The News Journal

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The News Journal

The July 27, 2005 front page of
The News Journal
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet

Owner Gannett Company
Publisher W. Curtis Riddle
Editor David Ledford
Founded 1785 (as the Delaware Gazette)
Headquarters 950 West Basin Road
New Castle, Delaware 19720
Flag of the United States United States
Circulation Morning: 114,435
Sunday: 131,796[1]

Website: delawareonline

The News Journal is a Wilmington, Delaware newspaper owned by Gannett. Like most American newspapers, it also makes an associated online version available.

Contents

[edit] History

For most of the 20th Century, the Du Pont family owned two Delaware newspapers, The Morning News and the Evening Journal. Ownership of both papers was consolidated in 1919 when feuding factions of the family reconciled, forming the News Journal Company.

[edit] Acquisition by Gannett

DuPont decided to sell The News Journal Company in 1978. Gannett won the bidding war, beating the Hearst Corporation and The Washington Post Company. Gannett paid $60 million for the two Delaware papers and merged them in 1989 to form one paper, The News Journal. [2]

[edit] Coverage Area

Based in New Castle, Delaware, The News Journal covers New Castle County most in-depth, but also offers considerable coverage of the rest of the state, including the Delaware General Assembly, and the Delaware beaches. The paper offers limited coverage of northeast Maryland and southeast Pennsylvania, mostly by means of short news briefs. The paper publishes national and international articles from wire services.

The News Journal also maintains a Washington, D.C. bureau, mainly for covering Delaware's congressional delegation.

[edit] Sections

  • News
  • Local & Business
  • Sports
  • Life
  • Classifieds

[edit] Special Sections

  • Business Monday
  • Health (Tuesdays)
  • Home and Garden (Thursdays) - replaces the Life section and includes comics and Dear Abby in addition to features on gardening and home design
  • Crossroads (Thursdays) - contains news about schools and other local, human-interest features. High schools in Delaware each have pick a student to write a short report about the happenings at their school for Crossroads. In April 2007, The News Journal began reprinting articles from local high school newspapers in the Crossroads section.
  • 55 Hours (Fridays) - movie reviews, food reviews, and info about events occurring in the 55 hours of the weekend (and beyond)
  • Auto (Saturdays)
  • Sunday Life
  • Celebrations (first Sunday of each month) - weddings, engagement announcements, anniversaries, and birthdays

[edit] Embracing of Technology

The News Journal Company entered the Internet age in the late 1990s with the launch of Delaware Online. The website features an online edition of all local content in the paper, as well as job listings and classified ads.

The paper began offering an online news update weekdays at 4:30 pm. The once-daily update has evolved into as-it-happens online news coverage that often results in a couple dozen news updates per day.

Delaware Online also offers a brief morning and afternoon online newscast with anchor Patty Petite. Billboards for Delaware Online encourage residents to "get their Delaware news from an anchor who actually lives in Delaware," alluding to Delaware's lack of a television station.

[edit] Increasing Youth Readership

In order to increase its youth readership, The News Journal Company began publishing Spark, a weekly publication geared toward young adults. Spark, which focuses on concerts, movies, night life, and other entertainment, is distributed free at area businesses.

In the summer of 2007, The News Journal charged three summer interns with the task of finding a way to further increase youth readership. The result was Unami, media-rich website with short articles, some of which are original reports for Unami, and others which are condensed versions of articles that appeared in the News Journal. Unami, which gets its name from a Lenape (Delaware) Indian language, is described as "a user-friendly format, catering to the ‘skimmers’ as well as those who Google search every new concept they come across". [3]

[edit] Other Publications

Besides Spark, The News Journal Company is responsible for several other publications:

  • Delaware Pets - Published monthly and distributed free at pet stores and veterinarian offices.
  • Mid-state Living - Focuses on the area between Mddletown and Dover. Published twice a month and distributed free at local businesses.
  • Delaware Parent - Published monthly and distributed by mail to subscribers for free.
  • Delaware Woman - Published bi-monthly and distributed by mail to subscribers for free.

[edit] Community Involvement

The News Journal has for several years participated in the Newspapers for Education, which provides free newspapers for area schools. On Fridays during the school year, the paper publishes an informational feature for school children, in the form of colorful, pull-out, double truck page in the Life section.

In 2006, The News Journal provided Glasgow High School with a $10,000 grant to assist the school's nespaper, The Dragon Fire. The News Journal also sent editors to Glasgow to assist the Dragon Fire with page layout and web design.

The News Journal Company also runs the Needy Family Fund, which partners with local charities to assist family in need of food and clothing. Each Christmas season, The News Journal asks readers to donate to the fund, and publishes a list of those who do.

[edit] Notable Reporters

Cris Barrish - His byline calls him a "Senior Reporter". Often assigned to The News Journal's biggest stories, Barrish is best known for his coverage of the murder of Ann Marie Fahey and the ensuing murder trial of Thomas Capano. Barrish later co-authored the book Fatal Embrace about the case.

Norman Lockman - Lockman served as managing editor of The News Journal from 1984 to 1991. [4] After that, he became a member of the editorial board and wrote a regular column in the paper. Before joining The News Journal, Lockman won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on race relations he co-wrote for the Boston Globe. [5]Suffering from Lou Gerhig's disease, Lockman wrote his final column in late 2004. He died the following April.

[edit] References

[edit] External links