The Tallassee Tribune

Last updated
The Tallassee Tribune
Type Weekly newspaper
Owner(s) Boone Newspapers
EditorSteve Baker
Founded1919 (1919)
Headquarters Tallassee, Alabama
Circulation 3,000 [1]
Website tallasseetribune.com

The Tallassee Tribune is a weekly newspaper serving Tallassee, Alabama, United States, and surrounding Elmore County. It is currently owned by Tallapoosa Publishers Inc.

History

The Tallassee Tribune was founded in 1919 by N.R. Thompson as an independent paper. [2] Thompson had started his journalism career at the Franklin County Times, and worked at the Birmingham Ledger, and Birmingham Age-Herald. [3] After he collapsed from a heart attack in 1931, the ownership of the paper passed to his two sons, with his son Dick Thompson assuming editorship. [3]

Early in Dick Thompson's tenure, the paper was thrown into the national spotlight when federal commissioner Eugene Dunnegan was sent by the Roosevelt administration to Tallassee as a labor dispute mediator. Citing broad powers under the National Industrial Recovery Act, Dunnegan reportedly told Thompson that editorials Thompson had written against organized labor violated Section 7 of Title I of that act, and, according to Thompson's account, Thompson was told to "desist". [4] Thompson responded with a front-page editorial defending the rights of the press. [4]

Though accounts differ on the specifics of the meeting, [5] the national firestorm that followed resulted in Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins issuing a clarifying edict that Department of Labor conciliators should not interfere with the press. [6] "Please keep in mind always in your work of adjusting industrial disputes," read the edict, "that you have no right to tell any editor what he may or may not print in his news or editorial column. There is nothing in the NRA or any other federal statute which gives you such a right." [7] The entirety of Title I of the act was later ruled unconstitutional. [8]

The Tribune changed hands a number of times after the Thompson family sold it.

Hunter Golson, son of H.H. Golson, the legendary editor of the Wetumpka Herald, published the newspaper for a time, before moving on. He sold the paper to Ben Green in 1943. [9]

Green ran the paper to wide acclaim for a few years, [10] but retired due to ill health, selling the paper former editor of the Farm Bureau News and returning WWII veteran Herve Charest in June 1946. [10] Charest had left the Farm Bureau in 1942 to enlist, [11] but on his return looked for a new opportunity. Charest would run the paper from 1946 until the late 1960s. For his service to the community, he was presented with the "Governor's Trophy" at the Alabama Press Association by then Governor George Wallace. [12]

In 1970, Jack Venable bought the paper with his wife Jo, and ran it until his 2005 death. [13] A graduate of Auburn University, Venable had been a reporter for WSFA-TV in Montgomery from 1963 to 1967. [14]

The paper was purchased in 2009 by Kim Price, [2] [15] as part of the newly formed Price Publishing, and then sold to Tallapoosa Publishers Inc. (TPI) after Price's death in 2012. [16] It currently operates as part of the TPI network, with a system of managing editors for individual papers reporting to an multi-paper editor, most recently the editor of the Alexander City Outlook. [17]

In 2015, the Tribune won a first-place award for best in-depth coverage from the Alabama Press Association, which singled out its piece on Ku Klux Klan recruiting in Tallassee as providing "excellent coverage of a controversial topic." [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tallassee, Alabama</span> City in Alabama, United States

Tallassee is a city on the Tallapoosa River, located in both Elmore and Tallapoosa counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. At the 2020 census, the population was 4,763. It is home to a major hydroelectric power plant at Thurlow Dam operated by Alabama Power Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wetumpka, Alabama</span> City, United States

Wetumpka is a city in and the county seat of Elmore County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 7,220. In the early 21st century Elmore County became one of the fastest-growing counties in the state. The city is considered part of the Montgomery Metropolitan Area.

<i>Los Angeles Times</i> American daily newspaper in California

The Los Angeles Times is a regional American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles area city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States, as well as the largest newspaper in the western United States. Owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by California Times, the paper has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes.

<i>Hartford Courant</i> Daily newspaper in Connecticut, US

The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is advertised as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury, its headquarters on Broad Street in Hartford, Connecticut was a short walk from the state capitol. It reports regional news with a chain of bureaus in smaller cities and a series of local editions. It also operates CTNow, a free local weekly newspaper and website.

<i>New York Herald Tribune</i> Defunct American newspaper

The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed with The New York Times in the daily morning market. The paper won twelve Pulitzer Prizes during its lifetime.

<i>The Commercial Appeal</i> Daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee

The Commercial Appeal is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, also owned the former afternoon paper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar, which it folded in 1983. The 2016 purchase by Gannett of Journal Media Group effectively gave it control of the two major papers in western and central Tennessee, uniting the Commercial Appeal with Nashville's The Tennessean.

<i>The Register-Guard</i> Newspaper in Eugene, Oregon

The Register-Guard is a daily newspaper in the northwestern United States, published in Eugene, Oregon. It was formed in a 1930 merger of two Eugene papers, the Eugene Daily Guard and the Morning Register. The paper serves the Eugene-Springfield area, as well as the Oregon Coast, Umpqua River valley, and surrounding areas. As of 2019, it had a supposed circulation of 18,886 daily.

<i>Press-Register</i> Newspaper in Mobile, Alabama

The Press-Register was a newspaper serving the southwest Alabama counties of Mobile and Baldwin. The newspaper is a descendant of one founded in 1813, making the Press-Register Alabama's oldest newspaper. It is owned by Advance Publications, which also owns the primary newspapers in Birmingham, Alabama and Huntsville, Alabama. The Press-Register had a daily publication schedule since the inception of its predecessors in the early 1800s until September 30, 2012, when it and its sister papers reduced printing editions to only Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays.

<i>Montgomery Advertiser</i> Daily newspaper in Montgomery, Alabama

The Montgomery Advertiser is a daily newspaper and news website located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1829.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CNHI</span> American publisher

CNHI, LLC is an American publisher of newspapers and advertising-related publications throughout the United States. The company was formed in 1997 by Ralph Martin, and is based in Montgomery, Alabama. The company is financed by, and is a subsidiary of, the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2002 Alabama gubernatorial election</span>

The 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election was held on November 5. With 669,105 votes or 48.95%, incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman lost re-election to Republican Bob Riley, a margin of 3,120 votes or 0.22%. The close and controversial election was marked by high turnout. This was the third consecutive Alabama gubernatorial election where the incumbent was defeated. Riley was sworn in on January 20, 2003, marking what is to date the last time the Alabama Governor’s office changed partisan control.

<i>The Eagle-Tribune</i> Daily newspaper in Massachusetts and New Hampshire

The Eagle-Tribune is a seven-day morning daily newspaper covering the Merrimack Valley and Essex County, Massachusetts, and southern New Hampshire. It is the largest-circulation daily newspaper owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., and the lead property in a regional chain of four dailies and several weekly newspapers in Essex County and southern New Hampshire.

Grover Cleveland Hall, Sr. was an American newspaper editor. At the Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Alabama, he garnered national attention and won a Pulitzer Prize during the 1920s for his editorials that criticized the Ku Klux Klan.

The Alexander City Outlook is a twice weekly newspaper publication in eastern Alabama. The Outlook has been in constant publication since it was founded in 1892 by Capt. J.D. Dickson. It has a circulation of about 2,050 copies and is owned by Tallapoosa Publishers, Inc. It publishes Tuesday-Saturday in Alexander City, Alabama.

The Geneva County Reaper was a weekly newspaper published in Geneva County, Alabama from 1901 to 2024. Its most recent circulation was estimated at about 2,000. It was published by Mo Pujol and edited by Katherine Hepperle. The paper claimed to be "Geneva County's oldest and largest paper since 1899."

The Wetumpka Herald is a weekly newspaper serving Elmore County, Alabama.

The Advertiser–Gleam is a newspaper serving Guntersville, Alabama in the United States. It was founded by Porter Harvey in 1941 after he left the Birmingham Post. Harvey had worked for a number of other papers, including the New York Post and the Nashville Tennessean. Initially named the Guntersville Gleam, the paper was named for the gleam sunlight made on the town's Guntersville lake.

The Democrat-Reporter is a local weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama, United States. It was established in 1911 from the merger of the Linden Reporter and the Marengo Democrat. The newspaper was published by the Sutton family for over a century, with Goodloe Sutton running it from 1985 to 2019. The newspaper won national acclaim in the 1990s for its investigation of a corrupt county sheriff, but was met with criticism in early 2019 over an editorial from Sutton calling for the return of the Ku Klux Klan.

Howard Goodloe Sutton was an American newspaper editor, publisher, and owner. From 1964 to 2019, he published The Democrat-Reporter, a small weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama. Sutton was widely celebrated in 1998 for publishing over four years a series of articles that exposed corruption in the Marengo County Sheriff's Office; he received awards and commendations and was suggested as a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2019, Sutton once again became the focus of national attention when he wrote and published an editorial suggesting the Ku Klux Klan be revived to "clean out" Washington, D.C. He already had a local reputation for other, similarly inflammatory racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic editorials.

Boone Newspapers, Incorporated (BNI) is the parent company of a publishing business that includes dozens of newspapers as well as magazines, other published materials, and internet properties in the United States. It is a private company and owns papers in smaller cities in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Michigan, Mississippi, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. The company is based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

References

  1. ↑ "Resources for Entrepreneurs". gaebler.com.
  2. 1 2 "About The Tallassee Tribune". Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.
  3. 1 2 "Tallassee Tribune Editor Collapses". The Montgomery Advertiser. Montgomery, Alabama. 26 August 1931.
  4. 1 2 "Editor relates how he fought, defeated NRA". Chicago Tribune. 12 October 1933.
  5. ↑ "Tallassee Editor Vindicated by Labor Secretary". Montgomery Advertiser. 12 October 1933.
  6. ↑ "Miss Perkins Bars Dictation to Editor". New York Times. 11 October 1932. p. 2.
  7. ↑ "Cabinet Member Warns". The Emporia Gazette. 11 October 1933.
  8. ↑ Hallett, Brien (2016-10-03). The Powers of the U.S. Congress: Where Constitutional Authority Begins and Ends: Where Constitutional Authority Begins and Ends. ABC-CLIO. ISBN   9781440843242.
  9. ↑ "Ben Green Buys Tallassee Tribune". Alabama Journal. 18 March 1943.
  10. 1 2 "Tallassee Editors". The Anniston Star. 24 June 1946.
  11. ↑ "Charest at Keesler". The Montgomery Advertiser. 11 September 1942.
  12. ↑ "Wallace Presents Award to Tallassee Publisher". The Montgomery Advertiser. 17 July 1966.
  13. ↑ "Venable, Jack B. (Obituaries)". The Montgomery Advertiser. 21 November 2005.
  14. ↑ HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION COMMENDING JACK VENABLE FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT. 1988. pp. 301–302.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  15. ↑ "TPI Purchases Assets of Price Publications". Alexander City Outlook. 3 July 2012.
  16. ↑ "About Us". Alexander City Outlook.
  17. ↑ Robinson, Carol (2 July 2018). "Alexander City Outlook editor Mitch Sneed killed in crash at traffic light". AL.com.
  18. ↑ "Tribune awarded for local coverage". The Tallassee Tribune. 24 June 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.