The Reporter (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin)

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The Reporter

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

Owner Gannett Company
Publisher Bob Carew
Editor Avi Stern
Founded 1870
(as the Daily Commonwealth)
Headquarters 33 W. Second St.
Fond du Lac, WI 54935
Flag of the United States United States
Circulation 18,632 Afternoon
19,318 Sunday [1]

Website: fdlreporter.com

The Reporter is the local newspaper based out of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin owned by Gannett. It primarily serves Fond du Lac and northern Dodge County in East Central Wisconsin.

The current Reporter traces its founding to August 22, 1870 when the Fond du Lac Commonwealth, which had been a weekly newspaper since 1856, began daily circulation. However, the first incarnation of the Fond du Lac Daily Reporter would not start until 1883, when L.A. Lange founded a new newspaper for Fond du Lac to compete with the Commonwealth, publishing Monday through Saturday. His was the first paper to have a telegraph line in the Fond du Lac area, giving a slight advantage over competing papers, with most eventually folding during the rest of the 19th and early 20th century.

In 1917, L.A. Lange was succeeded by his son A.H. Lange, as publisher of the Daily Reporter beginning a tradition of the Lange family to be involved with the operations throughout the rest of the 20th Century.

In 1926 the Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth and Fond du Lac Daily Reporter merged to become the Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter. Its offices and presses were located at 18 West First Street.

The "Commonwealth Reporter" remained the name of Fond du Lac’s newspaper until the 1970s when the "Commonwealth" was dropped to promote it’s coverage of surrounding areas outside Fond du Lac County. This is the reason that the original Daily Commonwealth’s date of August 22nd, 1870 is used as the papers founding date. (Surprisingly, not 1856 when the Weekly Commonwealth began publication)

In 1970, the paper was sold from local interests to the international corporation of Thompson Newspapers, and build a new building, at its current address of 33 West Second Street in Fond du Lac. It was also during this time that the Saturday Evening Edition of the paper was switched to a Sunday Morning delivery.

In 1998 and 1999 a nearly 60,000 square foot addition was added to the present building to increase printing operations, and in 2000, Thompson sold it’s interests to Gannett.

[edit] References

  1. ^ About Gannett: The Reporter. Gannett Co., Inc.. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.

[edit] External links