PORTLAND PRESS HERALD

The '''Portland Press Herald''' (and '''Maine Sunday Telegram'''; collectively known as 'The Portland Newspapers') publish daily newspapers every day of the week in Portland, Maine, USA. Serving the state's largest and most commercially important city, as well as much of southern Maine, the ''Press Herald'' and ''Maine Sunday Telegram'' form the largest-circulation newsroom in Maine.
The Portland Newspapers have news bureaus in Augusta, Biddeford, Brunswick, and Sanford, Maine. The papers also operate seven circulation depots, in Portland, South Portland, Windham, Yarmouth, Bath, Saco and Sanford, Maine. The daily ''Press Herald'' circulates six days per week in five counties: Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc and York. On Sundays, the ''Maine Sunday Telegram'' is circulated statewide. The ''Press Herald'' and ''Sunday Telegram'' website is part of Blethen Newspapers' MaineToday.com portal.

Contents

History

Online

Anti-Semitism Controversy

References

External links

History

The ''Press Herald'', founded in 1862 on Congress Street, is the largest in the state in terms of both circulation and reporting staff. To this day, its offices remain in the Gannett Building on the corner of Congress and Exchange Streets, near the Old Port section of the city. The ''Portland Press Herald'' and ''Maine Sunday Telegram'' are owned by Blethen Maine Newspapers, part of the ''Seattle Times'' family of newspapers, and is owned by the Blethen family. Blethen Maine Newspapers also owns Central Maine Newspapers, which publishes the ''Morning Sentinel'' in Waterville and the ''Kennebec Journal'' in Augusta; and Maine Community Publications, which publishes ''The Maine SWITCH'', a free weekly lifestyle magazine serving Greater Portland, and ''The Coastal Journal'', a community newspaper serving the Bath-Brunswick area.
Its editorial board is generally viewed to have center-left political views. It endorsed the 2003 Iraq War, but has since criticized the war's execution. In Maine's 2006 campaign for governor it endorsed John Baldacci, the incumbent Democrat who was reelected. In the 2004 presidential election, the paper endorsed Democrat John Kerry, who won Maine but lost the election.

Online

MaineToday.com is Maine's most comprehensive news and information resource. In addition to news content from the Portland Press Herald [1], Kennebec Journal [2] and Morning Sentinel [3], the site delivers a wide variety of online-only news, information and advertising, all focused on Maine. MaineToday.com attracts 500,000 unique visitors monthly and delivers 7 million pageviews, comparable to much larger U.S. markets.
In September 2006, MaineToday.com launched myMaineToday.com [4], a unique initiative referred to as "citizen media" that combines the immediacy of the web and the power of grassroots knowledge. Residents of Maine towns such as Falmouth, Cumberland, Yarmouth, North Yarmouth and Freeport can post news items, photos and upcoming events directly into their town's page on myMaineToday.com.

Anti-Semitism Controversy

The 'Religion and Values' section of the Saturday, February 3, 2007 edition of the ''Press Herald'' included an ad by the First Baptist Church of South Portland, which listed the sermon as "The Only Way to Destroy the Jewish Race". This caused outrage in Greater Portland's Jewish Community^[1] and led to an apology by the minister of that particular church.
However, less than two weeks later, People's Choice Credit Union ran an ad in the February 14, 2007 edition of the ''Press Herald'' that depicted a bearded "Fee Bandit," which resembled a Hasidic Jew, eager to take people's money.^[2] This incident prompted investigations by the Anti-Defamation League; Steven Wessler, director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence and the person in charge of dealing with hate crimes in the state; and the Jewish Community Alliance. The newspaper's management later apologized for printing the advertisements in question without checking them first, and said it they would scrutinize ad content more closely before printing.^[3]
[4]

References

1. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/02/05/anti_semitism_sermon_title_rankles_maine_jews/ "Anti-Semitism Sermon Title Rankles Maine Jews". ''The Boston Globe''.
2. http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=52793 WSCH 6: ''Credit Union, Newspaper Apologize for Controversial Ad.''
3. http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/070217ad.html "Newspaper vows closer scrutiny of ad content". ''Portland Press Herald''
4. "Dateline World Jewry", April 2007, World Jewish Congress

External links

★ ''Portland Press Herald'' and ''Maine Sunday Telegram'' website

★ MaineToday.com

★ myMaineToday.com