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''The News Journal'' is a daily newspaper in
Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington is the List of municipalities in Delaware, most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish colonization of the Americas, Swedish settlement in North America. It lie ...
. It is headquartered in unincorporated
New Castle County, Delaware New Castle County is the northernmost of the three List of counties in Delaware, counties of the U.S. state of Delaware (New Castle, Kent County, Delaware, Kent, and Sussex County, Delaware, Sussex). As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...
, near New Castle, and is owned by
Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. ( ) is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. It owns the national newspaper ''USA Today'', as well as several ...
.


History

The ancestry of the News Journal reflects the mergers of several newspapers. It is dated to Oct. 1, 1866, when Howard M. Jenkins and Wilmer Atkinson started the afternoon publication ''Daily Commercial''. In 1877, that paper was absorbed into a rival, the ''Every Evening'', founded by Georgetown native William T. Croasdale. The ''Evening Journal'', later owned by the Du Pont family, was founded in 1888 as a competitor to The Every Evening. The two papers merged in 1933. Another predecessor to the News Journal was the ''Morning Herald'', founded in 1876 by Philadelphia lawyer John O'Byrne. It later became the Daily Morning News, bought by Alfred I. Du Pont in 1911. For most of the 20th century, the
Du Pont family The du Pont family () or Du Pont family is a prominent family descended from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739–1817), a French minor aristocrat. Currently residing in the U.S. states of Delaware and Pennsylvania, the Du Ponts have been ...
owned these two Delaware newspapers, ''The Morning News'' and ''The Evening Journal''. Ownership of both papers was consolidated in 1919 when feuding factions of the family reconciled, forming the News Journal Company. DuPont decided to sell The News Journal Company in 1978. Gannett won the bidding war, beating the
Hearst Corporation Hearst Corporation, Hearst Holdings Inc. and Hearst Communications Inc. comprise an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate owned by the Hearst family and based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan in New York ...
and
The Washington Post Company Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company) is a diversified American conglomerate holding company. Headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, and incorporated in Delaware, it was formerly the owner of ''The Washington Po ...
. Gannett paid $60 million for the two Delaware papers and merged them in 1989 to form one paper, ''The News Journal''. In 2010, The News Journal Company became The News Journal Media Group in an effort to collectively identify their extensive product portfolio of print, digital, video and new media. 2019 circulation statements showed The News Journal's daily circulation at 26,550 (Issue Date: August 21, 2019) and Sunday circulation at 39,375 (Issue Date: August 25, 2019). In 2020, the ''News Journal'' took over the six weekly newspapers owned by Gatehouse Media in a merger whereby Gatehouse bought Gannett and renamed itself Gannett. The content of the six weeklies and websites (which redirect to the News Journal’s Delaware Online) now consists mainly of material generated by the ''News Journal'' and ''USA Today''. The weeklies’ Facebook pages are outdated, unstaffed and rarely updated, if at all, since 2020. ''The Dover Post'', ''Milford Beacon'', ''Sussex Countian/Living'', ''Middletown Transcript'', ''Smyrna-Clayton Sun Times'' and ''Hockessin Community News'' no longer exist as independent publications.


Coverage area

''The News Journal'' covers
New Castle County New Castle County is the northernmost of the three counties of the U.S. state of Delaware (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex). As of the 2020 census, the population was 570,719, making it the most populous county in Delaware, with nearly 60% of the ...
most in-depth, but also offers considerable coverage of the
Delaware General Assembly The Delaware General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Delaware. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the Delaware Senate with 21 senators and the Delaware House of Representatives with 41 representatives. It meets at Legi ...
and the
Delaware beaches The Delaware Beaches are located along the Atlantic Ocean in the eastern part of Sussex County, Delaware, which is in the southern part of the state. In addition to beaches along the ocean, the area offers many amenities, including restaurants ...
. The paper also offers limited coverage of northeast
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
and southeast
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
, mostly by means of short news briefs. The paper publishes national and international articles from
wire service A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and News broadcasting, television Broadcasting, broadcasters. A news agency ma ...
s.


Sections

;Regular sections *News *Local & Business *Sports *Life *Classifieds ;Special sections *Innovate Delaware *Health (Tuesdays) *Crossroads (Thursdays) – contains news about schools and other local, human-interest features. High schools in Delaware each pick a student to write a short report about the happenings at their school for Crossroads. In April 2007, ''The News Journal'' began reprinting articles from local high school newspapers in the Crossroads section. *55 Hours (Fridays) – movie reviews, food reviews, and info about events occurring in the 55 hours of the weekend (and beyond) *Auto (Saturdays) *Sunday Life


Website and video

The News Journal Media Group entered the Internet age in the late 1990s with the launch o
Delaware Online
a website with an online edition of all local content in the paper, as well as job listings and classified ads. The paper began offering an online news update weekdays at 4:30 pm. The once-daily update has evolved into as-it-happens online news coverage that often results in a couple of dozen news updates per day. DelawareOnline.com was the first newspaper in the country to offer a morning and afternoon online newscast, with anchor Patty Petite. DelawareOnline.com was cited in a 2008 Wilkerson and Associates study as the site Delawareans visit first for news and entertainment. More than one million unique visitors are recorded each month. As of July 2020, the Delaware Online Facebook page had more than 200,000 followers.


Community involvement

''The News Journal'' participates in the Newspapers for Education program, which provides free newspapers for area schools. On Fridays during the school year, the paper publishes an informational feature for school children, in the form of colorful, pull-out, double-truck page in the Life section. In 2006, ''The News Journal'' provided Glasgow High School a $10,000 grant to help the school's newspaper, ''The Dragon Fire''. ''The News Journal'' also sent editors to Glasgow to help the ''Dragon Fire'' with page layout and web design. The News Journal Company also runs the Needy Family Fund, which partners with local charities to assist family in need of food and clothing. Each Christmas season, ''The News Journal'' asks readers to donate to the fund and publishes a list of those who do. The News Journal Media Group has partnered with nearly half of the registered not-for-profit companies (registered
501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...
) in New Castle County. A customized link – offering all types of correspondence from not-for-profits, church leaders and community affairs personnel – is available at the bottom of DelawareOnline.com. In addition, ''The News Journal'' publishes a dedicated not-for-profit customized publication, ''GET INVOLVED'', which is distributed in the paper every other month.


Notable reporters

* Rod Beaton – sports journalist *
Al Cartwright Albert Thomas Cartwright (June 20, 1917 – May 10, 2015) was an American sportswriter. He spent 1947 to 1968, then 1971 to 1983, working with ''The News Journal'' and its predecessors, winning awards for his "A La Carte" columns. Sportswriting ...
– Cartwright wrote sports columns for ''The News Journal'' and its predecessors from 1947 to 1968, and 1971–1983. * Kevin Fleming – photographer *
Bill Fleischman William R. Fleischman Jr. (April 8, 1939May 1, 2019) was an American sports journalist. During the 1960s, he worked at ''The News Journal'' and the ''Burlington County Times'' after graduating from Gettysburg College. He reported for the ''Phil ...
(1966 to 1969) *
Haynes Johnson Haynes Bonner Johnson (July 9, 1931May 24, 2013) was an American journalist, author, and television analyst. He reported on most of the major news stories of the latter half of the 20th century and was widely regarded as one of the top American po ...
- Famed national reporter, columnist, and later, professor, Johnson had his reporting debut with ''The News Journal'' in 1956. *
Izzy Katzman Israel "Izzy" Katzman (April 30, 1917 – October 30, 2007) was an American sportswriter who worked with ''The News Journal'' for thirty-six years. Biography Katzman was born on April 30, 1917, in Dauphin, Pennsylvania. He started a career as a ...
– Katzman was a sports editor from 1950 to 1986. * Norman Lockman – Lockman served as managing editor of ''The News Journal'' from 1984 to 1991. After that, he became a member of the editorial board and wrote a regular column in the paper. Before joining ''The News Journal'', Lockman won a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
for a series of articles on race relations he co-wrote for ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
''. Suffering from
Lou Gehrig's disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disorder that results in the progressive loss of both upper and lo ...
, Lockman wrote his final column in late 2004. He died the following April. * Matt Zabitka – Zabitka served as a sports editor from 1962 to 2002.


References


External links

* *
Newspapers.com archive
(paid access or via
Wikipedia Library Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001, Wikipedi ...
): 2 million pages between 1871 and 2023. {{DEFAULTSORT:News Journal, The Newspapers published in Delaware Wilmington, Delaware Gannett publications Newspapers established in 1866 Companies based in New Castle County, Delaware 1866 establishments in Delaware