Tulsa World

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Tulsa World
The July 27, 2005 front page of the Tulsa World
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	World Publishing Company
Publisher	Robert E. Lorton, III
Editor	Joe Worley
Founded	1905
Headquarters	324 S. Main Tulsa, OK 74103 United States
Circulation	138,262 Daily 189,789 Sunday^[1]

Website: tulsaworld.com

The Tulsa World is the daily newspaper for the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is the second-most widely circulated newspaper in the state, after The Oklahoman. The World is the primary newspaper for the northeastern and eastern portions of Oklahoma. It was founded in 1905 and remains an independent newspaper owned and operated for four generations by the Lorton family of Tulsa.

1 History
2 Politics
3 Circulation
4 Competing Newspapers
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

The Tulsa World was first published on Sept. 14, 1905.

Eugene Lorton was named editor in 1911. He would run the Tulsa World for the next 38 years. In 1917, he became the paper's sole owner. For the first time the words, "Oklahoma's Greatest Newspaper" appeared on the identifying logo at the top of the front page. The phrase remained the paper's unofficial motto for nearly 80 years.

In 1915, in the midst of a highly personal fight over the lack of a clean, safe water source for Tulsa residents, the World advocated an ambitious, yet extremely expensive, proposal to build a reservoir on Spavinaw Creek and pipe the water nearly 90 miles to Tulsa. Charles Page was among those who opposed the Spavinaw plan. He had his own plan to sell water to Tulsa from another source for a much smaller initial outlay. Page started a new publication, the Morning News, with the expressed intention of silencing the World.^{[citation needed]}

For three years the papers fired broadsides at one another. The World called Page a tax cheat who used his philanthropy to hide assets and camouflage predatory business practices.^{[citation needed]} The Morning News called Lorton a "hound from hell" and suggested he be lynched or at least chased out of town. In 1919, Lorton wrote, "It is the duty of a newspaper to expose evil, sham and graft; to arraign at the bar of public opinion, and eventually bring to justice, the officials of the city, state or national government who have betrayed their trust. It is not its duty or privilege to print untrue or libelous stories."^{[citation needed]}

The Spavinaw plan eventually prevailed, and the creek remains Tulsa's primary water source. Page closed the Morning News in 1919 and sold its companion paper, The Democrat, to Richard Lloyd Jones, who renamed it The Tulsa Tribune in 1920.

Eugene Lorton died in 1949, leaving majority interest in the newspaper to his wife and smaller shares to four daughters and 20 employees. He intended, he said, for the employees to eventually own the Tulsa World. The widow, Maud Lorton, had other ideas.

In the 1950s she transferred one-fourth of the company to attorney Byron Boone , who became publisher in 1959. Upon her death, she left the rest of her shares to her grandson Robert. In 1964, Robert Lorton became director of the Newspaper Printing Corp -- a joint-operating agreement company that existeed between the Tulsa World and The Tulsa Tribune that combined all non-editorial business operations. In 1968, he became president of the Tulsa World and publisher upon Boone's death in 1988. The Tribune was bought by the World in 1992 and ceased publication. During those years, Robert Lorton reacquired the World's outstanding shares and made the newspaper entirely family-owned once again. In May of 2005, he passed the title of publisher to his son Robert E. Lorton III .

Throughout its history, the Tulsa World has been critical of Oklahoma governors.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1920s, the Tulsa World investigated the Ku Klux Klan, which had risen to local prominence in the wake of the Tulsa Race Riot in the spring of 1921. The newspaper identified the secret society's local leaders and the politicians on its membership rolls.^{[citation needed]}

The World contributes more than $1 million a year to local charities and events^{[citation needed]}. The Lorton family has also been a major contributor to local education, cultural and religious organizations.

[edit] Politics

The World has long associated itself with Democratic causes in the Tulsa area. The World endorsed the Democrats and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, but insisted that anything more than two terms amounted to despotism. In 1940, the World endorsed Republican Wendell Wilkie and has not backed a Democratic presidential candidate since.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Circulation

Only about 200 daily newspapers in the United States, out of the more than 1,100 published, are locally owned. Of those, only about a dozen have circulations as large or larger than the Tulsa World^{[citation needed]}.

A Scarborough readership study from 2005 shows that the World reaches over 390,000 daily readers every five weekdays, and over half a million Sunday readers every four weeks^{[citation needed]}.

As of March 2006, the paper's circulation as reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulations is approximately 138,000 for the daily editions and 190,000 for the Sunday edition.^[1]

The Tulsa World costs $0.50 during weekdays, and costs $1.50 on Sundays.