The Omaha World Herald Building in Downtown Omaha |
|
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | employees and the Peter Kiewit Foundation |
| Publisher | Terry Kroeger |
| Founded | 1885 |
| Headquarters | 1314 Douglas Street Omaha, Nebraska 68102 United States |
| Circulation | 184,150 Daily 222,469 Sunday[1] |
| ISSN | 0276-4962 |
| Official website | omaha.com |
The Omaha World-Herald, based in Omaha, Nebraska, is the primary daily newspaper of Nebraska, as well as portions of southwest Iowa. For decades it circulated daily throughout Nebraska, and in parts of Kansas, South Dakota, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming. In 2008, distribution was reduced to the eastern third of Nebraska and western Iowa. [2]
The World-Herald was the largest employee-owned newspaper in the United States.[3] On November 30, 2011, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announced plans to buy the newspaper.
It is the only remaining major metropolitan newspaper in the United States to publish both morning and afternoon editions.[3] The newspaper publishes four daily editions, with three morning editions (regional; Lincoln, Neb.; and metropolitan) and one afternoon edition (metropolitan). Its market area spans two time zones and is more than 500 miles across.[3][2]
The World-Herald had for many years been the newspaper with the highest penetration rate – the percentage of people who subscribe to the publication within the paper's home circulation area – in the United States.[2]
The Omaha World-Herald Company also operates the website Omaha.com, the region's most popular website by all measures of traffic. The site has more than 300,000 registered users and more than 14 million page views monthly.[4] Its website and newspaper combined reach 85.3 percent of the Omaha market, the second-highest percentage of people within a home circulation area compared with other major metropolitan newspapers in the United States.[4]
The company dubs its downtown Omaha headquarters the Freedom Center. The John Gottschalk Freedom Center also houses its three printing presses, which can each print 75,000 papers per hour, and are considered to be some of the most advanced in the world.[5] In 2006, the company purchased the 16-story former Northwestern Bell/Qwest Communications building in downtown Omaha as a new base for its news, editorial, circulation and business operations.
The newspaper has bureaus in Lincoln, Neb., and Washington, D.C. Throughout the region, The World-Herald also owns smaller daily and weekly newspapers, which contribute to its World-Herald News Service.
Through the World Publishing Co., the former name of the newspaper's parent company, The World-Herald owned Omaha television station KETV from its founding in 1957. (The station was dubbed "Omaha World-Herald" television.) Because of a change in Federal Communications Commission law, The World-Herald had to divest the station in 1976. It sold the station to the now-defunct Pulitzer Broadcasting Co., of St. Louis.
Contents |
The World-Herald has won three Pulitzer Prizes, including the esteemed Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, awarded in 1943.[6]
The newspaper was founded in 1885 by Gilbert M. Hitchcock as the Omaha Evening World. It absorbed George L. Miller's Omaha Herald in 1889. The paper was established as an independent political voice but quickly moved to the Democratic Party column. William Jennings Bryan was its editor in 1894-96. Hitchcock served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and, starting in 1911, two Senate terms. It was a more objective voice than the Omaha Bee, which tended to sensationalize news to drum up sales.
His son-in-law, Henry Doorly, took control of the paper after Hitchcock's death in 1934. The editorial page began leaning Republican after Hitchcock's death. Over his lifetime, Doorly served 58 years at the paper.
In 1963, the World Publishing Company, owned solely by heirs of the Hitchcock/Doorly families, sold The World-Herald to local businessman Peter Kiewit, a construction magnate whose namesake company is a member of the Fortune 500. When he died, Kiewit left provisions to ensure that the paper would remain locally owned, with a large part of the plan securing employee ownership.
On November 30, 2011, the Omaha World-Herald announced that Berkshire Hathaway will buy the newspaper pending a vote by its shareholders which is made up of active employees, retired employees and the Peter Kiewit Foundation. [8]
|
||||||||