BOSTON HERALD

The '''Boston Herald''' is a tabloid newspaper, the smaller of the two big dailies in Boston, Massachusetts (the other being ''The Boston Globe''). It has a history that can be traced back through two lineages, the ''Daily Advertiser'' and the old ''Boston Herald'', and two media moguls, William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch.

Contents

History

Ownership Changes

Awards

Columnists

References

External links

History

The ''Daily Advertiser'' was established in 1813 in Boston by Nathan Hale. The paper grew to prominence through the 19th century taking over other Boston area papers. In 1904, William Randolph Hearst began publishing his own newspaper in Boston called ''The American''. Hearst ultimately ended up purchasing the ''Daily Advertiser'' in 1917. By 1938, the ''Daily Advertiser'' had changed to the ''Daily Record'', and ''The American'' had become the ''Sunday Advertiser''. A third paper owned by Hearst, called the ''Afternoon Record'', which had been renamed the ''Evening American'', merged in 1961 with the ''Daily Record'' to form the ''Record American''. The ''Sunday Advertiser'' and ''Record American'' would ultimately be merged in 1972 into a line of newspapers that stretched back to the old ''Boston Herald''.
The old ''Boston Herald'' was founded in 1846 by a group of Boston printers jointly under the name of John A. French & Company. The paper was published as a single two-sided sheet, selling for one cent. Its first editor, William O. Eaton, just 22 years old, said "The ''Herald'' will be independent in politics and religion; liberal, industrious, enterprising, critically concerned with literacy and dramatic matters, and diligent in its mission to report and analyze the news, local and global."
Even earlier than the ''Herald'', the ''Boston Traveler'' was founded in 1825 as a bulletin for stagecoach listings. In 1912, the ''Herald'' acquired the ''Traveler'', and after a newspaper strike in 1967, Herald-Traveler Corp. suspended the afternoon ''Traveler'' to create the ''Boston Herald Traveler'', in 1967.
In 1946, the ''Herald Traveler'' organization acquired Boston radio station WHDH. Two years later, WHDH-FM was licensed, and on November 26, 1957, WHDH-TV made its début as an ABC affiliate on channel 5. In 1961, WHDH-TV's affiliation switched to CBS. Herald-Traveler Corp. operated for years under temporary authority from the Federal Communications Commission stemming from controversy over luncheon meetings the newspaper's chief executive had with an FCC commissioner during the original licensing process (Some Boston broadcast historians accuse the ''Boston Globe'' of being covertly behind the proceeding. The ''Herald Traveler'' was Republican in sympathies, and the ''Globe'' was allied with Kennedy family interests, although at the time of the licensing dispute, the ''Globe'' had a firm policy of not endorsing political candidates, and the proceedings regarding the WHDH-TV license were initiated long before John F. Kennedy was elected president.). The FCC ordered a comparative hearing, and in 1969 a competing applicant, Boston Broadcasters, Inc. was granted a construction permit to replace WHDH-TV on channel 5. The ''Herald Traveler'' fought the decision in court -- by this time, revenues from channel 5 were all but keeping the newspaper afloat -- but its final appeal ran out in 1972, and on March 19 WHDH-TV was forced to surrender channel 5 to the new WCVB-TV.
Without a television station to subsidize the newspaper, the ''Herald Traveler'' was no longer able to remain in business, and the newspaper was sold to Hearst Corporation, which published the rival all-day newspaper the ''Record American''. The two papers were merged to become an all-day paper called the ''Boston Herald-Traveler and Record American'' in the morning and ''Record-American and Boston Herald Traveler'' in the afternoon. The afternoon edition was soon dropped and the unwieldy name shortened to ''Boston Herald American'', with the Sunday edition called the ''Sunday Herald Advertiser''. The paper became a tabloid newspaper in September 1981. On December 20, 1982, the paper was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, who changed its name back to the ''Boston Herald''. The ''Herald'' continued to grow over the ensuing decades, expanding its coverage and increasing its circulation until the early 21st century, when circulation and advertising revenue dropped -- part of a phenomenon affecting almost all American newspapers in an expanding age of free media.

Ownership Changes

In February 1994, Murdoch's News Corporation was forced to sell the paper, in order that its subsidiary Fox Television Network could legally consummate its purchase of Fox affiliate WFXT (Channel 25). Patrick Purcell, who was the publisher of the ''Boston Herald'' and a News Corporation executive, purchased the ''Herald'' and established it as an independent newspaper. Several years later, Purcell would give the ''Herald'' a suburban presence it never had by purchasing the money-losing Community Newspaper Company from Fidelity Investments. Although the companies merged under the banner of Herald Media, Inc., the suburban papers maintained their distinct editorial and marketing identity.
After years of operating profits at Community Newspaper and losses at the ''Herald'', Purcell in 2006 sold the suburban chain to newspaper conglomerate Liberty Group Publishing of Illinois, which soon after changed its name to GateHouse Media. The deal, which also saw GateHouse acquiring ''The Patriot Ledger'' and ''The Enterprise'' in south suburban Quincy and Brockton, netted $225 million for Purcell, who vowed to use the funds to clear the ''Herald'''s debt and reinvest in the tabloid.^[2]
The ''Herald'' is conservative in its editorial stances, in contrast to the competitor ''Globe'''s generally liberal editorial page.

Awards

The ''Herald's four Pulitzer Prizes for editorial writing, in 1924, 1927, 1949 and 1954, are among the most awarded to a single newspaper in the category. ''Herald'' photographer Stanley Forman received two Pulitzer Prizes consecutively in 1976 and 1977, the first being a dramatic shot of a young child falling in mid-air from her mother's arms on the upper stories of a burning apartment building to the waiting arms of firefighters below, and the latter being of Ted Landsmark, an African American city official, being beaten with an American flag during Boston's school busing crisis. In 2006 the ''Herald'' won two SABEW awards from The Society of American Business Editors and Writers for its breaking news coverage of the takeover of local company Gillette Co. and for overall excellence.

Columnists

★ Howie Carr is a columnist who also hosts a talk show on WRKO. Carr writes extensively on local politics and is a frequent TV commentator.

★ Margery Eagan and Peter Gelzinis are longtime metro columnists, as is Joe Fitzgerald, who was formerly a sports columnist.

★ Gerry Callahan is a sports columnist and talk show host for WEEI.

★ Steve Buckley is a longtime sports columnist and frequent co-host on WEEI.

★ Tony Massarotti is a baseball columnist and frequent co-host on WEEI.

★ Dave Wedge is a political columnist, longtime reporter and frequent TV and radio commentator.

★ Michele McPhee is a metro columnist and crime reporter who is also the author of the best-selling book "Mob Over Miami."

★ Jessica Heslam is an award-winning reporter who covers the media.

★ Joe Sciacca is the paper's deputy managing editor. Sciacca is a former political reporter and columnist who is a regular panelist on "Beat the Press" on the WGBH TV show Greater Boston, which is hosted by Emily Rooney.

★ Kevin Convey is the tabloid's new editor-in-chief, taking over in December 2006 for Ken Chandler, the former editor of the ''New York Post'', who left the ''Herald'' to form his own media consulting firm.

★ The newspaper is owned by Pat Purcell, the former publisher of the ''New York Post'', who bought the ''Herald'' from Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch.

★ Howard Bryant (sports), Robin Washington (consumer and transportation), Leonard Greene (metro) and Howard Manly (metro, op-ed) were African American columnists at the newspaper in the 1990s and 2000s. All have since left the paper. Bryant is now at the ''Washington Post'', Greene writes for the ''New York Post'' and Manly is the managing editor of the ''Bay State Banner''.

★ Brett Arends is an Op-Ed columnist. He also writes for TheStreet.com. He is a former ''Herald'' business columnist.

★ David Exum covers NASCAR for the ''Herald'' and works as an online news editor.

References

★ Sterling Quinlan, ''The Hundred Million Dollar Lunch'' (Chicago, J.P. O'Hara, 1974), ISBN 0-87955-310-3.
1. 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation
2. Bailey, Steve, and Robert Gavin. "Herald's Owner to Sell Suburban Papers". ''The Boston Globe'', May 6, 2006.

External links

★ The ''Boston Herald's website

★ ''Herald's circulation declines

★ Company History