The Times Leader

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Times Leader
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	The McClatchy Company
Publisher	Richard L. Connor
Founded	1879
Language	English
Headquarters	15 N. Main Street Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711 United States
ISSN	0199-0519

Website: timesleader.com

The Times Leader is a privately owned newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Founded in 1879, it was locally owned until being purchased by Capital Cities in 1978. The TL, a morning broadsheet, is currently in a circulation battle with another Wilkes-Barre daily newspaper, the Citizens' Voice.

The TL, in the heart of coal country, was subject to a very bitter strike that began Oct. 6, 1978. Over 200 union employees walked off the job in defiance of what they viewed as union-busting tactics by the TLs new corporate owner Capital Cities. The four striking newspaper unions began to publish the Citizens' Voice as a strike paper.

Eventually the four unions were decertified. The Voice continued publication. This in turn prompted competition and created the unusual environment where Wilkes-Barre, with its population of a little more than 43,000, now has two competing dailies.

Capital Cities and the Times Leader were purchased by The Walt Disney Company in 1996. Disney in turn sold the TL to Knight Ridder in 1997.

The McClatchy Company acquired 32 Knight Ridder newspapers in March 2006. The sale is expected to be completed by July 1. Twelve of the 32 newspapers were immediately put up for sale by McClatchy, including the Times Leader. MediaNews Group bought four of the 12, leaving the TL and seven others for sale.

On June 26, 2006, The Times Leader announced that Richard L. Connor, along with a group of local investors, bought the newspaper. Connor was the Times Leader's publisher, sent to Wilkes-Barre in 1978 two days after the strike began, by the company who owned them at the time.

The latest TL circulation numbers as of May 2006 are 41,334 daily and 55,105 on Sunday.