The November 5, 2008 front page of The Sun |
|
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | MediaNews Group |
| Publisher | Mark O'Neil |
| Editor | James Campanini |
| Founded | August 10, 1878, as Lowell Weekly Sun |
| Headquarters | 491 Dutton Street, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854 USA |
| Circulation | 48,153 daily, 50,096 Sunday in 2006[1] |
| Official website | lowellsun.com |
The Sun is a daily newspaper based in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, serving towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in the Greater Lowell area and beyond. Its circulation is about 50,000. The paper, often called The Lowell Sun to distinguish it from other famous newspapers, has been owned since 1997 by MediaNews Group.
Contents |
The newspaper's headquarters are in the first floor of the American Textile History Museum building in downtown Lowell. Before March 18, 2007, the newspaper occupied a succession of offices on Kearney Square, about half a mile away. One of the old news buildings, locally called "the Sunscraper," is a landmark high-rise topped with a huge neon "Sun" sign. The paper's most recent former home is across the street.[2]
The paper's editorials have, for decades, espoused a moderately conservative bent in a city and state where Democratic voters overwhelm Republicans. In the 1970s, editor and firebrand Clement Costello, who was known for walking around in a cape and beret, wrote that the U.S. should annex Mexico and was credited with helping to ruin John Kerry's chances of winning the 5th Congressional District seat in 1972. In 2004, the newspaper again made waves when it endorsed President George W. Bush for re-election instead of the hometown senator.
The Sun is known beyond its circulation area as the home base of columnist Paul Sullivan, who until 2007 hosted a nighttime talk show on WBZ AM radio in Boston. Before the newspaper moved, he would regularly tout scoops from "Lowell's great newspaper at 15 Kearney Square."
One of the paper's most famous alumni is Jack Kerouac, a Lowell native who worked as a sports reporter for The Sun before going on to greater fame as poet laureate to the Beat Generation.
Print shop owners and brothers John and Daniel Harrington founded the paper as a weekly in 1878. In its earliest years, The Sun provided the growing Irish Catholic population a voice in a mill city that was run by wealthy Protestant factory owners. Over the years, the paper outlasted its competitors to become the only major newspaper in Lowell, converting to a daily in 1892 and buying out its last competitor daily, the Courier-Citizen, in 1941; and starting a Lowell Sunday Sun in 1949 and buying out its only Sunday competition, the Lowell Sunday Telegram, in 1952.[2]
The paper remained in the hands of John Harrington's descendants -- Thomas F. Costello, his sons John H. and Clement C. Costello, and grandson John H. Costello Jr. -- until it was purchased August 1, 1997, by MediaNews Group. The newspaper's circulation at the time was 52,234, daily, and 55,804, Sunday.[3]
When he purchased the paper, MediaNews CEO William Dean Singleton noted that The Sun had "played a leading role in the development and growth of the Greater Lowell region", including downtown Lowell's rebirth and the establishment of minor-league baseball and hockey teams in the city.[3]
Following MediaNews' purchase (through The Sun) of Nashoba Publications weeklies covering several towns between Lowell and Fitchburg, the company in 2002 consolidated printing for The Sun, Nashoba and the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise at a new US$7 million press plant in Devens, Massachusetts. The move was said to have a beneficial effect on traffic in downtown Fitchburg and Lowell.[4]