The Pantagraph

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Pantagraph is a daily newspaper that serves eight counties and more than 60 communities in Central Illinois. Located in Bloomington, Illinois, it reaches more than 107,000 daily readers, selling about 47,000 copies on weekdays and 53,000 on Sundays, according to the industry Web site echo-media.com. It is the oldest business in McLean County, Illinois.

The name was changed from The Pantagraph to Pantagraph on May 2, 2006. The name was given by early publisher and Greek scholar, C.P. Merriman, who claimed to have coined the word from panto graph (from Greek roots παντ- 'all, every' and γραφ- 'to write',or "to write all things." It is obviously taken from the word pantograph. In the words of Merriman, the name is "a perpetual injunction upon its editors to dip their pens fearlessly into all matters of human interest." When Merriman named The Pantagraph on December 1, 1853, he was a co-owner of the paper with Jesse W. Fell. The Pantagraph 's previous name was The Intelligencer.

[edit] History

Jesse W. Fell founded Pantagraph on January 14, 1837, a full 10 years before The Chicago Tribune was conceived. Originally called The Bloomington Observer and McLean County Advocate, the newspaper went through seven names that led to the final change in 1853 to The Pantagraph.

During the American Civil War, The Pantagraph took a pro-North stance in a community partially made up of pro-slavery settlers from the South. It was Fell who nominated Abraham Lincoln for the United States Senate. The backing of both Fell and The Pantagraph helped Lincoln achieve an overwhelming majority of supporters in McLean County for his later presidential bid, when he carried only a 10 percent margin of victory in the state of Illinois.

Pulitzer Newspapers Inc. purchased the paper from the Chronicle Publishing Company in 2000, and Lee Enterprises then acquired the Pulitzer chain in 2005.

The paper's motto is "Independent in everything, neutral in nothing." Pantagraph is published every morning in broadsheet format and is ranked number one among daily newspapers in Illinois for metro area penetration.

[edit] Notable references

Pantagraph is cited in episodes of M*A*S*H, in which the Bloomington-born McLean Stevenson, playing Col. Henry Blake, made reference to the newspaper.

In Michael Moore's 2004 documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11, a Pantagraph cover is shown, carrying the headline "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election". However, such a cover never actually existed. The headline was used in small as a title for a Letter to the Editor, nine months later.