Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning
broadsheet printed in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the primary
newspaper in Milwaukee and is distributed widely throughout the state of
Wisconsin. The
Journal Sentinel has a weekday circulation of 250,000 copies and a Sunday circulation of over 400,000.
The
Journal Sentinel was first printed on Sunday,
April 2,
1995, the result of the consolidation of operations between the
Milwaukee Journal and the
Milwaukee Sentinel, which had been owned by the same company,
Journal Communications, for more than thirty years.
The
Sentinel began in
1837 as a weekly published by
Solomon Juneau, a one-time fur-trader and later a successful businessman, who became the first mayor of Milwaukee. It became a daily in the mid-1840s, about the time the city of Milwaukee was formally incorporated. Following Juneau's death it passed through the hands of several owners, before being sold to the
Hearst Corporation in 1924. Operations of the
Sentinel were joined to Hearst's afternoon paper,
The Wisconsin News; a joint Sunday edition was published as
The Sunday Telegram. The
News closed in 1939. Hearst ownership also started up radio station
WISN-AM (1130), and bought WTVW-TV in
1955 and changed the call letters to
WISN-TV (Channel 12).
Hearst operated the
Sentinel until
1962, when, following a long and costly strike, it abruptly announced the closing of the paper. Although Hearst claimed that the paper had lost money for years, The Journal Company, concerned about the loss of an important voice (and facing questions about its own dominance of the Milwaukee media market), agreed to buy the
Sentinel name, subscription lists, and any "good will" associated with the name. The News-Sentinel building at Plankinton and Michigan was torn down; the presses were shipped to Hearst's San Francisco papers, and
Sentinel operations moved to Journal Square, with Hearst retaining WISN-AM-TV (WISN-TV remains with forerunner company
Hearst-Argyle, while WISN-AM is owned by
Clear Channel). The
Sentinel was a morning
broadsheet, published Sunday through Saturday; following the sale to The Journal Company it became a Monday-through-Saturday paper.
The
Journal was started in 1882, in competition with four other English-language, four German- and two Polish-language dailies. Its first editor was
Lucius Nieman, who wanted to steer the paper away from the political biases and
yellow journalism common at the time. Nieman was an innovative and crusading editor, and under his watch the paper won five
Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other awards.
The
Journal would launch
WTMJ-AM (620) in
1927, then
WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) in 1947; both stations (in addition to
WKTI-FM (94.5)) remain Journal-owned today.
Nieman's successor,
Harry J. Grant, introduced an
employee stock-purchase plan in 1937, and as a result 98% of Journal stock was held by its employees. A small bloc of Journal stock was given to
Harvard College, and funded the
Nieman Fellowship program for promising journalists.
Competing with two raucous Hearst papers filled with gossip, features and comic strips, Harry Grant took a more sober approach to news presentation, emphasizing local news, and barring syndicated columnists. During his years as editor and publisher, the
Journal received several Pulitzers and other awards from its peers; it was under Grant that the
Journal gained a reputation as a leading voice of moderate midwestern liberalism. During the 1950s, the
Journal was outspoken in its opposition to Wisconsin Senator
Joseph McCarthy and his search for communist influence in government, which perhaps inflated the
Journal's reputation for liberalism.
At its circulation peak in the early 1960s, the
Journal sold about 400,000 copies daily and 600,000 on Sunday. The
Journal was a Monday-through-Saturday afternoon broadsheet, also publishing Sunday mornings; though circulation had declined from its peak, it still held a rare position for an afternoon paper, dominating its market up until 1995, when the
Journal and
Sentinel were consolidated. The new
Journal Sentinel then became a seven-day morning paper.
The legacies of both papers are acknowledged on the editorial pages today, with the names of Solomon Juneau, Lucius Nieman, and Harry J. Grant listed below their respective newspaper's flags.
*
JS Online, the Journal Sentinel website*
JS Online RSS feeds*
JS background page*
TIME magazine article: The Fair Lady of Milwaukee
