''The MetroWest Daily News'' is an American

daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

published in

Framingham, Massachusetts Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a pop ...

, serving the MetroWest region of

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separ ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. The newspaper is owned by

Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

and

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

counties. Until 1998 it was named for Middlesex County (most recently as the ''Middlesex News'') or for the then-town of Framingham (through most of the mid-20th century, as the ''Framingham News'').

History

Originally a locally owned evening newspaper, the ''News'' was purchased by the

Harte-Hanks Harte Hanks is a global marketing services company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Harte Hanks services include analytics, strategy, marketing technology, creative services, digital marketing, customer care, direct mail, logistics, and ful ...

newspaper chain as its first foray into Massachusetts journalism, in 1972. By 1986, the paper sold 49,000 copies daily and 55,000 on Sunday,Adams, Jane Meredith. "Harte-Hanks Acquires Transcript Group". ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', March 14, 1986. and also published four Framingham-area

weekly newspaper A weekly newspaper is a general-news or current affairs publication that is issued once or twice a week in a wide variety broadsheet, magazine, and digital formats. Similarly, a biweekly newspaper is published once every two weeks. Weekly ne ...

s: the ''Town Crier'' papers in

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes) ** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal el ...

, Wayland and

Weston Weston may refer to: Places Australia * Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Weston, New South Wales * Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra * Weston Park, Canberra, a park Canada * Weston, Nova Scotia * ...

, and the ''Townsman'' in Wellesley. That year, Harte-Hanks added the '' Daily Transcript'' of Dedham and the '' News-Tribune'' of Waltham, and 17 weeklies, to its holdings, and merged its Massachusetts properties into a single organization that became known as News-Transcript Group. Around that time, amid a review of the four local newspaper companies competing in the Framingham area, ''

'' gave the paper credit for wide-ranging coverage of foreign, national, local, sports, arts and lifestyle news, but Tab Communications publisher Russell Pergament said his daily competition left a niche for his community papers: The ''News'' weekly competitors were mostly bought out by

Fidelity Investments Fidelity Investments, commonly referred to as Fidelity, earlier as Fidelity Management & Research or FMR, is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in 1946 and is o ...

in the early 1990s, and became sister papers in 1994, when Harte-Hanks decided to sell its newspapers and Fidelity's

Community Newspaper Company Community Newspaper Company, or CNC, was the largest publisher of weekly newspapers in eastern Massachusetts in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century. It also published several daily newspapers in Greater Boston. The company's properti ...

announced it would buy the News-Transcript Group. Before purchasing News-Transcript, CNC's only daily was the ''News'' rival '' Enterprise-Sun'' of Marlborough. The ''News'' daily circulation at the time was given as 35,516, and 45,174 on Sunday. In 2000, after adding more weeklies to its fold, Fidelity sold CNC to the publisher of the ''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Puli ...

''. The new owner instituted a content-sharing arrangement between CNC and the ''Herald'', resulting in a regular stream of ''Daily News'' stories appearing in the Boston newspaper. That arrangement continued for a short while after the ''Herald'' sold CNC to Liberty Group Publishing (later renamed GateHouse Media) in 2006.

Name

The current name is the sixth for the ''Daily News''. Known at the start of 20th century as the ''Framingham Evening News'', it became simply the ''Framingham News'' in 1926 and carried that moniker until 1971, when the ''South Middlesex Daily News'' was adopted. Six years later, that name was shortened to ''South Middlesex News'', then in 1979 to ''Middlesex News'', which remained its name until 1998."Middlesex News to Get New Name Next Month". ''

The Patriot Ledger ''The Patriot Ledger'' is a daily newspaper in Quincy, Massachusetts, that serves the South Shore. It publishes Monday through Saturday. Known for its thorough news coverage of the 26 communities south of Boston, ''The Patriot Ledger'' has won ...

'' (Quincy, Mass.), p. 6, September 15, 1998. The regional term MetroWest was promoted to the nameplate October 19, 1998, as a response to the dissolution of

county government A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

in Middlesex County, and a recognition of the newspaper's reach into Norfolk and Worcester counties. The name had been coined and adopted by the newspaper in the 1980s as a means of giving its circulation area more of a shared identity than earlier alternatives -- "Greater Framingham" (which many towns in the paper's northern coverage area, western Middlesex County, did not feel they belonged to) and "South Middlesex" (which excluded towns in other counties). Reporter Greg Supernovich suggested the name—for which he received dinner for two.Higgins, Richard. "Metrowest: Gimmick or Identity?" ''The Boston Globe'', p. 1, October 18, 1998.

Online

As befits a newspaper covering

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

' high-tech corridor—an earlier alternative to "MetroWest" was "Databelt"—the ''Daily News'' was among the pioneers in electronic publishing. Along with ten other members of the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...

, the ''Middlesex News'' in 1980 offered a digital text edition to

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

. The bulletin board service's subscribers could then, via

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

, access ''News'' stories on their personal computers."Eleven Newspapers Chosen for Electronic Delivery Test". ''The Boston Globe'', p. 1, June 27, 1980. In 1987, the paper debuted its own BBS, called

Fred the Computer Fred may refer to: People * Fred (name), including a list of people and characters with the name Mononym * Fred (cartoonist) (1931–2013), pen name of Fred Othon Aristidès, French * Fred (footballer, born 1949) (1949–2022), Frederico Ro ...

. Subscribers could dial into Fred and see the next day's headlines, submit press releases and write letters to the editor. In 1993, the ''News'' set up a Gopher site, making it the first general-circulation United States newspaper on the Internet. The

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" ...

edition of ''The MetroWest Daily News'' was launched in September 2001. It shares templates and systems with other GateHouse New England properties' websites, at Wicked Local.

References

External links

''The MetroWest Daily News''
{{DEFAULTSORT:MetroWest Daily News Companies based in Framingham, Massachusetts Mass media in Middlesex County, Massachusetts MetroWest Newspapers published in Massachusetts Publications established in 1897 Gannett publications