The Baltimore Sun

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The October 20, 2006 front page of The Sun
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	Tribune Company
Publisher	Ronnie Matthews
Founded	1837
Headquarters	501 N. Calvert Street Baltimore, MD 21278 United States
Circulation	236,317 Daily 401,918 Sunday^[1]

Website: baltimoresun.com

The Sun is the newspaper of record for Baltimore, Maryland, with a daily press run of 236,317 copies and a Sunday run of 401,918 copies (3/31/06 Audit Bureau of Circulations report). It was founded on May 17, 1837, by printer Arunah Shepherdson Abell and two associates. The Abell family owned the paper through 1910, when the Black family gained a controlling interest. The paper was sold in 1986 to the Times-Mirror Company of Los Angeles. The same week, the rival Baltimore News American, owned by the Hearst Corporation, announced it would fold.

Although there is now only a morning edition, for many years there were two distinct newspapers--The Sun in the morning and The Evening Sun in the afternoon--each with its own reporting and editorial staff. The Evening Sun was first published in 1910. In keeping with the nationwide shutdown of p.m. dailies, The Evening Sun ceased publication on September 15, 1995.

In 2000, the Times-Mirror company was purchased by the Tribune Company, of Chicago.

On September 19, 2005, The Sun introduced a new layout design.

Among writers and cartoonists of prominence on the staff of the Sunpapers: H.L. Mencken, Raymond S. Tompkins, J. Fred Essary, Gerald W. Johnson, Drew Pearson, Hamilton Owens, Mark Watson, Frank R. Kent, Paul W. Ward, Turner Catledge, Price Day, Russell Baker, William Manchester, Louis Rukeyser, Edmund Duffy, Jules Witcover, Jack Germond, Richard Q. Yardley, Thomas Flannery, and Kevin P. Kallaugher. The paper has won 15 Pulitzer Prizes.

The Sun has an active bulletin board where posters discuss and debate issues. The bulletin board includes a National/International forum, a Local forum, a Sports forum, and an Open Mike forum. The bulletin board is http://www.baltimoresun2.com/talk/index.php.

The paper had become embroiled in a controversy involving the former governor of Maryland, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). Ehrlich's press office issued an order in November 2004 banning state executive branch employees from talking to columnist Michael Olesker (who resigned on January 4, 2006, after incidences of his plagiarism were discovered and reported on by local media outlets and eventually by The Sun itself) and reporter David Nitkin. This led The Sun to file a First Amendment lawsuit against the Ehrlich administration. The Sun lost the first round in federal court; as of 2006, a decision on an appeal is pending. This controversy has since died down since Martin O'Malley denied Ehrlich reelection by winning the 2006 election.