The Journal Star is the major daily newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 for Peoria

Peoria, Illinois

Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...

, Illinois and surrounding area. First owned locally, then employee-owned, it became a Copley-owned entity in 1996. In 2007, the paper was sold to Fairport

Fairport, New York

Fairport is a village located in the town of Perinton which is part of Monroe County, New York. Fairport is a suburb east of Rochester. It is also known as the "Crown Jewel of the Erie Canal"...

, New York-based GateHouse Media

GateHouse Media

GateHouse Media Inc. is a U.S. newspaper publisher, headquartered in Perinton, New York, that publishes 97 dailies in 20 states and 198 paid weeklies, in addition to free papers, shoppers and specialty and niche publications.- History :Liberty Group Publishing was formed in 1998 when Kenneth L...

.

History

The oldest ancestor of the Journal Star, the Peoria Daily Transcript, was founded by N.C. Nason and first published on December 17, 1855. It has a daily circulation of approximately 65,000 copies and a Sunday circulation of 90,350 copies. The Peoria Journal founded as an afternoon paper by Eugene F. Baldwin, the owner of the El Paso Journal and a former editor of the Daily Transcript, and J.B. Barnes, and first publisher on December 3, 1877. Henry Means Pindell started the Peoria Herald in 1889; and soon bought out the Daily Transcript, forming the Herald-Transcript. Baldwin, who had since left the Journal, started the Peoria Star, with Charles M. Powell on November 7, 1897. Pindell bought the Journal in 1900, sold the Herald-Transcript in 1902, and, after that newspaper had become the Transcript, bought it back in 1916 and merged it with the Journal, creating the Peoria Journal-Transcript, with the Transcript in the morning and the Journal in the afternoon.

In 1944, the Journal and Transcript and their rival Star combined presses as Peoria Newspapers Inc. with the Star as a morning paper and the Journal-Transcript as an afternoon paper, but retained their competition in journalism until 1954, when a full merger was agreed to. Once the agreement was reached, both the morning and afternoon papers immediately changed their names to the Journal Star. To hold the merged newspaper, the current newspaper headquarters were built near War Memorial Drive (U.S. Route 150) and the McClugage Bridge; the first edition from the new presses was on November 14, 1955.

During a newspaper strike in 1958, members of the Newspaper Guild

Newspaper Guild

The Newspaper Guild-CWA is a labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933 who noticed that unionized printers and truck drivers were making more money than they did...

 printed a temporary paper, The Peoria Citizen.

The Peoria Journal Star has owned and operated various television and radio outlets in Peoria, Bloomington, Lafayette

Lafayette, Indiana

Lafayette is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 67,140. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, which has a large impact on...

, Indiana, and Indianapolis

Indianapolis, Indiana

Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

, Indiana.

In the 1980 presidential election

United States presidential election, 1980

The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent...

, the Journal Star endorsed Libertarian

Libertarian Party (United States)

The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...

 candidate Ed Clark

Ed Clark

Ed Clark is an American politician who ran for Governor of California in 1978, and for President of the United States as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in the 1980 presidential election....

.

Between 1984 and 1990, the Journal Star Employee Stock Ownership Plan bought about 83 percent of the company, making it effectively employee-owned. It company also bought the Galesburg Register-Mail of Galesburg

Galesburg, Illinois

Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County....

, Illinois in 1989. However, the success for the employees had the opposite effect for the company itself, as it had to buy back stock of large numbers of early retirees. The paper was sold to Copley Press

Copley Press

Copley Press was a privately held newspaper business, founded in Illinois, but later based in La Jolla, California. Its flagship paper was The San Diego Union-Tribune.-Pulitzer Prizes:...

, owned by Helen Copley, in 1996; Copley also owned the downstate Illinois

Downstate Illinois

Downstate Illinois refers to all of Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area. This term is flexible, but because it is generally meant to refer to everything outside the Chicago-area, some cities in Northern Illinois, such as Rockford and DeKalb, , are considered to be "downstate".The term...

 papers the State Journal-Register

State Journal-Register

The State Journal-Register is the only local daily newspaper for Springfield, Illinois and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1831 as the Sangamon Journal, and claims to be "the oldest newspaper in Illinois." The State-Journal merged with its afternoon rival, the Illinois State Register, in...

in Springfield

Springfield, Illinois

Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...

, Illinois and the Lincoln

Lincoln, Illinois

Lincoln is a city in Logan County, Illinois, United States. It is the only town in the United States that was named for Abraham Lincoln before he became president; he practiced law there from 1847 to 1859. First settled in the 1830s, Lincoln is home to three colleges and two prisons. The three...

 Courier.
When Copley purchased the paper in 1996, the daily circulation was 75,000+. According to a Knight Foundation report in 2005, the Journal Star circulation is now 65,126. The Journal Star is the highest circulation downstate Illinois newspaper and the fourth highest circulation Illinois newspaper. As of September 2006, the Journal Star was the 136th largest newspaper in the United States.

Being a paper-boy for the paper in the 1950s was potentially very rewarding. In addition to the comradeship around the paper-boy drop off points, the paper ran periodic contests to expand its circulation. Out of town trips were set up for paper-boys that met a quota of paper starts. The paper in this way took bus-loads of paper-boys from Peoria to such places as Chicago (Riverview Amusement Park), Detroit, Cincinnati and a one week train trip to a dude ranch in Colorado.

External links

• pjstar.com — Peoria Journal Star official website