''The Morning News'' is a daily
newspaper with a circulation of about 35,000, based in
Florence, South Carolina
Florence is a city in and the county seat of Florence County, South Carolina, United States. It lies at the intersection of Interstates 20 and 95 and is the eastern terminus of the former. It is the primary city within the Florence metropolit ...
. It is owned by
Lee Enterprises.
It was founded as the ''Farmers' Friend'' in 1887, and was part of several mergers and name changes. In its early history, it was aligned with the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
.
The first edition of the newspaper as the ''Weekly News and Review'', appeared on March 18, 1922.
Its immediate predecessor was the ''Florence News and Review'', and its name was later changed to the ''Morning News Review''. In February 1928, it purchased the ''Florence Daily Times'' and the name was changed to the ''Florence Morning News''.
In 1945, it became the ''Florence Morning News''. In 1956, then-editor Jack O'Dowd, the son of the newspaper's publisher, enraged the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
by supporting the
U.S. Supreme Court's ''
Brown v. Board of Education'' desegregation decision and he was run out of town, going to a job with the ''
Chicago Sun-Times''. The only other South Carolina newspaper that took the progressive stance in the 1950s and 1960s was the ''
Greenwood Index Journal''. O'Dowd was replaced by James A. Rogers, who while also somewhat progressive editorially, took a less confrontational posture. Rogers wrote several books on the region and was instrumental in the creation of Francis Marion College in 1970, now
Francis Marion University. He retired as editor in 1975.
The ''Florence Morning News'' was purchased by Thomson Newspapers, later
The Thomson Corporation in December 1981. Thomson worked to expand the newspaper from a Florence-focused newspaper to more regional coverage. It was extensively redesigned in 1992, and again in 1998, to emphasize coverage of the nine-county
Pee Dee region of South Carolina.
The newspaper was sold to
Media General in 2000, and to
Berkshire Hathaway in 2012.
The ''Morning News'' serves as the regional hub for four weekly newspaper publications also owned by Lee Enterprises: ''The Hartsville Messenger'', ''The Lake City News and Post'', ''The Marion Star & Mullins Enterprise'', and ''The (Hemingway) Weekly Observer''.
The ''Morning News'' operates online through scnow.com.
That website houses not only the ''Morning News'', but also the ''Hartsville Messenger'', ''Weekly Observer'', ''The Lake City News and Post'', and the ''Marion Star & Mullins Enterprise''. Until Media General sold its entire newspaper division to Berkshire Hathaway, it also housed
CBS affiliate,
WBTW.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Morning News, The
1922 establishments in South Carolina
Daily newspapers published in the United States
Democratic newspapers (United States)
Newspapers published in South Carolina
Florence, South Carolina
Lee Enterprises publications
Publications established in 1922