The ''National Observer'' was a weekly American general-interest national

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, 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 poli ...

published by

Dow Jones & Company Dow Jones & Company, Inc. (also known simply as Dow Jones) is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp, and led by CEO Almar Latour. The company publishes ''The Wall Street Journal'', '' Barron's'', '' MarketWatch'', ''Mansion Global'' ...

from 1962 until July 11, 1977. Hunter S. Thompson wrote several articles for the ''National Observer'' as the correspondent for

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

early in his career. The newspaper was the inspiration of Barney Kilgore, then the president of Dow Jones. (Kilgore is credited as the "genius" who transformed the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' from a provincial financial daily with a circulation of 32,000, mostly on

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

, into the national giant it became.) It was Kilgore's idea that the nation needed a weekly national newspaper that would synthesize all the week's events and current trends into an attractive, convenient package. In effect, the ''National Observer ''would offer the kind of quality non-financial journalism that the ''Wall Street Journal'' once featured in its front-page "leaders" (the articles that occupy the left- and right-hand columns).

References

Further reading