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The News & Observer

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The News & Observer is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina . The paper is the largest in circulation in the state (second is the Charlotte Observer ). The paper has been awarded three Pulitzer Prizes , the most recent of which was in 1996 for a series on the health and environmental impact of North Carolina's booming hog industry. The paper was one of the first in the world to launch an online version of the publication, Nando.net in 1994.

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48-524: On May 17, 1995 the News & Observer Publishing Company was sold to McClatchy Newspapers of Sacramento , California , for $ 373 million, ending 101 years of Daniels family ownership. In the mid-1990s, flexo machines were installed, allowing the paper to print thirty-two pages in color, which was the largest capacity of any newspaper within the United States at the time. The McClatchy Company currently operates

96-436: A 16-page special report on the events of 1898. Daniels continued to run the paper until his death in the mid-1940s. After his death his four sons assumed management of the company. All four sons contributed to the operation of the paper, but Jonathan Daniels , editor from 1933 to 1941 and from 1948 until 1964, kept the paper in the direction of appealing for school desegregation and a reduction in race related discrimination. It

144-439: A company that offers classified websites, such as the auto website Cars.com ; and 33.3% of HomeFinder, LLC, which operates the online real estate website HomeFinder.com. McClatchy also owns 49.5% of the voting stock and 70.6% of the nonvoting stock of The Seattle Times Company. In January 2017, former Yahoo ! and EarthLink executive Craig Forman was appointed as the new president and chief executive officer (CEO). Forman,

192-596: A distancing from Democratic partisanship. Throughout the early 1990s, The News & Observer divested itself of various local newspapers in South Carolina and the North Carolina mountains, and by September 1993, Sunday sales of The News & Observer reached 200,000 for every week. However, the newspaper still owns The Cary News , Chapel Hill News , and the Smithfield Herald among other newspapers. In 1994,

240-519: A little over ten years after the paper was first founded. The owners of the newly founded Raleigh Observer , Peter M. Hale and William L. Saunders , bought the now-bankrupt paper, ending its publication and focusing on the Raleigh Observer . After about ten years the paper ran out of money, so the two owners sold to the owner of the Raleigh News , Samuel A. Ashe. Ashe combined the two papers under

288-451: A partner and took over as editor . Known as a supporter of the people's interests against corporations and corrupt politicians, McClatchy made The Bee a bastion of progressive reformism. Upon McClatchy's death in 1883, the paper's leadership passed to James' son, Charles Kenny McClatchy , who with his brother Valentine Stuart McClatchy, bought out the Ridge family's interests. The two modernized

336-524: A portion of the redeveloped facility. By June 2021, the paper only employed 64 reporters. Claude Sitton was awarded for his distinguished commentary. Michael Skube was awarded for his writing about books and other literary topics. In the Winter of 1995 The News & Observer released a nine part series on the booming pork industry in North Carolina . The series covered environmental and health risk of

384-738: A private investor and McClatchy board member , succeeded Patrick Talamantes , who was CEO the previous four years. The descendants of C.K. McClatchy still own a controlling interest in the McClatchy Company and are represented by the 6th generation Kevin McClatchy as chairman of the Board of Directors. In February 2019, Forman emailed all staff to say about 10 percent of the newspaper chain's employees would be offered voluntary buyouts. On February 13, 2020, The McClatchy Company and 54 affiliated companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in

432-569: A single bi-weekly paper titled Triangle Today , however that paper was discontinued in January, 2019. The News & Observer Publishing Co. owns Insider State Government News Service, a newsletter publisher about state government. The McClatchy Company The McClatchy Company , or simply McClatchy , is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware 's General Corporation Law . Originally based in Sacramento, California , U.S.,

480-476: A total of twenty-nine daily newspapers in fourteen states with a combined weekday circulation of 1.6 million and a Sunday circulation of 2.4 million. With McClatchy's acquisition of most of Knight Ridder 's properties in 2006, North Carolina's two largest newspapers (the News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer ) are now under common ownership. The News & Observer traces its roots to The Sentinel, which

528-422: A welder's torch started a fire and burned through newsprint threaded through the press, injuring three and causing millions in damage. In 1987, the staffs of The News & Observer and The Raleigh Times merged, and on November 30, 1989, the last edition of The Raleigh Times was published. In 1988, The News & Observer endorsed its first Republican candidate for statewide election, showing, perhaps,

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576-664: Is the largest client of the McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. In 2008, McClatchy's bureau chief in D.C., John Walcott, was the first recipient of the I. F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence, awarded by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism . In accepting the award, Walcott commented on McClatchy's reporting during the period preceding the Iraq War : "Why, in a nutshell, was our reporting different from so much other reporting? One important reason

624-562: The St. Paul Pioneer Press , San Jose Mercury News and The Philadelphia Inquirer . Those sales were completed on August 2, 2006. This acquisition would be cited as the major cause of McClatchy's later troubles - McClatchy overpaid for Knight Ridder by buying at the "top of the market", and the immense debt taken on to fuel the purchase would be a millstone around the neck of the combined company. Additionally, McClatchy did not keep on any of Knight Ridder's digital division or corporate staff, despite

672-658: The Carolina Playmakers . Daniels passed the North Carolina bar exam despite failing out of Columbia University Law School , but never practiced law. After World War II began, Daniels went into government service, first as assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense and later as one of six administrative assistants for President Franklin D. Roosevelt (who had worked under Josephus Daniels during World War I). In March 1945, less than one month before his death, Roosevelt named Daniels his press secretary, and he continued in

720-555: The Charlotte Observer ’s parent company in 2013. Following the sale, the plant's 30-member staff stayed on at the newly established Charlotte Publishing Company. As of 2015, McClatchy had approximately 5,600 full and part-time employees. The company has two classes of stock, allowing the founding McClatchy family to retain control. In the Knight Ridder purchase, for example, McClatchy shareholders did not need to act in approving

768-774: The Cowles Media Company , keeping the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper, which was the primary asset in the $ 1.4 billion deal, and selling Cowles' other business units to Primedia Inc. and to a management team. In January 2004, McClatchy bought the Merced Sun-Star of Merced , and five affiliated non-dailies in California's San Joaquin Valley . The company's biggest acquisition occurred on June 27, 2006, when McClatchy purchased Knight Ridder . Because McClatchy

816-478: The News & Observer purchase).. McClatchy was part of a consortium of five U.S. newspaper companies that, along with a Canadian forrest products company, jointly owned the Ponderay Newsprint Mill near Spokane, Washington . The plant opened in 1989 and closed in 2020. A year later it sold for $ 18.1 million to a California-based venture capital company. McClatchy also inherited a partnership with

864-590: The Raleigh–Durham International Airport for preventing the company from adding new newspaper racks in the terminal. After appeal, a 2010 decision from the Fourth Circuit determined that the restriction was a violation of the first amendment because it put a restriction on expression. In September 2008, the News and Observer offered buyouts to all 320 newsroom employees, approximately 40% of its staff, in an effort to cut expenses. Previously

912-673: The Times said this disclosure caused more immediate damage to American counter-terrorism efforts than the thousands of classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden ; after the McClatchy publication, there was a sharp drop in the terrorists' use of a major communications channel that the authorities were monitoring. Subsequently, officials have been searching for new ways to monitor communications among Al Qaeda's leaders and operatives. Note: ( * )—Indicates newspaper acquired in 2006 Knight Ridder purchase. Jonathan W. Daniels Jonathan Worth Daniels (April 26, 1902 – November 6, 1981)

960-482: The Tribune Company in the news service Knight Ridder-Tribune Information Services, now McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), when it acquired Knight Ridder. In 2014, Tribune bought out McClatchy's share of the company and its headquarters moved to Chicago. McClatchyDC is a news agency that distributes original reporting from McClatchy's Washington, D.C. bureau, which was acquired from Knight Ridder. It

1008-733: The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York . The company cited pension obligations and excessive debt as the primary reasons for the filing. In August 2020, the Court approved an offer by Chatham Asset Management—a hedge fund that also owns a 66% share in Canadian publisher Postmedia —to acquire McClatchy for $ 312 million. The company stated that it would not impose any layoffs, and would honor all existing union agreements. On July 11, 2023, McClatchy laid off

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1056-652: The Wilmington insurrection of 1898 , According to historian Helen Edmonds , the paper "led in a campaign of prejudice, bitterness, vilification, misrepresentation, and exaggeration to influence the emotions of the whites against the Negro." The result was the only successful coup d'état in American history, the overthrow of Wilmington's elected government by force. In 1900, he used the paper to support soon-to-be Governor Charles B. Aycock , another white supremacist, during his bid for

1104-639: The 4th generation Charles K. McClatchy took over the company and guided the media company toward the modern publicly owned The McClatchy Company through further acquisitions of out-of-state newspapers, the Anchorage Daily News in Anchorage, Alaska , and the Tri-City Herald in Kennewick, Washington . McClatchy also acquired then-ABC affiliate KOVR , licensed to Stockton, California but also serving

1152-454: The Daniels family hired Claude Sitton , who had been a correspondent for The New York Times and later an editor there. Serving as the editorial director of the paper, he promoted The News & Observer as a government watchdog and moved the news of the paper away from the personal and partisan stances it had taken under Josephus Daniels . However, its editorials were still often aligned with

1200-630: The Democratic Party. A year later, the Mini Page children's supplement was created and published. Today, it is one of America's most widely used children's newspaper supplements. In 1971, Sitton became the editor and the paper began buying and publishing smaller local newspapers, starting with The Island Packet in Hilton Head, South Carolina and The Cary News in Cary, North Carolina . On March 16, 1980,

1248-686: The Navy in 1913, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where he studied at the John Eaton School from 1913 to 1915, and St. Albans School from 1915 to 1918. Daniels attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , and graduated in 1921 with a B.A. He continued at UNC for graduate school, earning an M.A. in English in 1921. As a student in Chapel Hill, he edited The Daily Tar Heel and participated in

1296-668: The Sacramento area, from Metromedia in 1965. The company's own Modesto Bee reported the sale of the station. It was sold to The Outlet Company in 1978 and today exists as a CBS owned-and-operated station . In 1990, McClatchy acquired three dailies in South Carolina : The Herald in Rock Hill , The Island Packet in Hilton Head , and The Beaufort Gazette of Beaufort . In 1995, it acquired The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina . In 1998, McClatchy purchased

1344-448: The United States ( Gannett was, and remains, the largest). In addition to its daily newspapers, McClatchy also operates several websites and community papers, as well as a news agency , McClatchy DC Bureau , focused on political news from Washington, D.C. The company originated with The Daily Bee , first published in Sacramento, California, on February 3, 1857, by Native American writer Rollin Ridge . James McClatchy joined Ridge as

1392-483: The company fell below $ 100 million, down over 98% since the purchase of Knight Ridder in early 2006. In 2010–2011, the stock had recovered off of its low, but was still down over 90% from the peak. In 2016, McClatchy approved a 1 for 10 reverse stock split that boosted the price of its shares to over $ 11. McClatchy has an Internet subsidiary, McClatchy Interactive (formerly known as Nando Media ), which provides business support and material for Internet media (part of

1440-469: The company had shut down its Durham news bureau and in a separate event laid off 70 employees. Layoffs and buyouts have continued since then. In 2015 the newspaper announced it would sell its facility in downtown Raleigh for redevelopment, which will entail demolition of much of the facility. New presses will be installed at the newspaper's auxiliary production facility in Garner . Editorial offices will remain in

1488-578: The editorial cartoonists of three of its newspapers, Kevin Siers at The Charlotte Observer , Jack Ohman at The Sacramento Bee , and Joel Pett at the Lexington Herald-Leader . In November 2023, McClatchy sold its Charlotte printing plant to North State Media for $ 4.65 million. The sale was publicly announced in August. The plant was developed by The Wall Street Journal in 1982 and sold to

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1536-432: The fourth time in its history. In 1894 the paper was sold at auction, this time to a Washington, North Carolina , native who was a strong Democratic supporter. Josephus Daniels , with help from Julian Carr and other friends, bought the paper. Quickly Daniels refocused the News and Observer to combat rampant corruption and other problems he saw within the state. Put differently by Daniels himself, "The News and Observer

1584-538: The growing prominence of the Internet and Knight Ridder having a well-respected effort in the space at the time. The Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune , acquired in 1998 and sold in 2007 to the private-equity firm Avista Capital Partners for $ 555 million, had the highest circulation of all McClatchy newspapers. The company owns a portfolio of digital assets, including 15.0% of CareerBuilder , LLC, which operates CareerBuilder.com; 25.6% of Classified Ventures , LLC,

1632-583: The head of Al Qaeda , and Nasser al-Wuhayshi , the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , discussing an alleged imminent terrorist attack. Two days previously, The New York Times had agreed to withhold the identities of the Al Qaeda leaders after US intelligence officials claimed the information could jeopardize their operations. Government analysts and officials interviewed by

1680-635: The new banner The News & Observer in September 1880, making it the sole daily paper in Raleigh . Ashe ran the company personally until 1894, focusing on politics and the Democratic party . Ashe used connections within the Democratic Party to get an upper leg on upcoming stories. This model worked well for the paper until Ashe lost favor in the Democratic caucus , leading the paper to fall on hard financial times for

1728-437: The office. He also used the paper to advocate female suffrage , workers' compensation , state industrialization, better roads and crop rotation . In 2006, on occasion of the release of the report of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission, the newspaper offered "an apology for the acts of someone [Daniels] we continue to salute in a different context…and for the misdeeds of the paper as an institution." The newspaper published

1776-603: The paper created Nando .net, becoming an Internet service provider and began publishing the NandO Times online newspaper. In 1999, The News & Observer was named one of America's 100 best newspapers by the Columbia Journalism Review , and one of the 17 best-designed newspapers in the world by the Society for News Design . In 2004, The News & Observer along with three other news publishers filled suit against

1824-563: The paper with the formation of McClatchy Newspapers through the founding of the Fresno Bee in 1922 and acquisition of the Modesto Bee in 1924. C.K. McClatchy's legacy to the region has been memorialized in C.K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento, which opened in 1937, about a year after his death. For most of its history, the company was focused on the newspaper business in California's Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley . In 1978,

1872-413: The position temporarily under President Harry S. Truman . Daniels' 47-day term serving as White House Press Secretary was the shortest of any White House Press Secretary until that of Jerald terHorst , who was Gerald Ford 's first Press Secretary for 31 days. Daniels returned to The News & Observer in 1947 and became its editor in 1948, upon the death of his father. In 1966, he revealed

1920-467: The publication became a subsidiary of Chatham Asset Management , headquartered in Chatham Borough , New Jersey as a result of its 2020 bankruptcy. The publication operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states and has an average weekday circulation of 1.6 million and Sunday circulation of 2.4 million. In 2006, it purchased Knight Ridder , which at the time was the second-largest newspaper company in

1968-548: The purchase because the family had already voted their shares in favor. Editor & Publisher reported in October 2006 that McClatchy's revenue ending August 2006 was down over one percent from August 2005. Between the announced purchase of Knight Ridder in March 2006 and late 2009, the stock value of McClatchy (MNI) declined significantly. On December 18, 2008, McClatchy common stock fell below $ 1 per share. The market capitalization of

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2016-514: The waste disposal systems used within the pork industry in the state. The award was presented to the paper for the work done by Melanie Sill, Pat Stith and Joby Warrick . The News & Observer Publishing Co. formerly published a number of bi-weekly newspapers that focused on local news in various triangle-area communities. These included: In June, 2017 these papers were shifted in focus from local community news to entertainment, food, and light features, and in January, 2018 were consolidated into

2064-529: Was also under Jonathan's leadership that The News and Observer bought out the Raleigh Times and moved to a building on South McDowell St. in downtown Raleigh , where they stayed until the building was sold in 2015. On September 3, 1934, The News and Observer began a column about state politics called "Under the Dome", which started on the back page, moved to the front and now runs in the local section. In 1968,

2112-585: Was an American writer, editor, and White House Press Secretary . He was a founding member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors, serving from 1940 until 1950. For most of his life, he worked at The News & Observer , and later founded The Island Packet . Jonathan Worth Daniels was the son of Josephus Daniels and Addie Worth Bagley Daniels . He attended Centennial School in Raleigh from 1908 to 1913. When his father became United States Secretary of

2160-643: Was founded by the Rev. William E. Pell in 1865 and who used, "the newspaper to fight against the domination of carpetbaggers and other forces during Congressional Reconstruction ." The paper's struggles to stay relevant and make money led to new ownership in 1868. With the new owner The Sentinel began to cover the Democrats ' push to retake the North Carolina Legislature , along with the impeachment of Gov. William W. Holden in 1871. The Sentinel went bankrupt

2208-480: Was relied upon to carry the Democratic message and to be the militant voice of White Supremacy , and it did not fail in what was expected, sometimes going to extremes in its partisanship." Daniels believed that "the greatest folly and crime" in U.S. history was granting Blacks the right to vote. In the findings of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, Daniels is the only name mentioned as a cause of

2256-443: Was so much smaller than Knight Ridder at the time, one observer equated the deal as "a dolphin swallowing a small whale." The purchase price of $ 40 and 0.5118 shares of McClatchy Class A stock per share was valued in total at about $ 4 billion in cash and stock. The company also assumed $ 2 billion in debt. This purchase added 20 newspapers to the company stable and the immediate sale (over the next five weeks) of 12 publications including

2304-704: Was that we sought out the dissidents, and we listened to them, instead of serving as stenographers to high-ranking [Bush administration] officials and Iraqi exiles." McClatchy journalists have also won nine Pulitzer prizes in their 159-year history, most recently in 2017 for an article on the Panama Papers . They were also finalists in 2015 for articles on government efforts to hide Bush-era CIA Enhanced interrogation techniques . On August 4, 2013, McClatchy Newspapers, citing anonymous sources, reported on conversations between Ayman al-Zawahiri , who succeeded Osama bin Laden as

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