''The Calhoun Chronicle and The Grantsville News'' is a weekly newspaper serving the

Grantsville, West Virginia Grantsville is a town in Calhoun County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 482 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Calhoun County. The town was established along the Little Kanawha River in 1865 and named for Ulysse ...

community. The older of its predecessors, the ''Calhoun Chronicle'', was founded in 1883. It merged with the ''Grantsville News'' (founded 1902) in 1984, continuing the original numbering of the ''Chronicle''. The newspaper's decision in 1990 to enforce its policy of refusing political advertising within a week of an election led to a 1991

West Virginia Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia is the state supreme court of the state of West Virginia, the highest of West Virginia's State court (United States), state courts. The court sits primarily at the West Virginia State Capitol in Char ...

ruling in favor of the paper. The supreme court ruled that the government could not compel a private newspaper to print anything without violating constitutional

freedom of the press Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic Media (communication), media, especially publication, published materials, shoul ...

protections. As of 2016, the newspaper is published each Thursday by Calhoun County Publishing Company and has circulation of 2,921.

History

In the early 1880s Calhoun County was one of two counties in the state without a local paper. The Chronicle filled that gap with a democratic weekly. By 1898 the ''Weekly Register'' counted it as one of the best papers to come to their office. In 1900, founder S. C. Barr announced that though the paper was Democratic, it would not be endorsing the Democratic nominee for U.S. president,

William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator, and politician. He was a dominant force in the History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, running three times as the party' ...

, citing the failure of the disasters Bryan had predicted in 1896 to appear:

"A rule of law is where a witness is impeached, or is overtaken In false statements; that his evidence Is not entitled to the same degree of credibility as it was before. If the statement of Mr. Bryan that the country was on the verge of ruin if we did not get 16 to 1 was untrue, might not his Imperialistic views also be far-fetched?"

Bryan went on to lose the election, and the paper was sold to S. C. Barr to Sam P. Bell and Robert E. Hays shortly afterwards. Carl Morris, who won the supreme court case in 1991 guaranteeing private newspapers in West Virginia the autonomy to decide what it will not publish, owned the paper until his death in 2002 at age 83. A similar issue arose in 1998, when Morris refused to run an ad for Clay County Democrat Clay Walker. Morris objected to the content of the ad, which was critical of Walker's opponent; he expressed willingness to publish an ad for the same candidate if it simply focused on his own family and background. As of 2016, the publisher was Helen Morris and the editor Newton Nichols.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Calhoun Chronicle and the Grantsville News Newspapers published in West Virginia Newspapers established in 1883 1883 establishments in West Virginia

History

See also

References