hampshire Gazette began publication in 1756 and continues as a weekly. These claims to seniority have been challenged by the Hartford Courant, founded a few months after the Quebec Chronicle Telegraph. The argument from the Courant is that it has never missed a day of publication, and continues under the same name. The two American papers suspended publication for varying periods, and the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph ceased publication during the siege of Quebec in November 1775
In Canada, the Halifax Gazette, founded in 1752, claims to be "Canada's first newspaper." Its official descendant, the Royal Gazette, is a government publication for legal notices and proclamations rather than a proper newspaper. The Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph therefore has a defendable claim to being the oldest surviving paper that still publishes news in the country.
