The ''Albany Democrat-Herald'' is a daily

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 in

Albany, Oregon Albany ( ) is the county seat of Linn County, Oregon, and is the 11th most populous city in the state. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton count ...

, United States. The paper is owned by the Iowa-based

Lee Enterprises Lee Enterprises, Inc. is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 72 daily newspapers in 25 states, and more than 350 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by Alfred Wilson Lee and is b ...

, a firm which also owns the daily ''

Corvallis Gazette-Times The ''Corvallis Gazette-Times'' is a daily newspaper for Corvallis, Oregon, United States. The newspaper, along with its sister publication, the ''Albany Democrat-Herald'' of neighboring Albany, Oregon, is owned by Lee Enterprises of Davenport, I ...

,'' published in the adjacent market of

Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Benton County, Oregon, Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton Co ...

, as well as two weeklies, the '' Lebanon Express'' and the ''Philomath Express.'' The two daily papers publish a joint Sunday edition, called ''Mid-Valley Sunday.'' The ''Democrat-Herald'' covers the cities of Albany,

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

, and Sweet Home, Oregon, as well as the towns of Jefferson, Halsey,

Tangent In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is, intuitively, the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points o ...

Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...

, Brownsville, and Shedd.

History

Forerunners

The first newspaper published in

, county seat of Linn County, was the '' Oregon Democrat,'' launched by

US Senator The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

Delazon Smith Delazon Smith (October 5, 1816November 19, 1860) was a Democratic Party politician who briefly represented the state of Oregon in the U.S. Senate in 1859. He served for less than one month (February 14 to March 3), making his term among the shor ...

on November 1, 1859. A dedicated supporter of the pro-slavery Democratic Party, Smith's publication was largely devoted to fierce partisan polemics with the editor of the rival Republican publication, the ''

Oregon Statesman The ''Statesman Journal'' is the major daily newspaper published in Salem, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1851 as the ''Oregon Statesman'', it later merged with the ''Capital Journal'' to form the current newspaper, the second-oldest in Orego ...

,'' published by the indefatigable

Asahel Bush Asahel Bush (June 4, 1824 – December 23, 1913) was an American newspaper publisher and businessman in Salem, Oregon. As publisher of the ''Oregon Statesman'' newspaper, he moved the paper to Salem when the territorial capital moved to that city. ...

in the nearby city of Salem. Founding publisher Smith died in November 1860, on the eve of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. The ''Oregon Democrat'' was carried forward by a new publisher, Pat Malone, but the

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

-sympathizing weekly ran into trouble with the Republican keepers of the postal system and on April 30, 1862, the paper was banned from the US Mail for its political line. Editor Malone attempted to avoid the postal ban with a remade publication called the ''Albany Inquirer,'' but that paper was likewise banned from the mails, thereby effectively terminating the publication.

Origins

It was not until the summer of 1865 that a Democratic newspaper was able to be reestablished in Albany. This was a weekly called the ''State Rights Democrat,'' launched on August 1, 1865, by publisher James O'Meara. It is this publication — issued continuously from 1865 into the 21st Century — to which the ''Albany Democrat-Herald'' itself traces its roots. The ''State Rights Democrat'' existed as a weekly publication for 17 years, until the paper was sold in 1882 to a new publisher, Fred Nutting, who placed his mark on the broadsheet with a new title, the ''Albany Weekly Democrat.'' This name remained in place for six years, until the 1888 move of the paper from a weekly to a daily publication schedule, with the paper becoming the ''Albany Democrat'' effective with the change. In 1879, a rival Republican newspaper was launched in Albany by

William Gladstone Steel William Gladstone Steel (September 7, 1854 – October 21, 1934) was an American journalist who was known for campaigning for 17 years for the United States Congress to designate Crater Lake as a National Park. Steel was from Ohio, and worked in ...

, the ''Albany Herald.'' The dual partisan newspapers battled for market share for nearly half a century until on February 24, 1925, the dominant ''Albany Democrat'' absorbed its younger rival. For about six weeks the title ''Albany Democrat & Albany Herald'' was clumsily used, with a change made to the current moniker, ''Albany Democrat-Herald,'' in the middle of April 1925.

Ownership changes

The ''Democrat-Herald'' was privately owned by individuals for most of the 20th Century. In 1919 the ''Albany Democrat'' was purchased by local school superintendent William L. Jackson and his business partner, Ralph R. Cronise. It would be this pair who owned the merged publication from its establishment in 1925. Jackson died on Feb. 14, 1949, and his stake in the paper's ownership was inherited by his son Grant Jackson. At that time Cronise was left as the paper's sole editor and publisher. He managed the ''Democrat-Herald'' until selling his shares to

Elmo Smith Elmo Everett Smith (November 19, 1909July 15, 1968) was an American politician and newspaper publisher who served as the 27th Governor of Oregon from 1956 to 1957. A member of the Republican Party, Smith served two terms as mayor of Ontario fr ...

in 1957. Under Smith's leadership, the Democrat-Herald Publishing Co. purchased the '' Cottage Grove Sentinel'' in 1961. Smith died in 1968. In 1970, the company purchased the '' Lebanon Express'' from Robert Hayden and the ''

Ashland Daily Tidings The ''Ashland Daily Tidings'' was a daily newspaper serving the city of Ashland, Oregon, United States. It was managed by Edd Rountree, a well-known columnist in the state, from 1960 to 1985. Over the years the paper was owned by local families ...

'' from Edd Rountree. It also purchased the Western Stamp Collector Newspaper in 1976, along with four weekly papers in 1977 (''

Gresham Outlook ''The Outlook'' is a newspaper published in Gresham, Oregon, a suburb of Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. It was founded in 1911,Sandy Post'', '' Newport News Times'' and ''Lincoln County Leader''). The ''Democrat-Herald'' moved from individual to corporate ownership when media giant

Capital Cities A capital city, or just capital, is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational division, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encomp ...

purchased 25% of Democrat-Herald Publishing Co. sometime in the late 1970s. The company acquired the remaining 75% from the heirs of Glenn Jackson after he died in 1980. So-called CapCities would purchase the

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American Commercial broadcasting, commercial broadcast Television broadcaster, television and radio Radio network, network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division ...

(ABC) in 1985, only to themselves be acquired in 1996 by the

Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

. Disney immediately began to divest itself of the newspapers acquired in the merger, with the ''Democrat-Herald'' sold to

Davenport, Iowa Davenport ( ) is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state. Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 cen ...

in 1998 — a media company which already owned the ''

,'' located approximately 10 miles away.

Schedule and circulation

Having always been an afternoon newspaper on weekdays with a delivery deadline of 5:30 P.M., on October 4, 2010, it became a morning paper every day with a deadline of 6:30 A.M. on weekdays and 7:00 A.M. on weekends. As of 2016, the ''Democrat-Herald'' has a daily circulation of about 7,500.Albany Democrat-Herald.

Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association is a trade association for all paid-circulation daily, weekly, and multi-weekly newspapers in the U.S. state of Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the ...

. Accessed March 31, 2016. The combined Sunday edition has a circulation of approximately 8,000. Starting June 27, 2023, the print edition of the ''Democrat-Herald'' will be reduced to three days a week: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Also, the newspaper will transition from being delivered by a traditional newspaper delivery carrier to mail delivery by the U.S. Postal Service.

References

External links

* {{Lee Enterprises Newspapers established in 1865 1865 establishments in Oregon Newspapers published in Oregon Lee Enterprises publications Companies based in Albany, Oregon Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association Daily newspapers published in the United States