Boston Herald
The
Boston Herald is a
tabloid newspaper, the smaller of the two big dailies in
Boston, Massachusetts, with a daily circulation of 230,543 in September 2005.[
1] It has a history that can be traced back through two lineages and two media moguls. Its history involves the
Daily Advertiser and the old
Boston Herald and it was owned at one point by
William Randolph Hearst and later by
Rupert Murdoch.
The
Daily Advertiser was established in
1813 in Boston by Nathan Hale. The paper grew to prominence through the 19th century taking over other Boston area papers. In
1904, William Randolph Hearst began publishing his own newspaper in Boston called
The American. Hearst ultimately ended up purchasing the
Daily Advertiser in
1917. By
1938, the
Daily Advertiser had changed to the
Daily Record, and
The American had become the
Sunday Advertiser. A third paper owned by Hearst called the
Afternoon Record, which had renamed to
Evening American, merged in
1961 with the
Daily Record to form the
Record American. The
Sunday Advertiser and
Record American would ultimately be merged in
1972 into a line of newspapers that stretched back to the old
Boston Herald.
The old
Boston Herald was founded in
1846 by a group of Boston printers jointly under the name of John A. French & Company. The paper was published as a single sheet, two-sided paper that sold for one cent. Its first editor,
William O. Eaton, just 22 years old, said "The Herald will be independent in politics and religion; liberal, industrious, enterprising, critically concerned with literacy and dramatic matters, and diligent in its mission to report and analyze the news, local and global."
Even earlier than the
Herald, the
Boston Traveler was founded in
1825 as a bulletin for
stagecoach listings. In
1912, the
Herald acquired the
Traveler, and after a newspaper strike in 1967, Herald-Traveler Corp. suspended the afternoon "Traveler" to create the
Boston Herald Traveler, in
1967.
In
1946, the
Herald Traveler organization acquired Boston radio station WHDH. Two years later, WHDH-FM was licensed, and on
November 26,
1957, WHDH-TV made its début as an
ABC affiliate on channel 5. In 1961, WHDH-TV's affiliation switched to
CBS. Herald-Traveler Corp. operated for years under temporary authority from the
Federal Communications Commission stemming from controversy over luncheon meetings the newspaper's chief executive had with an FCC commissioner during the original licensing process. (Some Boston broadcast historians accuse the
Boston Globe of being covertly behind the proceeding. The
Herald Traveler was Republican in sympathies, and the
Globe was allied with the
Kennedy family interests, although at the time of the licensing dispute, the Globe had a firm policy of not endorsing political candidates, and the proceedings regarding the WHDH-TV license were initiated long before John F. Kennedy was elected president.) The FCC ordered a comparative hearing, and in 1969 a competing applicant,
Boston Broadcasters, Inc. was granted a construction permit to replace WHDH-TV on channel 5. The
Herald Traveler fought the decision in court but its final appeal ran out in
1972 and on
March 19 WHDH-TV was forced to surrender channel 5 to the new
WCVB-TV.
Without a television station to subsidize the newspaper, the
Herald Traveler was no longer able to remain in business, and the newspaper was sold to
Hearst which published the rival all-day newspaper the
Record American. The two papers were merged to become an all-day paper called the
Boston Herald-Traveler and Record American in the morning and "Record-American and Boston Herald Traveler" in the afternoon. The p.m. edition was soon dropped and the unwieldy name shortened to "Boston Herald American." The paper became a tabloid newspaper in September
1981. On
December 20,
1982, the paper was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, who changed its name back to the
Boston Herald. The
Herald continued to grow over the ensuing decades, expanding its coverage and increasing its circulation until the early 21st century, when circulation and advertising revenue dropped -- part of a phenomenon affecting almost all American newspapers in an expanding age of free media. The paper retrenched into its "Record American" roots and was retooled as a more sensationalist publication on the hope that boosting street sales would keep the paper alive.
In February
1994,
News Corporation was forced to sell the paper, in order that its subsidiary
Fox Television Network could legally consummate its purchase of
Fox affiliate
WFXT (Channel 25).
Patrick Purcell, who was the publisher of the
Boston Herald and a
News Corporation executive, purchased the
Herald and established it as an independent newspaper. Several years later, Purcell would give the
Herald a suburban presence it never had by purchasing the money-losing
Community Newspaper Company from
Fidelity Investments. Although the companies merged under the banner of Herald Media, Inc., the suburban papers maintained their distinct editorial and marketing identity.
The "Herald" continues to publish an aggressive daily newspaper and offer Boston readers an alternative at a time when many cities have only a single daily newspaper. It is staunchily conservative in its editorial stances, making it something of an anomaly in heavily Democratic Boston.
The
Herald's four
Pulitzer Prizes for editorial writing, in 1924, 1927, 1949 and 1954, are among the most awarded to a single newspaper in the category.
Herald photographer
Stanley Forman received two Pulitzer Prizes consecutively in 1976 and 1977, the first being a dramatic shot of a young child falling in mid-air from her mother's arms on the upper stories of a burning apartment building to the waiting arms of firefighters below, and the latter being of
Ted Landsmark, an
African American city official, being beaten with an
American flag during Boston's school
busing crisis.
*In March 2004, the
Herald hired
Mike Barnicle, a local columnist fired by rival
The Boston Globe in 1998 for journalistic fraud that was in part uncovered in a report on the Herald's online site. In early 2005, Barnicle left the paper as a full-time contributor as the
Herald announced a downsizing of staff, saying he did not want to draw his salary while longtime workers were in danger of losing their jobs.
*
Howie Carr is a front page columnist who also hosts a
talk show on
WRKO. Carr writes extensively on local politics.
*
Margery Eagan and
Peter Gelzinis are longtime metro columnists, as is
Joe Fitzgerald, who was formerly a sports columnist.
*
Gerry Callahan is a sports columnist and talk show host for WEEI.
*
Steve Buckley is a longtime sports columnist.
*
Tony Massarotti is a
baseball columnist for the paper.
*
Howard Bryant (sports),
Robin Washington (consumer and transportation),
Leonard Greene (metro) and
Howard Manly (metro, op-ed) were
African American columnists at the newspaper in the 1990s and 2000s. All have since left the paper.
* Sterling Quinlan,
The Hundred Million Dollar Lunch (Chicago, J.P. O'Hara, 1974), ISBN 0879553103.
*
The Boston Heralds website*
Town Online - the smaller papers owned by Herald Media*
Heralds circulation declines*
Company History
