The Buffalo News
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 The May 16, 2004 front page of The Buffalo News |
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | Broadsheet |
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| Owner | Berkshire Hathaway |
| Publisher | Stanford Lipsey |
| Editor | Margaret M. Sullivan |
| Founded | 1880 |
| Headquarters | 1 News Plaza Buffalo, New York 14203  United States |
| Circulation | 181,540 Daily 266,123 Sunday[1] |
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| Website: www.buffalonews.com | |
The Buffalo News is the primary newspaper of the Buffalo, New York, metropolitan area and its surrounding suburbs. It is wholly owned by Berkshire Hathaway.
The News was founded in 1873 by Edward H. Butler as a Sunday paper. In 1880, the News began publishing daily editions as well, and in 1914, became an inversion of its original existence by publishing Monday through Saturday only, with no publication on Sunday. During most of its life, the News was known as The Buffalo Evening News, and a gentlemen's agreement between the Evening News and the Buffalo Courier-Express meant that the Evening News would be just that, while the Courier-Express would be a morning-only paper. Until 1977 the News did not publish on Sundays, per gentleman's agreement with the Courier and its weekend edition was on Saturday evening.
In 1977, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway purchased the Evening News, and began publishing Saturday and Sunday Morning. The Courier-Express published its last issue on September 19, 1982 after a period of financial trauma, although at least part of its troubles are attributable to internal union strife within the Buffalo Newspaper Guild. That same year, the Evening News changed its name to The Buffalo News and began publishing morning and evening editions. Evening editions ceased in 2006. The News remains Buffalo's only daily newspaper, and probably forecast a trend whereby most American cities currently have only one daily newspaper.
The News participates in the Buffalo community and sponsors charitable, social, and educational events. The News also holds an annual Kids' Day newspaper sale in which civic groups sell the morning edition of the newspaper for double the usual price, with all proceeds directed to Buffalo's Children's Hospital.
Journalists for The Buffalo News and The Buffalo Evening News have won three Pulitzer Prizes. In 1958, Bruce Shanks received the Editorial Cartooning award for his August 10, 1957 piece, "The Thinker," detailing union corruption. In 1961, Edgar May received the Local Reporting award for his series, "Our Costly Dilemma," concerning the need for reform of New York State's welfare system. The series touched off debates about welfare reform nationwide. In 1990, Tom Toles brought the News its second Editorial Cartooning award, for his work throughout the year (although his piece "First Amendment" is often cited as the "exemplary" work that merited the award). (Toles currently serves as an editorial cartoonist with The Washington Post, where he replaced Herblock.) News journalists have been finalists for three other Pulitzer Prizes, but did not win: Toles (1985 and 1996, for Editorial Cartooning) and James Heaney (1993, for Investigative Reporting).
On October 1, 2006, the News announced it would abandon its afternoon edition later that month, and publish only a morning issue. The move appears to complete a 50-year shift in news publication during which televised news, traffic congestion (which made timely delivery increasingly difficult) and the flight of readers to the suburbs undermined the old evening-delivery model.
[edit] References
- ^ 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation (PDF). BurrellesLuce (2007-03-31). Retrieved on 2007-05-29.
