The Orange County Register is a 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...
published in
Santa AnaSanta Ana is the county seat and most populous city in Orange County, California, and the 53rd-most populous city in the United States with a 2007 estimated population of 339,555...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
. The
Register has the third largest paid daily circulation in California, behind only 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...
and
San Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireSan Francisco Chronicle is Northern California's largest newspaper, and one of the largest in the United States, serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout...
. The
Register is the flagship publication of
Freedom CommunicationsFreedom Communications, Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California, is a media company which owns more than 100 daily and weekly newspapers in the United States, with a combined daily circulation of nearly one million subscribers, and also operates over seventy local news websites...
, Inc., which publishes 28 daily newspapers, 23 weekly newspapers, "Coast" magazine, and several related Internet sites.
The Register is notable for its generally
conservativeConservatism is the diverse political and social philosophy that supports tradition and the status quo, or that calls for a return to the values and society of an earlier age, the status quo ante. However, the term has been used by politicians and political commentators with a variety of meanings...
/libertarian-leaning editorial page.
The Orange County Register is a 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...
published in
Santa AnaSanta Ana is the county seat and most populous city in Orange County, California, and the 53rd-most populous city in the United States with a 2007 estimated population of 339,555...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
. The
Register has the third largest paid daily circulation in California, behind only 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...
and
San Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireSan Francisco Chronicle is Northern California's largest newspaper, and one of the largest in the United States, serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout...
. The
Register is the flagship publication of
Freedom CommunicationsFreedom Communications, Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California, is a media company which owns more than 100 daily and weekly newspapers in the United States, with a combined daily circulation of nearly one million subscribers, and also operates over seventy local news websites...
, Inc., which publishes 28 daily newspapers, 23 weekly newspapers, "Coast" magazine, and several related Internet sites.
The Register is notable for its generally
conservativeConservatism is the diverse political and social philosophy that supports tradition and the status quo, or that calls for a return to the values and society of an earlier age, the status quo ante. However, the term has been used by politicians and political commentators with a variety of meanings...
/libertarian-leaning editorial page. It often supports Republican politicians and positions, but it is also the largest newspaper in the country to have opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and opposes laws regulating issues such as prostitution and drug use. It was one of a handful of newspapers that opposed the internment of Japanese aliens and Japanese-Americans during World War II. It also opposed
Proposition 8Proposition 8 was a California ballot proposition passed in the November 2008, general election. The measure added a new section to Article I of the California Constitution...
in 2008, which proposed a ban on
same-sex marriageSame-sex marriage is a term used to describe a legally or socially recognized marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Other terms used to describe this type of recognition include gay marriage or gender-neutral marriage.Same-sex marriage is a civil rights,...
.
1905–1985: under earlier names
The
Register was founded by a consortium as the
Santa Ana Daily Register in 1905. It was sold to J.P. Baumgartner in 1906 and to J. Frank Burke in 1927. In 1935 it was bought by R.C. Hoiles, who renamed it the
Santa Ana Register and reorganized his holdings as Freedom Newspapers, Inc. in 1950, later Freedom Communications. The paper was renamed
The Register in 1952.
In 1956, the newspaper was a prominent supporter of a vociferous campaign by anti-communists against the
Alaska Mental Health Enabling ActThe Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. It became the focus of a major political controversy after opponents nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and denounced it as being part of a communist...
, claiming that the Act was part of a communist plot to establish concentration camps in
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
.
Circulation rose with the burgeoning population of
Orange CountyOrange County is a county in Southern California, United States. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2000 census, its population was 2,846,293, though a July 2008 estimate placed the population at 3,010,759, making it the second most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and...
and after
The Register added a morning edition in 1959. In 1970 Hoiles' son Clarence became co-publisher with his brother Harry until 1979, when R. David Threshie, Clarence's son-in-law, was named to the position.
Faced with an aggressive push into the county by the Los Angeles Times under then publisher Otis Chandler, Threshie brought in 30-year-old editor N. Christian Anderson III to increase the professionalism of the paper. Political positions were restricted to the editorial page. In 1981, the paper began publishing in full color.
1985–present: as the "Orange County Register"
In 1985, the paper was renamed yet again to
The Orange County Register. In the same year it won its first
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 its photographic coverage of the
1984 Summer OlympicsThe 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984. Los Angeles was selected as the host of the Games on May 18, 1978 on the 80th IOC session at Athens, Greece, without a vote,...
in nearby
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
. It won additional Pulitzers in 1989 for beat reporting by Edward Humes on U.S. military problems with night vision goggles and 1996 for an investigation into
Ricardo AschRicardo Asch is an Argentinean-born obstetrician/gynecologist and endocrinologist who was originally notable for his pioneering work in reproductive technology, in particular gamete intrafallopian transfer, but who is now primarily known for his unethical practices at the University of California,...
's fertility clinics.
In 1992, Orange County Register Communications launched
ExcélsiorExcélsior is a daily newspaper, founded by Rafael Alducin and published in Mexico City since 1917.During the 1950s and 1960s, the newspaper's editorial stance was of a relatively liberal bent, under the editorship of Julio Scherer...
, a Spanish-language weekly.
ExcélsiorExcélsior is a daily newspaper, founded by Rafael Alducin and published in Mexico City since 1917.During the 1950s and 1960s, the newspaper's editorial stance was of a relatively liberal bent, under the editorship of Julio Scherer...
currently has a circulation of 60,000 and covers Orange County's burgeoning Hispanic community, which now numbers over 1 million. Julio Saenz is the Editor and General Manager.
In 1999, Threshie became Chairman of the Board for Freedom Communications and N. Christian Anderson III assumed the position of publisher and CEO. Ken Brusic is the executive editor.
In 2004, a family schism led to a sale of a majority interest in Freedom Communications to investors led by the
Blackstone GroupThe Blackstone Group, L.P. is an alternative asset management and financial services company that specializes in private equity, real estate, and marketable alternative investment strategies, as well as mergers and acquisitions , restructuring, and fund-placement advisory services.Blackstone's...
and
Providence Equity PartnersProvidence Equity Partners is a global private equity investment firm focused on media, entertainment, communications and information investments...
. Through a stock arrangement, the Hoiles family descendants retained control of the board.
In 2006, Orange County Register Communications launched the
OC PostThe OC Post was a daily newspaper for Orange County, California, that existed from August 21, 2006 to February, [2008]]. Chartered by Freedom Communications, who also own and operate the Orange County Register, it was an attempt to condense a standard newspaper into a more "modern" tabloid...
, a tabloid with shortened versions of Register stories as well as news articles from the
Associated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. The paper also had its first significant staff reductions in December 2006, with 40 newsroom employees taking a buyout, along with a small number of layoffs.
By April 2007, the Orange County Register as of April 2007 had made cuts to help maintain shareholder profit, which had averaged more than 20 percent annually in the preceding five years. Since the launch of the OC Post in 2006, OCRC has cut the Register's editorial staff by 10 percent, eliminated its 3 percent holiday bonuses for editorial staff, and postponed pay raises to editorial staff - which had averaged 3 percent annually - for six months. In June 2008,
KTLAKTLA, digital channel 31 and virtual channel 5 via PSIP, is a television station in Los Angeles, California. Owned by the Tribune Company, KTLA is an affiliate of The CW Television Network. KTLA's studios are on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson...
and The Los Angeles Times reported that the Register had even begun a trial of outsourcing layout and editing work to India in order to save costs. In spring of 2009, Freedom Communications instated furloughs for all employees nationwide, followed by a permanent 5% pay cut starting in July 2009. News reports in August 2009 indicated that Freedom Communications planned to file for bankruptcy and turn control of its publications, including the Orange County Register, over to its lenders.
In September 2009, a column written by sports columnist Mark Whicker caused controversy. In the column, Whicker wrote about various sporting events that occurred over the preceding 18 years, and how they had been missed by Jaycee Dugard, a girl who had been kidnapped, raped, and forced to bear her kidnapper's children. Whicker ended his column with the line "Jaycee, you have left the yard." The column generated widespread criticism and was parodied in blogs such as
DeadspinDeadspin is a sports website owned by Gawker Media that claims to deliver sports "without access, favor or discretion." The site launched in September 2005. With 111 million unique visitors and about 143 million page views as of December 2007, Deadspin was the second highest trafficked sports blog...
(who called it "the single worst piece of journalism ever committed on this page") and Huffington Post.
External links