The Hartford Courant is the largest daily
newspaperA newspaper is a publication containing news, information, and advertising. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns that express the...
in the
U.S. stateA U.S. state is any one of 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government . Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile...
of
ConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and New York to the west and south ....
, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury. Its headquarters on Broad Street are a short walk from the
state capitolThe Connecticut State Capitol is located on Bushnell Park in the Connecticut capital of Hartford. The building houses the State Senate and House of Representatives, as well as the offices of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of the State, and several legislative...
, and it reports regional news with a chain of bureaus in smaller cities and a series of local editions.
History
The Connecticut Courant began as a weekly on October 29, 1764 and was started by Thomas Green. The word "
courantCourant may mean several things.* Courant is a common word for "newspaper". In the 18th century, the term apparently spread from the Netherlands with publications like the Leeuwarder Courant. England and America also had newspapers called the Courant. Benjamin Franklin's brother James began a New...
" was a popular name for English-language newspapers, borrowed from the Dutch. The daily
Hartford Courant traces its existence back to the weekly, thereby claiming the title "America's oldest continuously published newspaper" and adopting as its slogan, "Older than the nation." (A reborn
The New Hampshire GazetteThe New Hampshire Gazette is a non-profit, alternative, bi-weekly newspaper published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Its editors claim that the paper, published on-and-off in one form or another since 1756, is America's oldest newspaper and has trademarked the phrase "The Nation's Oldest...
, which started publication in 1756, but disappeared and reappeared, has trademarked the title of oldest paper in the nation. It is a bi-weekly, while the Courant has not missed a week since October 29, 1764. See also, The New York Post as oldest daily, and
Time magazine's view of "oldest" claims.)
The Courant was purchased in 1979 by Times Mirror, the
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
parent company. The first years of out-of-town ownership were described by a former Courant
reporter in a book titled Spiked: How Chain Management Corrupted America's Oldest Newspaper.
One criticism was that the new owners were more interested in awards, and less interested in traditional Courant
devotion to exhaustive coverage of local news.
The Courant
won a 1992 Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City....
for inquiring into problems with the Hubble Space TelescopeThe Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital...
(a Connecticut company was involved in the construction), and it won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize in the Breaking News category for coverage of a 1998 murder-suicideOn March 6, 1998, there was a fatal shooting at the then-Connecticut Lottery headquarters in Newington. A Lottery employee, Matt Beck, killed four of his supervisors, then himself.-References:*...
that took five lives at Connecticut LotteryThe Connecticut Lottery , which began in 1972, is run by the government of Connecticut. It is a member of the Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association . The Lottery headquarters is in Rocky Hill....
headquarters.
In 2000, Times Mirror and the Courant
became part of the Tribune CompanyThe Tribune Company is a large, employee-owned, American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, responsible for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Baltimore Sun...
, one of the world's largest multimedia companies. Ironically, along the way, the Courant
also acquired the Valley Advocate
group of "alternative" weeklies started by two disgruntled Courant
staff members in 1973. Under new ownership, it is co-owned with two local television stations: FoxThe Fox Broadcasting Company , commonly referred to as Fox , is an American television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, from 2004 to 2009 Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the 18–49 demographic...
affiliate WTIC-TVWTIC-TV is the FOX-affiliated television station for the state of Connecticut, except Fairfield County, that is licensed to Hartford. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 31 from a transmitter on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington. Owned by the Tribune Company, the station...
and The CW affiliate WTXXWTXX channel 20 is the The CW Television Network affiliate for the state of Connecticut, licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut. WTXX is owned by Tribune Broadcasting and it's the junior partner in a duopoly with Fox affiliate WTIC-TV...
.
The Courant
is the most recent American newspaper to win the Society for News DesignThe Society for News Design is an international organization for professionals working in the news sector of the media industry, specifically those involved with graphic design, illustration, web design and infographics....
's World's Best Designed newspaper award (won in 2005). In late June 2006, the Tribune Co. announced that Courant publisher Jack W. Davis Jr. would by replaced by Stephen D. Carver, vice president and general manager of Atlanta, Ga., TV station WATL. In March of 2009, Tribune eplaced Carver with Richard Graziano, who was given a dual role as Courant publisher and general manager of Tribune's two Hartford television statons. In May of the same year, Tribune announced that Jeff Levine, a newspaper executive with a background in marketing, would become "director of content" and that the editor or "print platform manager" of the Courant would report to Levine as would the news director of WTIC-TV. Shortly after that, the Courant's two highest ranking editors were let go.
In recent years the Courant
has offered early retirement and buyout packages to reduce staff as it continues to experience declines in advertising revenue. There have also been layoffs; the Courant announced in June 2008 that it would lay off about 25% of its newsroom staff. Moreover, in September 2008, it would reduce the number of pages in its weekday editions.
Politics
When two newspapers were published in Hartford, The Courant was editorially Republican and did not endorse a non-Republican for president until Bill Clinton. When the Hartford Times ceased publication in 1976, The Courant's editorial page took an independent stance.
While the Courant editorially has recently endorsed Republican presidential candidates, its editorial approach to state government in recent decades has traditionally been liberal and opposed to what it considers short-sighted conservatism. Its strong endorsement of former Senator Lowell Weicker was decisive in the 1990 gubernatorial election. It endorsed his Lieutenant Governor
Eunice GroarkEunice Groark was elected the first female lieutenant governor of Connecticut in 1990. Groark ran on a ticket with Lowell Weicker, both of whom were members of A Connecticut Party. Weicker/Groark won with 41 percent of the vote....
for Governor in 1994. After Republican Governor
John G. RowlandJohn Grosvenor Rowland was the Governor of Connecticut from 1995 to 2004; he is a member of the Republican Party. He is married to Patty Rowland, his second wife, and the couple have five children between them...
announced major development initiatives for downtown Hartford, the Courant endorsed his 1998 and 2002 re-election bids. In 2006 the Courant endorsed Democrat
John DeStefanoJohn DeStefano, American sculptor and painter. DeStefano worked in cast bronze, terra cotta and stone. His subjects were often of a civic nature including his cast bronze 1933 bas-relief profile portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the collection of the White House....
for Governor, but he was defeated soundly by incumbent Governor
M. Jodi RellMary Jodi Rell is a Republican politician and has been the 72nd Governor of the U.S. state of Connecticut since July 1, 2004. She was the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut under Governor John G. Rowland, who resigned during a corruption investigation. Rell is Connecticut's second female...
.
The Courant's long-time law firm, Tyler Cooper & Alcorn, also happened to be the Connecticut Republican Party's law firm. That business relationship with the Republican Party ended when Tyler Cooper lawyers fought aggressively on behalf of The Courant to uncover a police report about an alleged domestic incident at Rowland's Middlebury home.
In July 2006 the Courant
weighed in on the contentious Connecticut Democratic senate primary by endorsing incumbent Joe LiebermanJoseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the junior United States Senator from Connecticut. First elected to the Senate in 1988, Lieberman was elected to a fourth term on November 7, 2006...
. The Courant
also endorsed his bid in the general election.
2009 Plagiarism
In September 2009 the Courant's publisher, Richard Graziano, publicly apologized as the newspaper accepted a plagiarism charge. Competitors had accused the Courant of taking its content without permission and refusing to give proper credit.
2009 Sleepy's
In August, 2009, the Courant
attracted some controversy over its firing of George Gombossy, a 40-year veteran of the paper and its consumer advocate at the time. Gombossy charged that the Courant
had spiked an article he'd written about an ongoing investigation by the Connecticut attorney general accusing Sleepy'sSleepy’s LLC is an American retailing company founded in 1931 in Brooklyn, New York. The business was first incorporated in 1957. The name of the business was changed to Sleepy’s in 1975 and the chain is now the largest specialty mattress retailer and largest bedding retailer in the United States...
(a major advertiser in the paper) of selling used and bedbug-infested mattresses as new.
External links
Courant online
History of The Hartford Courant
Columbia Journalism Review's "Who Owns What" page about media companies.